@ -33,8 +33,7 @@ Unless otherwise stated, all photography, illustrations and other types of visua
Writing in Etherpad. Version control in git. Design in Inkscape. Layout in paged.js. Printing in Adobe Acrobat.
### Licensing information
This publication is free to distrubite or modify under the terms of the SIXX license as published by XPUB, either version one of the SIXX License or any later version. See the SIXX License for more details.
A copy of the license can be found on vulnerable-interfaces.xpub.nl/license
This publication is free to distribute or modify under the terms of the SIXX license as published by XPUB, either version one of the SIXX License or any later version. See the SIXX License for more details. A copy of the license can be found on [vulnerable-interfaces.xpub.nl/license](vulnerable-interfaces.xpub.nl/license).
### Postal address
Master of Arts in Fine Art and Design: Experimental Publishing,
<ahref="https://stephenkerrdesign.com/theeeeesis/"class="ext">⊞ (the
research thesis)</a>
</button>
<hr/>
<blockquote>
<p>Secondly, during my studies at XPUB, I plan to combine different
strands of my practices (design, music, programming, theatre). Being a
designer is an important part of my identity, and I am keen to make work
true to who I am.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Excerpt from xpub application letter, March 15th 2022.</p>
<hr/>
<p>I cut my thumb so every time I type i can feel it in my nerve
endings. Not true, it’s my left thumb so I don’t type with it. Not true,
I feel it anyway. Why are most of the function keys on the left of the
keyboard. What’s so functional about pressing buttons. Stephen Kerr is a
designer and musician based in. Have you ever loved an instrument? The
Ctrl key broke like four times since I moved here. I have one more
replacement because I bought a bunch of them but at some point I gave up
and use an external keyboard. I dunno I’m more confused than ever. It
was something to do with dreams and working. It’s the middle of the
night I’m writing this on my phone. If I had a dream this is when I
would be writing it. The memory is fuzzy: either I don’t remember or it
didn’t make sense in the first place. It was something to do with
fuzziness and memory no wait. Phones don’t have keyboards in real life
this doesn’t make sense. I’m trying to type but I don’t think I can get
it on the way to the office for the weekend and I think it was a good
idea to do it and I was thinking about you and I was thinking of you and
I was thinking about you and I was in the same place as a friend of mine
and I was in the studio and we were in the studio and we were in the
studio and we were in the studio and we were in the</p>
<figure>
<imgsrc="../stephen/its-ok.jpg"
alt="Custom keyboard mapping for efficient design practice." />
<figcaptionaria-hidden="true">Custom keyboard mapping for efficient
design practice.</figcaption>
<imgsrc="../stephen/keyboard24.jpeg"
alt="Keyboard of things designers have said. Our feelings about work." />
<figcaptionaria-hidden="true">Keyboard of things designers have said.
Our feelings about work.</figcaption>
</figure>
<figure>
<imgsrc="../stephen/keylogger.jpeg"
alt="Keylogging research. I recorded the buttons a graphic designer (me) presses while working, as an autoethnographic research method into what exactly it is that designers do. To celebrate this labour, I then used a pen plotter to make a series of posters. Three minutes of the designers keypresses took about eight hours to plot. October 24th 2023." />
<figcaptionaria-hidden="true">Keylogging research. I recorded the
buttons a graphic designer (me) presses while working, as an
autoethnographic research method into what exactly it is that designers
do. To celebrate this labour, I then used a pen plotter to make a series
of posters. Three minutes of the designers keypresses took about eight
hours to plot. October 24th 2023.</figcaption>
<imgsrc="../stephen/keyboard25.jpeg"
alt="The messages on the keys were gathered using experimental interview methods and questions." />
<figcaptionaria-hidden="true">The messages on the keys were gathered
using experimental interview methods and questions.</figcaption>
</figure>
<figure>
<imgsrc="../stephen/email.jpg"
alt="Email answering performance using Google’s Gmail service. To reveal the work of the designer clearly, I performed the designer’s task of answering email in front of an audience. Due to the performance happening at 7pm, out of office hours, there was extensive use of the Scheduled Email feature. Some stories emerged about our precarity including overdue rent and invalid payment information for Adobe Creative Cloud subscriptions. Leeszaal, Rotterdam, November 7th 2023." />
<figcaptionaria-hidden="true">Email answering performance using
Google’s Gmail service. To reveal the work of the designer clearly, I
performed the designer’s task of answering email in front of an
audience. Due to the performance happening at 7pm, out of office hours,
there was extensive use of the Scheduled Email feature. Some stories
emerged about our precarity including overdue rent and invalid payment
information for Adobe Creative Cloud subscriptions. Leeszaal, Rotterdam,
November 7th 2023.</figcaption>
<imgsrc="../stephen/keyboard26.jpeg"
alt="Except “it’s ok”: my brother said that to me on the phone one day." />
<figcaptionaria-hidden="true">Except “it’s ok”: my brother said that to
me on the phone one day.</figcaption>
</figure>
<figure>
<imgsrc="../stephen/laziness.jpg"
alt="A performative tool that measures the laziness of the designer as they work and graphs it on a pen plotter. The less the designer uses the mouse, the longer a line the pen plotter draws, it creates a record of the tiny moments between the work." />
<figcaptionaria-hidden="true">A performative tool that measures the
laziness of the designer as they work and graphs it on a pen plotter.
The less the designer uses the mouse, the longer a line the pen plotter
draws, it creates a record of the tiny moments between the
Web page to share and read labour dreams. Scroll down for more.
</figcaption>
</figure>
<figure>
<imgsrc="../stephen/peecee.jpg"
alt="Re-enacting dreams about work at Piet Zwart Institute, Rotterdam, Netherlands. Participants use felt dolls to tell stories of our dreams on the small and squishy stage. We’re trying to balance design labour with other labour like making food for our loved ones, we can’t stop brushing our teeth, brushing, brushing, brushing. February 5th 2024." />
Interactive dream telling. Click then type your story.
</figcaption>
</figure>
<figure>
<imgsrc="../stephen/peecee.jpg"class="desaturate"
alt="Re-enacting dreams about work at Piet Zwart Institute, Rotterdam." />
<figcaptionaria-hidden="true">Re-enacting dreams about work at Piet
Zwart Institute, Rotterdam, Netherlands. Participants use felt dolls to
tell stories of our dreams on the small and squishy stage. We’re trying
to balance design labour with other labour like making food for our
loved ones, we can’t stop brushing our teeth, brushing, brushing,
brushing. February 5th 2024.</figcaption>
Zwart Institute, Rotterdam.</figcaption>
</figure>
<figure>
<imgsrc="../stephen/amro.jpeg"
alt="Collective dream re-enactment at Art Meets Radical Openness, Linz, Austria. Inside a tent, a group of people perform eachother’s dreams about work and discuss and analyse them together. We feel like impostors, we don’t know how to work these machines, we’re going to crash. March 11th 2024." />
<imgsrc="../stephen/amro.jpeg"class="desaturate"
alt="Collective dream re-enactment at Art Meets Radical Openness, Linz." />
<figcaptionaria-hidden="true">Collective dream re-enactment at Art
Meets Radical Openness, Linz, Austria. Inside a tent, a group of people
perform eachother’s dreams about work and discuss and analyse them
together. We feel like impostors, we don’t know how to work these
machines, we’re going to crash. March 11th 2024.</figcaption>
Meets Radical Openness, Linz.</figcaption>
</figure>
<figure>
<imgsrc="../stephen/dizzy.jpeg"alt="Where do dreams come from?"/>
<figcaptionaria-hidden="true">Where do dreams come from?</figcaption>
</figure>
<figure>
<imgsrc="../stephen/form.png"
alt="do you ever dream about work? Online research and publication where we shared our dreams, worries, rants, designs. The answers to the question are published together as a collection of voices." />
<figcaptionaria-hidden="true">do you ever dream about work? Online
research and publication where we shared our dreams, worries, rants,
designs. The answers to the question are published together as a
collection of voices.</figcaption>
</figure>
<figure>
<imgsrc="../stephen/wood-keyboard.jpeg"
alt="Keyboard of things designers have said. Our feelings about work." />
<figcaptionaria-hidden="true">Keyboard of things designers have said.
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<!-- I cut my thumb so every time I type i can feel it in my nerve endings. Not true, it's my left thumb so I don't type with it. Not true, I feel it anyway. Why are most of the function keys on the left of the keyboard. What's so functional about pressing buttons. Stephen Kerr is a designer and musician based in. Have you ever loved an instrument? The Ctrl key broke like four times since I moved here. I have one more replacement because I bought a bunch of them but at some point I gave up and use an external keyboard. I dunno I'm more confused than ever. It was something to do with dreams and working. It's the middle of the night I'm writing this on my phone. If I had a dream this is when I would be writing it. The memory is fuzzy: either I don't remember or it didn't make sense in the first place. It was something to do with fuzziness and memory no wait. Phones don't have keyboards in real life this doesn't make sense. I'm trying to type but I don't think I can get it on the way to the office for the weekend and I think it was a good idea to do it and I was thinking about you and I was thinking of you and I was thinking about you and I was in the same place as a friend of mine and I was in the studio and we were in the studio and we were in the studio and we were in the studio and we were in the -->
title: What do graphic designers do all day and why do they do it and what does "graphic design" even mean?!????!!1!?
title: do you ever dream about work?
author: Stephen
---
# do you ever dream about work?
## Stephen Kerr
## stephen kerr, 2024
Practice-led artistic research into the 21st century phenomenon of the graphic designer. I held graphic design in my hands using ethnography, toolmaking and performance as research methods. I examined how designers spend their time in everyday life, this designer, me, as well as you, what are we doing? What are our worldviews, belief systems, mythologies and ideologies?
Reading an email in a dream and you can hear the voices of every word you read. Or the one where you're on a computer working, frantically typing, late, stressed, rushed. What about that dream where you had no idea how to do your job, everyone is going to know you're a fake. In this project I have made spaces for us to share our dreams about labour, and through that allow conversations about our work, our working conditions, and the feelings we're left with when we fall asleep each night.
https://stephenkerrdesign.com/dream/
For the past year I have spoken with designers, artists and makers finding out how they spend their time in everyday life, what they believe and how they feel. In our dreams we feel the weird bits the most: hmm a bit uncomfortable, ooh that gave me a fright, aah so, so sad. Through performances, online tools and storytelling, I want to hold these dreams together, to unite our experiences. Online I have made [tools to gather stories](https://stephenkerrdesign.com/dream/){.ext} and [tools to tell them](https://stephenkerrdesign.com/typing/){.ext}. I have facilitated [group dream re-enactments](https://worm.org/production/opening-experimental-publishing-graduation-show-2024/){.ext} ([a few times](https://art-meets.radical-openness.org/2024/program/turning-off-the-internet-slot-1/){.ext}), using felt dolls to share our night time theatre.
https://stephenkerrdesign.com/typing/
*stephen kerr is a graphic designer or a musician or a very weird and long dream.*
Stephen Kerr is a designer, musician, bread-baker and occasional tent-builder based in Rotterdam. He fidgets between making graphic design and performances, questioning and playing with methods and tools. Coming from a serious and realistic background in a big city on a big island (Dublin), he is interested in making people out of designers and a wizard out of himself. Currently he is very very busy making technologies sillier, inefficienter, questionabler, questioneder and collaborativer.
<button>[Wiki: more about the project](https://pzwiki.wdka.nl/mediadesign/User:Ssstephen/Final_presentation){.ext}</button>
stephenkerrdesign.com
<button>[⊞ (the research thesis)](https://stephenkerrdesign.com/theeeeesis/){.ext}</button>
---
> Secondly, during my studies at XPUB, I plan to combine different strands of my practices (design, music, programming, theatre). Being a designer is an important part of my identity, and I am keen to make work true to who I am.
Excerpt from xpub application letter, March 15th 2022.
---
I cut my thumb so every time I type i can feel it in my nerve endings. Not true, it's my left thumb so I don't type with it. Not true, I feel it anyway. Why are most of the function keys on the left of the keyboard. What's so functional about pressing buttons. Stephen Kerr is a designer and musician based in. Have you ever loved an instrument? The Ctrl key broke like four times since I moved here. I have one more replacement because I bought a bunch of them but at some point I gave up and use an external keyboard. I dunno I'm more confused than ever. It was something to do with dreams and working. It's the middle of the night I'm writing this on my phone. If I had a dream this is when I would be writing it. The memory is fuzzy: either I don't remember or it didn't make sense in the first place. It was something to do with fuzziness and memory no wait. Phones don't have keyboards in real life this doesn't make sense. I'm trying to type but I don't think I can get it on the way to the office for the weekend and I think it was a good idea to do it and I was thinking about you and I was thinking of you and I was thinking about you and I was in the same place as a friend of mine and I was in the studio and we were in the studio and we were in the studio and we were in the studio and we were in the
<figcaption>Interactive dream telling. Click then type your story.</figcaption>
</figure>
{.desaturate}
{.desaturate}
### Licensing information
This work is free to distribute or modify under the terms of the SIXX license as published by XPUB, either version one of the SIXX License or any later version. See the SIXX License for more details. A copy of the license can be found on [vulnerable-interfaces.xpub.nl/license](vulnerable-interfaces.xpub.nl/license){.ext}.
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<!-- I cut my thumb so every time I type i can feel it in my nerve endings. Not true, it's my left thumb so I don't type with it. Not true, I feel it anyway. Why are most of the function keys on the left of the keyboard. What's so functional about pressing buttons. Stephen Kerr is a designer and musician based in. Have you ever loved an instrument? The Ctrl key broke like four times since I moved here. I have one more replacement because I bought a bunch of them but at some point I gave up and use an external keyboard. I dunno I'm more confused than ever. It was something to do with dreams and working. It's the middle of the night I'm writing this on my phone. If I had a dream this is when I would be writing it. The memory is fuzzy: either I don't remember or it didn't make sense in the first place. It was something to do with fuzziness and memory no wait. Phones don't have keyboards in real life this doesn't make sense. I'm trying to type but I don't think I can get it on the way to the office for the weekend and I think it was a good idea to do it and I was thinking about you and I was thinking of you and I was thinking about you and I was in the same place as a friend of mine and I was in the studio and we were in the studio and we were in the studio and we were in the studio and we were in the -->
Stephen Kerr
6 months ago
