diff --git a/irmak/index.md b/irmak/index.md index 2ccda34..990c966 100644 --- a/irmak/index.md +++ b/irmak/index.md @@ -14,27 +14,28 @@ Wink is a prototype for an interactive picture book platform. This platform aims !["From the event at Leeszaal West, experimenting with knots and poetry. How can we see movement in text?"](../irmak/leeszaalknotpoems.jpg) {.image-95} -!["From the event at Leeszaal West. Some of the results of knotting text"](../irmak/knotpoems2.jpg){image-95} +!["From the event at Leeszaal West. Some of the results of knotting text"](../irmak/knotpoems2.jpg){.image-95} Working as a children's literature editor for years, I came to a realisation that picture books were turning into another object that kids read and consume on daily basis. At least this is what I observed in Turkey. Teachers and parents were finding it difficult to find new books constantly or were tired of rereading the same book. As a young person in the publishing sector, I believe there should be more options for children as there is for adults; such as ebooks, audiobooks etc. But moreover a "book" that can be redefined, reread or be interacted with. So I revisited an old story I wrote, translated to English and named it, "Bee Within". -!["Example page from the print version of the picture book."](../irmak/printp22.jpg) {image-95} +!["Example page from the print version of the picture book."](../irmak/printp22.jpg) {.image-95} -!["Example page from the print version of the picture book."](../irmak/printp2.jpg) {image-95} +!["Example page from the print version of the picture book."](../irmak/printp2.jpg) {.image-95} Bee Within, is a story about grief and it is based on my experiences throughout the years. I erased it, rewrote it, edited it, destroyed it multiple times over the past years, simultaneously with new experiences of loss. In the end, I believe the story turned out to be an ode to remembering or might I say an ode to not being able to forget or an ode to the fear of forgetting which I now think is a great and sweet battle between death and life. I think it is an important subject to touch upon, especially for children dealing with trauma in many parts of the world. -!["example page from the picture book"](../irmak/printp1.jpg) {half-image} +!["example page from the picture book"](../irmak/printp1.jpg) {.half-image} -!["example page from the picture book"](../irmak/printp33.jpg) {image-95} +!["example page from the picture book"](../irmak/printp33.jpg) {.image-95} -!["example page from the picture book"](../irmak/printp3.jpg) {image-95} +!["example page from the picture book"](../irmak/printp3.jpg) {.image-95} Over the past two years, experimenting with storytelling techniques, interactivity options and workshops with children and adults, around reading and doing various exercises on Bee Within, I improved the story to be a more playful and interactive one which can be re-read, re-played and eventually re-formed non digitally to be reachable for all children. -!["The twine map of text based story, reachable from Bee Within by clicking to hear more about Gray the tree."](../irmak/twine.png) {half-image} +!["The twine map of text based story, reachable from Bee Within by clicking to hear more about Gray the tree."](../irmak/twine.png) {.half-image} -!["Click game story of the Queen Bee that is reachable within Maya's main storyline."](clickgame.png){half image} +!["Click game story of the Queen Bee that is reachable within Maya's main storyline."](clickgame.png) +{.half image} -!["A small sequence of onclick animation for Bee Within"](../irmak/animationseq.png) {image-95} +!["A small sequence of onclick animation for Bee Within"](../irmak/animationseq.png) {.image-95} diff --git a/print/index.html b/print/index.html index f15f3f7..c5485d7 100644 --- a/print/index.html +++ b/print/index.html @@ -22,42 +22,42 @@ -
vulnerable-interfaces.xpub.nl/backplaces
+Hi.
+I made this play for you. It is a question, for us to hold together.
Is all intimacy about bodies? What is it about our bodies that makes
+intimacy? What happens when our bodies distance intimacy from us? This
+small anthology of poems and short stories lives with these
+questions—about having a body without intimacy and intimacy without a
+body. This project is also a homage to everyone who has come before and
+alongside me, sharing their vulnerability and emotions on the Internet.
+I called the places where these things happen backplaces. They are
+small, tender online rooms where people experiencing societally
+uncomfortable pain can find relief, ease, and transcendence.
+
I made three backplaces for you to see, click, and feel: Solar
+Sibling, Hermit Fantasy, and Cake Intimacies. Each of these is the
+result of its own unique performance or project. Some of the stories I
+will share carry memories of pain—both physical and emotional. As you
+sit in the audience, know I am with you, holding your hand through each
+scene. If the performance feels overwhelming at any point, you have my
+full permission to step out, take a break, or leave. This is not
+choreographed, and I care deeply for you.
+
Solar Sibling is an online performance of shared loss about leaving
+and siblings. This project used comments people left on TikTok poetry. I
+extracted the emotions from these comments, mixed them with my own, and
+crafted them into poems. It is an ongoing performance, ending only when
+your feelings are secretly whispered to me. When you do, by typing into
+the comment box, your feelings are sent to me and the first act closes
+as the sun rises.
+
Hermit Fantasy is a short story about a bot who wants to be a hermit.
+Inspired by an email response from a survey I conducted about receiving
+emotional support on the Internet, this story explores the contradiction
+of being online while wanting to disconnect. As an act it’s a series of
+letters, click by click.
+
Cake Intimacies is a performance that took a year to bring together.
+It is a small selection of stories people told me and I held to memory
+and rewrote here. The stories come from two performances I hosted.
+First, I asked participants to eat cake, sitting facing or away from
+each other and sharing their stories about cake and the Internet. The
+second performance was hosted at the Art Meets Radical Openness
+Festival, as part of the Turning of the Internet workshop. For this
+performance, I predicted participants’ future lives on the Internet
+using felted archetypes and received stories from their Internet past in
+return. Now the stories are here, each of them a cake with a filling
+that tells a story, merging the bodily with the digital and making a
+mess of it all.
+
The play ends as all plays do. The curtains close, the website stays
+but the stories will never sound the same. For the final act, I give you
+the stories. It’s one last game, one last joke to ask my question again.
+Digital intimacies about the digital, our bodies and the cakes we eat.
+For the last act, I ask you to eat digital stories. To eat a comment, to
+eat a digital intimacy. Sharing an act of physical intimacy with
+yourself and with me, by eating sweets together. Sweets about digital
+intimacies that never had a body. There is no moral, no bow to wrap the
+story in. A great big mess of transcendence into the digital, of
+intimacy and of bodies. The way it always is. Thankfully.
+
vulnerable-interfaces.xpub.nl/backplaces
-Hi.
-I made this play for you. It is a question, for us to hold together.
Is all intimacy about bodies? What is it about our bodies that makes
-intimacy? What happens when our bodies distance intimacy from us? This
-small anthology of poems and short stories lives with these
-questions—about having a body without intimacy and intimacy without a
-body. This project is also a homage to everyone who has come before and
-alongside me, sharing their vulnerability and emotions on the Internet.
-I called the places where these things happen backplaces. They are
-small, tender online rooms where people experiencing societally
-uncomfortable pain can find relief, ease, and transcendence.
-
I made three backplaces for you to see, click, and feel: Solar
-Sibling, Hermit Fantasy, and Cake Intimacies. Each of these is the
-result of its own unique performance or project. Some of the stories I
-will share carry memories of pain—both physical and emotional. As you
-sit in the audience, know I am with you, holding your hand through each
-scene. If the performance feels overwhelming at any point, you have my
-full permission to step out, take a break, or leave. This is not
-choreographed, and I care deeply for you.
-
Solar Sibling is an online performance of shared loss about leaving
-and siblings. This project used comments people left on TikTok poetry. I
-extracted the emotions from these comments, mixed them with my own, and
-crafted them into poems. It is an ongoing performance, ending only when
-your feelings are secretly whispered to me. When you do, by typing into
-the comment box, your feelings are sent to me and the first act closes
-as the sun rises.
-
This project appeared as a need to explore potential bureaucratic +dramaturgies within the educational institution I was part as a student. +I was curious about educational bureaucratic mechanisms being driven by +smaller-scale paperwork struggles and peers’ narratives, stories and +experiences. However, unexpected emergencies - due to my eviction on the +31st of January 2024 - placed centrally my personal struggles unfolded +in parallel with the making period. I ended up conducting accidentally +auto-ethnography as the project was dynamically being reshaped due to +the material constraints of the bureaucratic timeline.
+Talking Documents are performative bureaucratic text inspections that +intend to create temporal public interventions through performative +readings. I utilized the paperwork interface of my smaller-scale story +in order to unravel and foreground questions related to the role of +bureaucracy as less material border and as a regulatory mechanism +reflecting narratives, ideologies, policies.
+Central element of this project is a seven-act scenario that +construct my personal paperwork story, unraveling the actual struggles +of my communication with the government. The body of the text of the +“theatrical” script is sourced from the original documents, email +threads as well as recordings of the conversations with the municipality +of Rotterdam I documented and archived throughout this period. I +preserved the sequence of the given sentences and by discarding the +graphic design of the initial forms, I structured and repurposed the +text into a playable scenario.
-Hermit Fantasy is a short story about a bot who wants to be a hermit.
-Inspired by an email response from a survey I conducted about receiving
-emotional support on the Internet, this story explores the contradiction
-of being online while wanting to disconnect. As an act it’s a series of
-letters, click by click.
-
I perceive the document as a unit and as the fundamental symbolic +interface of the bureaucratic network. The transformation of the +materiality of a document into a scenario to be enacted collectively in +public aims to examine these artifacts and highlight the shrouded +performative elements of these processes.
+I see the collective readings of these scenarios as a way of instant +publishing and as a communal tool of inspecting bureaucratic bordering +infrastructures. How can these re-enactments be situated in different +institutional contexts and examine their structures? I organized a +series of performative readings of my own bureaucratic literature in +different spaces and contexts, pubic and semi-public WDKA, Art Meets +Radical Openness Festival in Linz, the City Hall of Rotterdam where I +invited people to perform the play together, like a tiny theater.
-Cake Intimacies is a performance that took a year to bring together.
-It is a small selection of stories people told me and I held to memory
-and rewrote here. The stories come from two performances I hosted.
-First, I asked participants to eat cake, sitting facing or away from
-each other and sharing their stories about cake and the Internet. The
-second performance was hosted at the Art Meets Radical Openness
-Festival, as part of the Turning of the Internet workshop. For this
-performance, I predicted participants’ future lives on the Internet
-using felted archetypes and received stories from their Internet past in
-return. Now the stories are here, each of them a cake with a filling
-that tells a story, merging the bodily with the digital and making a
-mess of it all.
-
The play ends as all plays do. The curtains close, the website stays
-but the stories will never sound the same. For the final act, I give you
-the stories. It’s one last game, one last joke to ask my question again.
-Digital intimacies about the digital, our bodies and the cakes we eat.
-For the last act, I ask you to eat digital stories. To eat a comment, to
-eat a digital intimacy. Sharing an act of physical intimacy with
-yourself and with me, by eating sweets together. Sweets about digital
-intimacies that never had a body. There is no moral, no bow to wrap the
-story in. A great big mess of transcendence into the digital, of
-intimacy and of bodies. The way it always is. Thankfully.
-
The marginal voices of potential applicants are embodying and +enacting a role. “The speech does not only describe but brings things +into existence”(Austin, 1975). My intention was to stretch the limits of +dramaturgical speech through vocalizing a document and turn individual +administrative cases into public ones. How do the inscribed words in the +documents are not descriptive but on the contrary “are instrumentalized +in getting things done”(Butler,1997). Words as active agents. Bodies as +low-tech “human microphones”. A group of people performs the +bureaucratic scenario in chorus, out loud, in the corridor of the +school’s building, in the main hall, at the square right across, outside +of the municipality building.
+I documented and recorded these public acts and I re-created the +collectively voiced scenario. This audio piece is a constellation of +different recordings and soundscapes of these public moments, a vocal +archive, published in the graduation exhibition of XPUB in 2024.
This project appeared as a need to explore potential bureaucratic -dramaturgies within the educational institution I was part as a student. -I was curious about educational bureaucratic mechanisms being driven by -smaller-scale paperwork struggles and peers’ narratives, stories and -experiences. However, unexpected emergencies - due to my eviction on the -31st of January 2024 - placed centrally my personal struggles unfolded -in parallel with the making period. I ended up conducting accidentally -auto-ethnography as the project was dynamically being reshaped due to -the material constraints of the bureaucratic timeline.
-Talking Documents are performative bureaucratic text inspections that -intend to create temporal public interventions through performative -readings. I utilized the paperwork interface of my smaller-scale story -in order to unravel and foreground questions related to the role of -bureaucracy as less material border and as a regulatory mechanism -reflecting narratives, ideologies, policies.
-Central element of this project is a seven-act scenario that -construct my personal paperwork story, unraveling the actual struggles -of my communication with the government. The body of the text of the -“theatrical” script is sourced from the original documents, email -threads as well as recordings of the conversations with the municipality -of Rotterdam I documented and archived throughout this period. I -preserved the sequence of the given sentences and by discarding the -graphic design of the initial forms, I structured and repurposed the -text into a playable scenario.
- - - - -I perceive the document as a unit and as the fundamental symbolic -interface of the bureaucratic network. The transformation of the -materiality of a document into a scenario to be enacted collectively in -public aims to examine these artifacts and highlight the shrouded -performative elements of these processes.
-I see the collective readings of these scenarios as a way of instant -publishing and as a communal tool of inspecting bureaucratic bordering -infrastructures. How can these re-enactments be situated in different -institutional contexts and examine their structures? I organized a -series of performative readings of my own bureaucratic literature in -different spaces and contexts, pubic and semi-public WDKA, Art Meets -Radical Openness Festival in Linz, the City Hall of Rotterdam where I -invited people to perform the play together, like a tiny theater.
- - - +Wink is a prototype for an interactive picture book platform. This +platform aims to make reading into a mindfull and thought provoking +process by using interactive and playful elements, multiple stories +within one narrative and sound elements. Especially today where +consumerism and low attention span is a rising issue especially amongst +young readers, this was an important task to tackle. The thought of Wink +emerged to find a more sustainable and creative way of reading for +elementary school children.
++{.half-image}
++{.image-95}
-The marginal voices of potential applicants are embodying and -enacting a role. “The speech does not only describe but brings things -into existence”(Austin, 1975). My intention was to stretch the limits of -dramaturgical speech through vocalizing a document and turn individual -administrative cases into public ones. How do the inscribed words in the -documents are not descriptive but on the contrary “are instrumentalized -in getting things done”(Butler,1997). Words as active agents. Bodies as -low-tech “human microphones”. A group of people performs the -bureaucratic scenario in chorus, out loud, in the corridor of the -school’s building, in the main hall, at the square right across, outside -of the municipality building.
-I documented and recorded these public acts and I re-created the -collectively voiced scenario. This audio piece is a constellation of -different recordings and soundscapes of these public moments, a vocal -archive, published in the graduation exhibition of XPUB in 2024.
+Working as a children’s literature editor for years, I came to a +realisation that picture books were turning into another object that +kids read and consume on daily basis. At least this is what I observed +in Turkey. Teachers and parents were finding it difficult to find new +books constantly or were tired of rereading the same book. As a young +person in the publishing sector, I believe there should be more options +for children as there is for adults; such as ebooks, audiobooks etc. But +moreover a “book” that can be redefined, reread or be interacted with. +So I revisited an old story I wrote, translated to English and named it, +“Bee Within”.
++{.image-95}
++{.image-95}
+Bee Within, is a story about grief and it is based on my experiences +throughout the years. I erased it, rewrote it, edited it, destroyed it +multiple times over the past years, simultaneously with new experiences +of loss. In the end, I believe the story turned out to be an ode to +remembering or might I say an ode to not being able to forget or an ode +to the fear of forgetting which I now think is a great and sweet battle +between death and life. I think it is an important subject to touch +upon, especially for children dealing with trauma in many parts of the +world.
+{.half-image}
+{.image-95}
+{.image-95}
+Over the past two years, experimenting with storytelling techniques, +interactivity options and workshops with children and adults, around +reading and doing various exercises on Bee Within, I improved the story +to be a more playful and interactive one which can be re-read, re-played +and eventually re-formed non digitally to be reachable for all +children.
++{.half-image}
++{.half image}
++{.image-95}
Wink is a prototype for an interactive picture book platform. This -platform aims to make reading into a mindfull and thought provoking -process by using interactive and playful elements, multiple stories -within one narrative and sound elements. Especially today where -consumerism and low attention span is a rising issue especially amongst -young readers, this was an important task to tackle. The thought of Wink -emerged to find a more sustainable and creative way of reading for -elementary school children.
- +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.
+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 and tools to tell them. I have facilitated group dream re-enactments (a few times), using felt dolls to share our night time +theatre.
+stephen kerr is a graphic designer or a musician or a very weird +and long dream.
+ + + +Working as a children’s literature editor for years, I came to a -realisation that picture books were turning into another object that -kids read and consume on daily basis. At least this is what I observed -in Turkey. Teachers and parents were finding it difficult to find new -books constantly or were tired of rereading the same book. As a young -person in the publishing sector, I believe there should be more options -for children as there is for adults; such as ebooks, audiobooks etc. But -moreover a “book” that can be redefined, reread or be interacted with. -So I revisited an old story I wrote, translated to English and named it, -“Bee Within”.
-Bee Within, is a story about grief and it is based on my experiences -throughout the years. I erased it, rewrote it, edited it, destroyed it -multiple times over the past years, simultaneously with new experiences -of loss. In the end, I believe the story turned out to be an ode to -remembering or might I say an ode to not being able to forget or an ode -to the fear of forgetting which I now think is a great and sweet battle -between death and life. I think it is an important subject to touch -upon, especially for children dealing with trauma in many parts of the -world.
- - -Over the past two years, experimenting with storytelling techniques, -interactivity options and workshops with children and adults, around -reading and doing various exercises on Bee Within, I improved the story -to be a more playful and interactive one which can be re-read, re-played -and eventually re-formed non digitally to be reachable for all -children.
- - -Here is some more documentation from the beggining of this journey -towards making accesible interactive narratives…
- - - -Stephen Kerr
-⊞
-Thesis submitted to the Department of Experimental Publishing, Piet -Zwart Institute, Willem de Kooning Academy, in partial fulfilment of the -requirements for the final examination for the degree of Master of Arts -in Fine Art & ⊞: Experimental Publishing.
-Adviser: Marloes de Valk
-Second Reader: Joseph Knierzinger
-Word count: 7828 words
This symbol represents design in this writing in an attempt to avoid -the assumed meaning of the word and examine it as something unknown, to -mystify it, to examine its structure. The label ⊞ is a functional part -of a belief system involving order, structure, and rationality and I -want to break it. Removing the label is part of loosening the object, -making it avilable to transition (Berlant, 2022).
- - - - -This document is a collection of fragments exploring beliefs about -labour in the creative industries, in particular graphic ⊞. Each -fragment focusses on the social, cultural, political, spiritual or -religious aspects of these beliefs through an ethnographic lens. They -record, celebrate and question the meaning that ⊞ers give to their -actions and how those meanings affect the world they live in. And it’s -about how ⊞ers feel when we live with these beliefs: we feel a bit funny -and I want to talk about it.
-I use various modes of address and different lenses to further -fragment the definition of ⊞. The origin of the word thesis is to set or -to put, but I am trying to show you something liquid that can’t be -placed but shimmers and disappears through the sand. I document some ⊞ -activities, in my own work and the work and writings of others who -identify with the label of ⊞er. The writing dissolves and reintegrates -definitions of ⊞ from different voices to show the multiplicity of -beliefs from practitioners, and to explore what it means to acknowledge -these beliefs beside eachother: the tensions and harmonies, some -lineages and some breaks. What is going on here in this thing we call -⊞?
-This is a collection of stories about living life with particular -working conditions, located at certain points in social, economic and -cultural webs. In my practice-based research I gather and tell these -stories through (auto)ethnographic methods: documenting how ⊞er’s work, -conducting interviews, improvising communal performances and exploratory -tool-making. This document collates and reflects on this research.
-The precarity of working in the creative industries, in particular as -a freelancer or within a small studio, induces anxiety. There is a -belief that the ⊞er as freelancer is empowered by their autonomy, but in -fact the ⊞er as worker is trapped by it. ⊞ is work and this work is -believed to be inherently good. Work in our society is understood as “an -individual moral practice and collective ethical obligation” which -shapes the worker’s identity in positive ways (Weeks, 2011). The ⊞er -believes they are a skilled or talented worker, someone who possesses -spatial awareness, time management skills, and the capacity to carry out -work effectively and efficiently.
-⊞ers are entangled in the Protestant religious underpinnings of the -European work ethic (Pater, 2022). ⊞ is seen as a vocation which -expresses and creates the ⊞er’s identity, and the process or its results -make a valuable contribution to society. People understand the world and -interact with it smoothly, thanks to the work of ⊞ers. ⊞ers pick the -right materials to save the planet and increase efficiency and whatever -else it is people find important. But the ⊞er becomes anxious despite -meeting these goals and becoming this person. In reality, the ⊞er is a -bot, the ⊞er is software. Value is extracted from their time, creativity -and expertise which makes them stressed. ⊞ers are a creative cloud, a -service to be tapped into, a cpu being run too hot. There is something -to be learnt from the revelation that being replaced by machines proves -we were being treated as machines all along.
-There was a belief that ⊞ could be a crystal goblet (Warde, 1913), -something unbiased, clear and, in more recent versions of the theory, -serving the context it fits within. But the foundations of this belief -in functionality and rationality dont seem to come themselves from -something functional or rational.
-De Stijl members, such as Piet Mondriaan and Theo van Doesburg -(Figure 6), in their 1917 manifesto described a “new consciousness of -the age […] directed towards the universal”. There was a drive towards -universal standardisation or pureness of culture from the rich white -men. Purity is a concept that turns up a lot in Mondriaan’s writings, eg -Neo-Plasticism in Pictorial Art (1917). They claimed a shared -spirit was driving this universalisation. A later paragraph of the -manifesto is translated into english as:
-In this translation it appears the authors believed in an emerging -consciousness of the age, something collective which would bring an -international unity. The members of De Stijl were neither aligning -themselves with the capitalists or socialists but believed in an inner -connection between those who were joined in the spiritual body of the -new world (De Stijl, Manifesto III, 1921). The word intellectual, or -geestelijk in the original Dutch, can also be translated as “spiritual, -mental, ecclesiastical, clerical, sacred, ghostly, pneumatic”. The -choice to translate as intellectual seems to be the most rational -interpretation of this sentence, an effort to make the theories of De -Stijl appear more materialist without the spiritual element. Compare -with this translation:
-In this translation it is clearer that the members of De Stijl saw a -link between the effects of what they made materially and their attempts -to be fighting spiritually against the domination of individualism. I -care about this story because of how it contextualises contemporary ⊞ -practice. Is contemporary ⊞ practice still involved in this spiritual -battle? Did the new consciousness of 1917 survive the past century, did -it procreate? Can aesthetics have generational trauma? William Morris, -Constructivism, De Stijl, Bauhaus, International Style, International -Typographic Style, Swiss Style, then what happened. Modernist artists -had spiritual beliefs, and again I care about these people from a -hundred years ago because of the effect they have on the present.
-Imagine I could trace this thought from Mondriaan all the way to -myself, wow, cool thesis. Swiss style became corporate identity ⊞ and -encouraged minimalism in ⊞. 21st century Flat ⊞, such as Metro ⊞ -language from Microsoft and Material ⊞ (Google, 2014), claim direct -descendance from the International Typographic Style and that pretty -much brings us up to date. I wonder about the use of the word Material -in Google’s ⊞ strategy, I wonder about the ghostly absence of the -geestelijk fight of De Stijl. Is Google’s choice of name another -example, as with the subtle change in the translation above, that the -spiritual element is no longer as important a part of the ⊞er’s -worldview as it was a hundred years ago?
-Conor Clarke is a Director of ⊞ Factory, independent Irish ⊞ -agency based in Dublin. His work has featured in international -publications such as Who’s Who in Graphic ⊞, Graphis, Novum -Gebrauchsgrafik, and the New York Art Directors Club Annual. He was the -recipient of the Catherine Donnelly Lifetime Achievement Award for his -contribution to ⊞ in Ireland and is the Course Director of ⊞ West, an -international summer ⊞ school located in the beautiful village of -Letterfrack on the West Coast of Ireland. (⊞west.eu, 2023)
-Why not choose a spiral or a circle if you dream of ⊞ers as shamans?
-Why the grid of squares? There are strong links beween ⊞ and
-mathematics, Josef Muller-Brockmann’s Grid Systems (Figure 2)
-for example or Karl Gerstner’s ⊞ing Programmes (1964). I read
-these ⊞ theorists as you might comparatively read religious texts. What
-were or are the beliefs of the authors and their audiences?
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
These texts present a worldview where ⊞ can be mathematical, -objective or problem-solving. In Muller-Brockman’s text the focus is on -the formal qualities of the ⊞ in particular the use of grids and -typographic systems. Gerstner’s focus is more on the effect of the ⊞, -and the ability of ⊞ to solve a problem. Rationality and creativity are -presented as proportional to eachother. He makes space for the -intellectual by pushing aside feelings.
-The graphic ⊞er is presented as a functional actor in society who -makes the world better. Gerstner seems to be implying that creative ⊞ -comes from following the intellect and some rational cause and effect -process. I find it interesting that ⊞ claims this rational basis in the -same historical period when science and mathematics, its supposed -foundations, became much less rational and predictable, for example in -chaos theory. It makes me think that the rationality serves some other -purpose.
-Why do ⊞ers believe in using a grid to present the written word, and -where did this belief come from and how did it develop? It can be -materially traced back to Guthenberg and metal type but that’s boring. -Magic squares have been used in astrology books and grimoires throughout -history (Figure 3). French poet Stéphane Mallarmé is sometimes quoted as -a precursor to modernist typography (Muller-Brockmann, 1981). Why did -Steve McCaffrey include the manifesto of De Stijl with CARNIVAL -(1973)? De Stijl is best known for its painters and architects, and -theories from both of these fields affected later ⊞ theories. But they -also were poets and had literary theories similar to the german -expressionists. Man’s attempt to find oneness with the whole of creation -through a cosmic hybris.
-The developments of the written word and its relationship to form in -the 20th century is very much a part of the history of ⊞. I care about -this story because it affects contemporary practitioners. I believe -there is something magical in graphic composition and the layout of -typography, something that can’t be grasped in the words alone. They’re -non-canonical for ⊞ers but how have people who put words on pages like -Mallarmé and McCaffrey influenced my beliefs about the written word? -What makes one thing fit in the category of art, another ⊞ and yet -another concrete poetry?
-This autoethnographic annotation attempts to really miss as many -cultural and technical cues as possible. It’s watching the ⊞er, me, and -being totally mystified by their behaviour.
-I wasn’t trying to generate longing, I was trying to make an annual -report. It was a corporate job I was working on, a nice one to have -because it’s fairly well paid and not too complicated. A bit boring and -kinda repetitive, but you can just put your headphones on and get stuck -into it. I was pretty happy with the results in the end, but for sure -not the type of work you’re supposed to be proud of as a ⊞er.
-And of course Piet Zwart’s (Figure 8) famous electrical cable -catalogues. ⊞ is just work, chill. Is a ⊞er a user or a server? Maybe ⊞ -is an example of our general belief in this dichotomy not quite making -sense or fitting reality. The ⊞er is working for whom? Themselves? Their -clients?
-This quote relates to freelancing generally in some way, and -deconstructing the work or worker. Are workers things? Yeah, kinda. ⊞ers -don’t have super powers, contrary to some beliefs within the industry. -For example on what⊞cando.com it is suggested that we should “re⊞ -everything!”. Let’s actually not do that. ⊞ers are mostly just humans -working on computers like so many other bots. ⊞ers try to create -clarity, to assign meaning and understand: “Confusion and clutter are -failures of ⊞, not attributes of information” (Tufte, 1990, p.53). What -if the sounds of my fingers and my keyboard are not noise but music: we -are quasi-robots and maybe its good to listen to our little Taylorist -finger tappings and see what else is being said.
-Distinctive Repetition is an award-winning graphic ⊞ studio based in -Dublin, Ireland. Principal ⊞er and Institute of Creative Advertising and -⊞ past-president, Rossi McAuley, is joined in this interview by ⊞ers -Jenny Leahy and Ben Nagle. This interview was carried out around a table -with the interviewer in the bottom right corner (◲) and the three -members of the studio in the other three seats.
-Before meeting them in person, I mailed a small booklet to the
-interviewees entitled Enthusiasm to give context to the
-conversation. The word enthusiasm originally meant inspiration or
-possession by a god. The booklet recounted three mystical dreams René
-Descartes had which he credited as a moment of inspiration or enthusiasm
-that influenced his later work on rationalism, and related to his work
-on geometry and grids (Figure 4). As well as the content of the dreams,
-the booklet described their relevance:
-
Descartes felt that interpreting his dreams was an appropriate method -to develop a rational theory of skepticism, which led to some of the -philosophical foundations of modern scientific and mathematical -theories. The booklet also drew parallels with Martin Luther’s -scrupulous doubt, “Only God and certain madmen have no doubts!”. Like -Descartes, Luther’s new theories helped to give the basis for the -structure of thought for the following centuries. These stories were -presented together to direct the focus of the conversation towards -belief, rationalism and grids. The fact that rationalism is a belief -system, as pervasive as it may be, and suggestively hinting through its -relationship with grids that there -is a relationship with ⊞.
-They seem so sad it hurts to hear them talk about the oozing. Are you -supposed to put jelly in the fridge, it just needs time to settle right? -My nana used to put the jelly in the freezer. There’s an instability in -how they talk in the interview for sure, or more a desire for stability. -Was it ever stable? Do you really want it to be? Its gooey and not the -way it should be but its still jelly and thats fun and its probably -delicious. Their hands are there as something that is for grasping and -jelly is there as something that can’t be grasped. Is it terrifying, are -they resigned to it?
-I can’t explain the angst they are feeling but I can describe it -because I’ve felt it too. It feels like I’m having a heart attack. It -feels like I’m about to black out. It got to a stage where I couldn’t -talk to other people without being completely frozen jelly. It is the -feeling of lists and lists and lists. It’s the feeling of never -resolved, all the time. We believe we are busy and under pressure and -struggling to survive. That makes us anxious and stressed.
-The grids are not being used, the grids are useless. Drawers full of -them, all useless. Whats the point of sitting here in this studio. They -dont fit, they dont make sense, they’re trying to order something that -can’t be ordered. Or possibly shouldnt be ordered, the ordering is -misplaced and there is a human urge to stop, just stop.
-Adolf Loos was a modernist architect whose writings such as -Ornament and Crime in 1910 influenced modernist ideals of -functionalism and minimalism. He rejected ornament and favoured the use -of good materials which showed “God’s own wonder”. I wonder what is the -relation of Loos’ ideas to Max Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the -Spirit of Capitalism (Weber, 1905) that was published five years -earlier. Work as a duty which benefits the individual and society as a -whole, do ⊞ers still believe this today? I like taking Loos’ quote out -of context here, instead in the context of the feelings of the -interviewees, revolting the supposedly modern cause they are working -with.
-But also Loos was found guilty of pedophelia and it feels kind of -aggressive to include his voice here at all. This is part of the point -of what I’m getting at: there’s this tradition of ⊞ and so many parts of -it make me uncomfortable or really disgusted and I don’t know what to do -with all that. I just wanted to go to art school and draw circles and -maybe thats the problem and sure simple materials are pretty, but yeah -jelly is exactly what it feels like, you’re right.
-Graphic ⊞ is often performed by paid professionals in what is known -as the creative industry: as a profession and an activity, ⊞ is -considered to be creative. There are some positive preconceptions about -the creative industry and what it does, but I see it as an assimilation -of cultural activity into a neoliberal economic framework. Creativity in -this context is used to reproduce the status quo and and grow capital -(Mould, 2018). But maybe we can profit from examining the margins -created by this terminology: ⊞ is less functional than it seems. People -in creative jobs are stressed and this is reflected in their dreams. -Workers have rights and those rights are systemically undermined. Being -self employed or part of an independent studio brings anxiety and -challenges. Some ⊞ers try to structure the world around them and like -things to be neat and tidy, which makes us uncomfortable existing in -precarious work conditions.
-The Roman grid was a land measurement method used in the Roman -colonies for example in the Po Valley (Figure 7). With a surveying tool -called the groma, the colonisers would divide the land from north to -south and east to west, resulting in a square grid of roads and land. At -Orange, France, a cadaster has been found which shows the division of -land in a geometric way, helping the colonisers to privatise the land -and allocate it to roman veterans (Figure 1). The name groma, as well as -referring to the surveying tool, describes the central point of the -grid, the origin. Is making grids just a way to control and colonise? Do -all grids have origins? In Descartes’ use of the grid there was also an -attempt to order and structure chaos:
-A part of the belief systems of ⊞ers is that the world is chaotic and -their role is to order it or even simplify it. This belief may be -inherited from a wider cultural belief of the same general drive: to -order and simplify. Humans try to make sense of the world. ⊞ers make -sense of ⊞ briefs and structure them into something understandable to an -audience or target market.
-Is there an answer to this question, do they know the answer to this -question? I get the impression they have a gut feeling about the answer -but are afraid of it.
-When reviewing the AIGA Next conference in Denver Colorado, 2008, ⊞ -critic Adrian Shaughnessy tells a joke:
-This joke is funny because in the setup where it is easy to tell them -apart, the reader should assume the beer fans are drunk and therefore -raucous, misbehaving or maybe just having a lot of fun. But then he -unexpectedly suggests that they were in fact more serious than the ⊞ers. -This gives the reader a problem to address: is he claiming the ⊞ers were -even more outrageous than what we assumed of the beer fans, or the beer -fans were in fact taking their own conference seriously? As both seem -unbelievable the true funniness of the joke hits home in it’s implied -meaning: ⊞ers are boring as fuck.
-⊞ers interact with the computer through keyboard and mouse usage. -Compared to other computer users, my interaction involves lots of -pressing of function keys, something common with other technical -computer users and not so much with other creative workers. What is -creative in the repetitive and low level operation of a computer? Is a -pianist creative? What’s the difference, I think they are being creative -in different ways. ⊞ers and other specialists like video editors or -photo colourists are using a computer as a tool, the musician is -performing on an instrument. Maybe this distinction doesn’t have to be -so clear though. I am questioning this here because I think there is -some fairly complicated belief system about artists and their tools that -has had an effect on ⊞ers. ⊞ gives itself a history of conflict and -harmony between artisans and industrialisation, for example in Bauhaus -founder Walter Gropius claiming William Morris as a precursor (Bayer, -1975).
-I think it is important to show that ⊞ers are workers with tools, -their repetitive tasks are a form of labour as are their creative -processes. In the annotation opposite my aim is to mystify the manual -and digital labour, rather than demystify the creative ideation -part.
-Following this annotation I made a digital tool to record all -keystrokes on my computer. Then I printed them out with a pen plotter to -celebrate the labour that had taken place. It took several hours to plot -the keylogging data from just a few minutes of the ⊞er’s labour.
-Like many other ⊞ers, I was trained to only use Adobe products. I try -to switch to open source alternatives because I believe in using -software developed and maintained by a community rather than a private -company, and as a worker believe I should be in control of my tools. In -this annotation, I was trying to ⊞ and export a single page document in -LibreOffice, an open source desktop publishing software. The -documentation reflects on my frustrations and struggles to switch to a -workflow that relies less on proprietary software for print ⊞.
-Proprietary software from big mean tech corporations is based on a -model of society and economy where a few people own things and everybody -else has a hard time. I believe the internet gives an opportunity for -knowledge (including software code) to be shared. I like the idea of -modifying my tools, this is easier technically and legally with open -source software. I would prefer my tools to be developed by me and my -peers. These are some of my beliefs as a ⊞er about my work and my tools. -They’re a bit idealistic but also optimistic in a good way.
-Transitioning to open source software sucks. I spent years learning -other tools and its like starting all over again. There is a dual -commitment in my beliefs about how my tools should be built and my -desire to get things done in a reasonable amount of time. My action of -fumbling with open source programs reflects my belief that they are -worthwhile, and my action of still using Adobe Acrobat Pro reflects my -belief that there are better things to do with my time than restarting -software when it crashes again. Some parts of graphic ⊞ have become so -entangled in capitalist ways of working, it can be immobilising to try -to act without engaging with the icky parts. Our dependencies on -ecosystems of tools and workflows are not enforced, but it can be -difficult to exist outside them, or more specifically, beside them.
-It’s so obviously not true. The conflict of wanting to change my
-workflow with wanting to complete my work tasks efficiently doesn’t keep
-me up at night, but it is important to me and other ⊞ers. Open source ⊞
-software is unreliable and unstandardised, it takes longer to do things
-and then when they are nearly done the program crashes and I’ve lost all
-my work. The standards of open source software have not been widely
-embraced by the ⊞ community. To fit into a workflow with peers you have
-to use Adobe products. Even web ⊞ers who engage with open standards can
-find the need to work with proprietary software, because these tools are
-deeply integrated into the workflows of their peers. Can you send me
-that in a normal file format please, I can’t open it.
-
Similarly to the software changes, this documentation of my practice -sees me choosing open source fonts. I’m really ambivalent about this. I -do like the idea of being able to modify a font when needed, but I have -done so regardless of whether the font licence allows it. I’m more -comfortable ethically with a font being open source. Buying fonts is -expensive for freelancers and small studios, and open source fonts are -more commonly free of charge. Many ⊞ers pirate fonts rather than buy -them, or are locked into a font subscription. In Adobe software, Adobe -subscription fonts don’t load unless a connection to the creative cloud -is verified.
-For my work, fonts are also a tool, one that I need to practice with
-and one that needs to be suitable for the job. So changing font is a
-little like a ceramicist changing clay. Work Sans is good for online use
-because Google Fonts serves it as a web font for free, the open source
-font I want to use is served most reliably by a large corporation I have
-issues with. This balancing act of practical considerations and
-idealistic beliefs is kind of ironic and reminds me again that my values
-can be inconsistent and to me a bit funny.
-
-The use of fonts as tools is full of tensions from ⊞ers’ belief systems.
-Like many ⊞ers, I want to use open source fonts. I also want to use
-fonts that will load quickly from a content delivery network for web
-projects. I also want fonts to be cheap and well made and I am
-interested in fonts that are free. The internet is full of illegal and
-pirated copies of fonts that are not supposed to be free of charge. I
-sometimes receive or am asked to send font files outside of their
-licence. I dont have a huge amount of respect for some of these
-licences. But at the same time font ⊞ers are my friends and colleagues,
-I have ⊞ed fonts. What does a ⊞er’s actual use of fonts say about their
-beliefs around copyright? Do ⊞ers believe in intellectual property? What
-value do ⊞ers, specifically typographers, see in their work and that of
-their close peers, the font ⊞ers, and how does copyright relate to these
-values?
Hey Conor, hope you’re keeping well these days? I’ve been going -through the interview from back in December and was wondering if you -would mind me including this piece in my thesis:
-I guess the thesis has become a lot about ⊞ers and the beliefs they -have about their work, and its effect on the world around them. I was -really interested in your answer to this question because I think it -shows something a lot of other ⊞ers including me feel too; some desire -to structure the world around us, to have things be resolved, organised, -fitting together. And not just a desire but maybe even a belief that -this is really what our job is for? Maybe I’m reading too much into it, -but to me this maybe hints at part of the reason we’re am drawn to a -field like graphic ⊞? Curious to know what you think.
-And if youre uncomfortable with being included in this way, Im -totally fine with anonymising, removing, or editing.
-Thanks,
-Stephen
Yo ◱, hope all’s good with you these days?
-I’ve been piecing together the interviews from December and I’d love -to include this section about your dream if that’s alright with you? It -seems to get at something I feel as well: this system that we’ve built -up and these drawers full of grids, sometimes there’s an angst or -unresolved feeling that they’re not going to work, they dont fit as an -answer to the problem.
-For me I think it might be something to do with order and chaos if -that doesn’t seem too much of a stretch, I’ve this need to structure -things and fit them in a form, and the dream seems to get at that fear -that it’s not going to work. The grid is solid but reality turns out to -be jelly at best, but very often custard and little bits of tinned -strawberry and soggy sponge.
-I assumed the dream is about the pressure or anxiety of running a -studio? I wonder for you, do you see it more relating to the work itself -or the management around that, or are these things that you consider -separate from eachother? I’m curious to know if you think of it the same -way, or maybe it’s something else to you and I’m projecting :)
-And if youre uncomfortable with being included in this way, Im -totally fine with anonymising, removing, or editing.
-Thanks,
-Stephen
Hey ◳, hope youre good!
-I’m thinking of putting this section of the interview we did back in -december in my thesis. Is that ok with you? I want to include it because -I think it really captures some emotions that ⊞ers feel quite often, -some stress or anxiety or an attempt to grab onto something more stable. -But I also find it really interesting that you were talking about jelly -slipping through your hands, any idea why you didn’t say sand or mud or -gold but jelly? To me it seems like a fun and cute material to pick, -even though its a bit lumpy and maybe even kinda gross sometimes.
-I’ve been really interested in foods made of gelatin recently and -there’s something so mesmerising about them even though they’re never -the most appetising, and for sure unnatural or over-processed. Maybe you -just said it off hand, but it makes sense to me as well about being a -⊞er in some way? Something enjoyable and lovable about the jelly despite -its weird unnatural wiggliness. Really interested to know if you have -any thoughts or maybe you meant something completely different.
-And if youre uncomfortable with being included in this way, Im -totally fine with anonymising, removing, or editing.
-Thanks,
-Stephen
The title of this document, ⊞, was borrowed from the mathematical -theory of free probability where it symbolises free additive -convolution, a way of relating terms that is more nuanced than -traditional ideas of cause and effect. In the fragmented look at ⊞ in -this document, which we’ve reached the end of now, I hope to have done -something similar: a convoluted addition, freely placing things together -to be held for a moment.
-⊞ involves a wide range of activities; typing, drawing grids, -communicating with other specialists, quoting, drinking coffee, working -out of office hours, having panic attacks, arguing, building myths, -personal expression, keyboard shortcuts, dreaming, rubbing paper and -exhaling, tilting your head and looking at the screen. We have examined -when and how these actions happen, and more importantly, why they do, -according to the ⊞ers carrying them out.
-These stories were gathered through various modes of describing, -listening and understanding. It is important that these are different -from conventional ways to frame the discipline, as I think a shift in -viewpoint is needed. So not “⊞er as Author” (Rock, 1996), “⊞er as -salesperson” (Pater, 2021) but instead ⊞er “sitting at the machine, -thinking” (Brodine, 1990) or “⊞er without qualities” (Lorusso, 2023). -The fragments have been situated and subjective rather than objective, -they have been outside of categories because the categories are broken -anyway.
-Last night I dreamt I was standing on a hill in the Swiss Alps and -you were there and all of our friends and the hill was covered in little -fields but not like a grid like lots of different shapes and sizes and -the sky opened in two and a ring of light so bright it nearly blinded me -came out of my chest and yours and they all merged into eachother and -everyone opened their mouths to sing and the air was filled with so many -sounds and one ⊞er walked up to me and smiled and said
-“I dunno, I’m more confused than ever”
and they said
and then you said
“a funny feeling its a bit weird”
“I’m just trying to touch it gently and acknowledge it”
“live the gap between where you are and where you could -be”
and then I was them and you were me and we laughed and fell over and -the hill turned into a bright pink jelly ocean the whole sky was this -sort of green-blue and we all surfed wobbly waves and some people’s -surfboards were Quiksilver and some they had built themselves from a git -repository but the sun was a walnut and it was definitely moving but I -couldnt tell was it rising or setting but it didn’t matter to us the -surf was great and everything smelled like magnolias.
-Thanks to Ada, Aglaia, Ben, Chae, Conor, Irmak, Jenny, Joseph, kamo, -Leslie, Manetta, Marloes, Michael, Rossi.
-Bayer, H. et al. (1975) Bauhaus, 1919-1928. New -York: Museum of Modern Art.
-Berlant, L. (2022) On the Inconvenience of Other People, -Durham: Duke University Press.
-Brodine, K. (1990) Woman Sitting at the Machine, Thinking: -Poems. Seattle: Red Letter Press.
-creativechair (2018) ‘Michael Bierut’ [Interview], Creative -Chair. Available at: creativechair.org/michael-bierut (Accessed: 15 -April 2024).
-Design West (2024) Design West. Available at: -designwest.eu (Accessed: 16 April 2024).
-Driessen, C. P. G. (2020). Descartes was here; In Search of the
-Origin of Cartesian Space’. In R. Koolhaas (Ed.), Countryside, A
-Report (pp. 274-297)
-
-Gates, B (2004) Remarks by Bill Gates, Chairman and Chief Software
-Architect, Microsoft Corporation [speech transcript] University of
-Illinois Urbana-Champaign February 24, 2004 Available at:
-web.archive.org/web/
-20040607040830/https://www.microsoft.com/billgates/speeches/2004/02-24UnivIllinois.asp
-(Accessed: 13 April 2024)
Gerstner, K. and Keller, D. (1964) Designing Programmes. -Teufen (AR): Niggli.
-Google (2014) Introduction, Material Design. -Available at: m1.material.io (Accessed: 16 April 2024).
-Hu, T.-H. (2024) Digital Lethargy: Dispatches from an age of -disconnection. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
-The Idea of the Book (2024) CARNIVAL: the first panel
-1967–70 [book description] Available at: theideaofthe
-book.com/pages/books/529/steve-mccaffery/carnival-the-first-panel-1967-70
-(Accessed: 13 April 2024)
Loos, A. (2019) Ornament and Crime. London: Penguin.
-Lorusso, S. (2023) What Design Can’t Do: Essays on design and -disillusion. Eindhoven: Set Margins.
-Mondriaan , P. et al., (1917) ‘Neo-Plasticism in Pictorial Art’, -De Stijl, Nov.
-Mould, O. (2018) Against Creativity. London: Verso.
-Müller-Brockmann, J. (1981) Grid systems in graphic ⊞. -Stuttgart: Hatje.
-Pater, R. (2021) Caps Lock. Amsterdam: Valiz.
-Rock, M., (1996) The ⊞er as Author. Available at: -2x4.org/ideas/1996/⊞er-as-author (Accessed: 16 April 2024).
-Shaughnessy, A. (2005) How to Be a Graphic ⊞er, without Losing -Your Soul. Princeton: Princeton Architectural Press.
-Shaughnessy, A. (2013) Scratching the Surface. London: Unit -Editions.
-Tufte, E (1991) The Visual Display of Quantitative -Information. Cheshire: Graphics Press.
-Van der Velden, D., (2006) ‘Research & Destroy: A Plea for ⊞ as -Research’, Metropolis M 2, April/May 2006.
-Van Doesburg, T. et al. (1917) ‘Manifesto I’, De Stijl, -Nov.
-Van Doesburg, T. et al. (1921) -‘Manifesto III’, De Stijl, Aug.
-Warde, B. (1913) ‘Printing Should be Invisible’ The Crystal -Goblet, Sixteen Essays on Typography, London: The Sylvan Press.
-Weber, M., (1905) “The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of -Capitalism”, Archiv für Sozialwissenschaften 20, no. 1 (1904), -pp. 1–54; 21, no. 1 (1905), pp. 1–110.
- -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.
-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 and tools to tell them. I have facilitated group dream re-enactments (a few times), using felt dolls to share our night time -theatre.
-stephen kerr is a graphic designer or a musician or a very weird -and long dream.
- - - -This work is free to distribute or modify under the terms of the SIXX
@@ -4350,6 +3356,962 @@ I made this to explore why designers make design, based on Clifford Geertz's ide
+ Stephen Kerr ⊞ Thesis submitted to the Department of Experimental Publishing, Piet
+Zwart Institute, Willem de Kooning Academy, in partial fulfilment of the
+requirements for the final examination for the degree of Master of Arts
+in Fine Art & ⊞: Experimental Publishing. Adviser: Marloes de Valk This symbol represents design in this writing in an attempt to avoid
+the assumed meaning of the word and examine it as something unknown, to
+mystify it, to examine its structure. The label ⊞ is a functional part
+of a belief system involving order, structure, and rationality and I
+want to break it. Removing the label is part of loosening the object,
+making it avilable to transition (Berlant, 2022). This document is a collection of fragments exploring beliefs about
+labour in the creative industries, in particular graphic ⊞. Each
+fragment focusses on the social, cultural, political, spiritual or
+religious aspects of these beliefs through an ethnographic lens. They
+record, celebrate and question the meaning that ⊞ers give to their
+actions and how those meanings affect the world they live in. And it’s
+about how ⊞ers feel when we live with these beliefs: we feel a bit funny
+and I want to talk about it. I use various modes of address and different lenses to further
+fragment the definition of ⊞. The origin of the word thesis is to set or
+to put, but I am trying to show you something liquid that can’t be
+placed but shimmers and disappears through the sand. I document some ⊞
+activities, in my own work and the work and writings of others who
+identify with the label of ⊞er. The writing dissolves and reintegrates
+definitions of ⊞ from different voices to show the multiplicity of
+beliefs from practitioners, and to explore what it means to acknowledge
+these beliefs beside eachother: the tensions and harmonies, some
+lineages and some breaks. What is going on here in this thing we call
+⊞? This is a collection of stories about living life with particular
+working conditions, located at certain points in social, economic and
+cultural webs. In my practice-based research I gather and tell these
+stories through (auto)ethnographic methods: documenting how ⊞er’s work,
+conducting interviews, improvising communal performances and exploratory
+tool-making. This document collates and reflects on this research. The precarity of working in the creative industries, in particular as
+a freelancer or within a small studio, induces anxiety. There is a
+belief that the ⊞er as freelancer is empowered by their autonomy, but in
+fact the ⊞er as worker is trapped by it. ⊞ is work and this work is
+believed to be inherently good. Work in our society is understood as “an
+individual moral practice and collective ethical obligation” which
+shapes the worker’s identity in positive ways (Weeks, 2011). The ⊞er
+believes they are a skilled or talented worker, someone who possesses
+spatial awareness, time management skills, and the capacity to carry out
+work effectively and efficiently. ⊞ers are entangled in the Protestant religious underpinnings of the
+European work ethic (Pater, 2022). ⊞ is seen as a vocation which
+expresses and creates the ⊞er’s identity, and the process or its results
+make a valuable contribution to society. People understand the world and
+interact with it smoothly, thanks to the work of ⊞ers. ⊞ers pick the
+right materials to save the planet and increase efficiency and whatever
+else it is people find important. But the ⊞er becomes anxious despite
+meeting these goals and becoming this person. In reality, the ⊞er is a
+bot, the ⊞er is software. Value is extracted from their time, creativity
+and expertise which makes them stressed. ⊞ers are a creative cloud, a
+service to be tapped into, a cpu being run too hot. There is something
+to be learnt from the revelation that being replaced by machines proves
+we were being treated as machines all along. There was a belief that ⊞ could be a crystal goblet (Warde, 1913),
+something unbiased, clear and, in more recent versions of the theory,
+serving the context it fits within. But the foundations of this belief
+in functionality and rationality dont seem to come themselves from
+something functional or rational. De Stijl members, such as Piet Mondriaan and Theo van Doesburg
+(Figure 6), in their 1917 manifesto described a “new consciousness of
+the age […] directed towards the universal”. There was a drive towards
+universal standardisation or pureness of culture from the rich white
+men. Purity is a concept that turns up a lot in Mondriaan’s writings, eg
+Neo-Plasticism in Pictorial Art (1917). They claimed a shared
+spirit was driving this universalisation. A later paragraph of the
+manifesto is translated into english as: In this translation it appears the authors believed in an emerging
+consciousness of the age, something collective which would bring an
+international unity. The members of De Stijl were neither aligning
+themselves with the capitalists or socialists but believed in an inner
+connection between those who were joined in the spiritual body of the
+new world (De Stijl, Manifesto III, 1921). The word intellectual, or
+geestelijk in the original Dutch, can also be translated as “spiritual,
+mental, ecclesiastical, clerical, sacred, ghostly, pneumatic”. The
+choice to translate as intellectual seems to be the most rational
+interpretation of this sentence, an effort to make the theories of De
+Stijl appear more materialist without the spiritual element. Compare
+with this translation: In this translation it is clearer that the members of De Stijl saw a
+link between the effects of what they made materially and their attempts
+to be fighting spiritually against the domination of individualism. I
+care about this story because of how it contextualises contemporary ⊞
+practice. Is contemporary ⊞ practice still involved in this spiritual
+battle? Did the new consciousness of 1917 survive the past century, did
+it procreate? Can aesthetics have generational trauma? William Morris,
+Constructivism, De Stijl, Bauhaus, International Style, International
+Typographic Style, Swiss Style, then what happened. Modernist artists
+had spiritual beliefs, and again I care about these people from a
+hundred years ago because of the effect they have on the present. Imagine I could trace this thought from Mondriaan all the way to
+myself, wow, cool thesis. Swiss style became corporate identity ⊞ and
+encouraged minimalism in ⊞. 21st century Flat ⊞, such as Metro ⊞
+language from Microsoft and Material ⊞ (Google, 2014), claim direct
+descendance from the International Typographic Style and that pretty
+much brings us up to date. I wonder about the use of the word Material
+in Google’s ⊞ strategy, I wonder about the ghostly absence of the
+geestelijk fight of De Stijl. Is Google’s choice of name another
+example, as with the subtle change in the translation above, that the
+spiritual element is no longer as important a part of the ⊞er’s
+worldview as it was a hundred years ago? Conor Clarke is a Director of ⊞ Factory, independent Irish ⊞
+agency based in Dublin. His work has featured in international
+publications such as Who’s Who in Graphic ⊞, Graphis, Novum
+Gebrauchsgrafik, and the New York Art Directors Club Annual. He was the
+recipient of the Catherine Donnelly Lifetime Achievement Award for his
+contribution to ⊞ in Ireland and is the Course Director of ⊞ West, an
+international summer ⊞ school located in the beautiful village of
+Letterfrack on the West Coast of Ireland. (⊞west.eu, 2023) Why not choose a spiral or a circle if you dream of ⊞ers as shamans?
+Why the grid of squares? There are strong links beween ⊞ and
+mathematics, Josef Muller-Brockmann’s Grid Systems (Figure 2)
+for example or Karl Gerstner’s ⊞ing Programmes (1964). I read
+these ⊞ theorists as you might comparatively read religious texts. What
+were or are the beliefs of the authors and their audiences? These texts present a worldview where ⊞ can be mathematical,
+objective or problem-solving. In Muller-Brockman’s text the focus is on
+the formal qualities of the ⊞ in particular the use of grids and
+typographic systems. Gerstner’s focus is more on the effect of the ⊞,
+and the ability of ⊞ to solve a problem. Rationality and creativity are
+presented as proportional to eachother. He makes space for the
+intellectual by pushing aside feelings. The graphic ⊞er is presented as a functional actor in society who
+makes the world better. Gerstner seems to be implying that creative ⊞
+comes from following the intellect and some rational cause and effect
+process. I find it interesting that ⊞ claims this rational basis in the
+same historical period when science and mathematics, its supposed
+foundations, became much less rational and predictable, for example in
+chaos theory. It makes me think that the rationality serves some other
+purpose. Why do ⊞ers believe in using a grid to present the written word, and
+where did this belief come from and how did it develop? It can be
+materially traced back to Guthenberg and metal type but that’s boring.
+Magic squares have been used in astrology books and grimoires throughout
+history (Figure 3). French poet Stéphane Mallarmé is sometimes quoted as
+a precursor to modernist typography (Muller-Brockmann, 1981). Why did
+Steve McCaffrey include the manifesto of De Stijl with CARNIVAL
+(1973)? De Stijl is best known for its painters and architects, and
+theories from both of these fields affected later ⊞ theories. But they
+also were poets and had literary theories similar to the german
+expressionists. Man’s attempt to find oneness with the whole of creation
+through a cosmic hybris. The developments of the written word and its relationship to form in
+the 20th century is very much a part of the history of ⊞. I care about
+this story because it affects contemporary practitioners. I believe
+there is something magical in graphic composition and the layout of
+typography, something that can’t be grasped in the words alone. They’re
+non-canonical for ⊞ers but how have people who put words on pages like
+Mallarmé and McCaffrey influenced my beliefs about the written word?
+What makes one thing fit in the category of art, another ⊞ and yet
+another concrete poetry? This autoethnographic annotation attempts to really miss as many
+cultural and technical cues as possible. It’s watching the ⊞er, me, and
+being totally mystified by their behaviour. I wasn’t trying to generate longing, I was trying to make an annual
+report. It was a corporate job I was working on, a nice one to have
+because it’s fairly well paid and not too complicated. A bit boring and
+kinda repetitive, but you can just put your headphones on and get stuck
+into it. I was pretty happy with the results in the end, but for sure
+not the type of work you’re supposed to be proud of as a ⊞er. And of course Piet Zwart’s (Figure 8) famous electrical cable
+catalogues. ⊞ is just work, chill. Is a ⊞er a user or a server? Maybe ⊞
+is an example of our general belief in this dichotomy not quite making
+sense or fitting reality. The ⊞er is working for whom? Themselves? Their
+clients? This quote relates to freelancing generally in some way, and
+deconstructing the work or worker. Are workers things? Yeah, kinda. ⊞ers
+don’t have super powers, contrary to some beliefs within the industry.
+For example on what⊞cando.com it is suggested that we should “re⊞
+everything!”. Let’s actually not do that. ⊞ers are mostly just humans
+working on computers like so many other bots. ⊞ers try to create
+clarity, to assign meaning and understand: “Confusion and clutter are
+failures of ⊞, not attributes of information” (Tufte, 1990, p.53). What
+if the sounds of my fingers and my keyboard are not noise but music: we
+are quasi-robots and maybe its good to listen to our little Taylorist
+finger tappings and see what else is being said. Distinctive Repetition is an award-winning graphic ⊞ studio based in
+Dublin, Ireland. Principal ⊞er and Institute of Creative Advertising and
+⊞ past-president, Rossi McAuley, is joined in this interview by ⊞ers
+Jenny Leahy and Ben Nagle. This interview was carried out around a table
+with the interviewer in the bottom right corner (◲) and the three
+members of the studio in the other three seats. Before meeting them in person, I mailed a small booklet to the
+interviewees entitled Enthusiasm to give context to the
+conversation. The word enthusiasm originally meant inspiration or
+possession by a god. The booklet recounted three mystical dreams René
+Descartes had which he credited as a moment of inspiration or enthusiasm
+that influenced his later work on rationalism, and related to his work
+on geometry and grids (Figure 4). As well as the content of the dreams,
+the booklet described their relevance: Descartes felt that interpreting his dreams was an appropriate method
+to develop a rational theory of skepticism, which led to some of the
+philosophical foundations of modern scientific and mathematical
+theories. The booklet also drew parallels with Martin Luther’s
+scrupulous doubt, “Only God and certain madmen have no doubts!”. Like
+Descartes, Luther’s new theories helped to give the basis for the
+structure of thought for the following centuries. These stories were
+presented together to direct the focus of the conversation towards
+belief, rationalism and grids. The fact that rationalism is a belief
+system, as pervasive as it may be, and suggestively hinting through its
+relationship with grids that there
+is a relationship with ⊞. They seem so sad it hurts to hear them talk about the oozing. Are you
+supposed to put jelly in the fridge, it just needs time to settle right?
+My nana used to put the jelly in the freezer. There’s an instability in
+how they talk in the interview for sure, or more a desire for stability.
+Was it ever stable? Do you really want it to be? Its gooey and not the
+way it should be but its still jelly and thats fun and its probably
+delicious. Their hands are there as something that is for grasping and
+jelly is there as something that can’t be grasped. Is it terrifying, are
+they resigned to it? I can’t explain the angst they are feeling but I can describe it
+because I’ve felt it too. It feels like I’m having a heart attack. It
+feels like I’m about to black out. It got to a stage where I couldn’t
+talk to other people without being completely frozen jelly. It is the
+feeling of lists and lists and lists. It’s the feeling of never
+resolved, all the time. We believe we are busy and under pressure and
+struggling to survive. That makes us anxious and stressed. The grids are not being used, the grids are useless. Drawers full of
+them, all useless. Whats the point of sitting here in this studio. They
+dont fit, they dont make sense, they’re trying to order something that
+can’t be ordered. Or possibly shouldnt be ordered, the ordering is
+misplaced and there is a human urge to stop, just stop. Adolf Loos was a modernist architect whose writings such as
+Ornament and Crime in 1910 influenced modernist ideals of
+functionalism and minimalism. He rejected ornament and favoured the use
+of good materials which showed “God’s own wonder”. I wonder what is the
+relation of Loos’ ideas to Max Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the
+Spirit of Capitalism (Weber, 1905) that was published five years
+earlier. Work as a duty which benefits the individual and society as a
+whole, do ⊞ers still believe this today? I like taking Loos’ quote out
+of context here, instead in the context of the feelings of the
+interviewees, revolting the supposedly modern cause they are working
+with. But also Loos was found guilty of pedophelia and it feels kind of
+aggressive to include his voice here at all. This is part of the point
+of what I’m getting at: there’s this tradition of ⊞ and so many parts of
+it make me uncomfortable or really disgusted and I don’t know what to do
+with all that. I just wanted to go to art school and draw circles and
+maybe thats the problem and sure simple materials are pretty, but yeah
+jelly is exactly what it feels like, you’re right. Graphic ⊞ is often performed by paid professionals in what is known
+as the creative industry: as a profession and an activity, ⊞ is
+considered to be creative. There are some positive preconceptions about
+the creative industry and what it does, but I see it as an assimilation
+of cultural activity into a neoliberal economic framework. Creativity in
+this context is used to reproduce the status quo and and grow capital
+(Mould, 2018). But maybe we can profit from examining the margins
+created by this terminology: ⊞ is less functional than it seems. People
+in creative jobs are stressed and this is reflected in their dreams.
+Workers have rights and those rights are systemically undermined. Being
+self employed or part of an independent studio brings anxiety and
+challenges. Some ⊞ers try to structure the world around them and like
+things to be neat and tidy, which makes us uncomfortable existing in
+precarious work conditions. The Roman grid was a land measurement method used in the Roman
+colonies for example in the Po Valley (Figure 7). With a surveying tool
+called the groma, the colonisers would divide the land from north to
+south and east to west, resulting in a square grid of roads and land. At
+Orange, France, a cadaster has been found which shows the division of
+land in a geometric way, helping the colonisers to privatise the land
+and allocate it to roman veterans (Figure 1). The name groma, as well as
+referring to the surveying tool, describes the central point of the
+grid, the origin. Is making grids just a way to control and colonise? Do
+all grids have origins? In Descartes’ use of the grid there was also an
+attempt to order and structure chaos: A part of the belief systems of ⊞ers is that the world is chaotic and
+their role is to order it or even simplify it. This belief may be
+inherited from a wider cultural belief of the same general drive: to
+order and simplify. Humans try to make sense of the world. ⊞ers make
+sense of ⊞ briefs and structure them into something understandable to an
+audience or target market. Is there an answer to this question, do they know the answer to this
+question? I get the impression they have a gut feeling about the answer
+but are afraid of it. When reviewing the AIGA Next conference in Denver Colorado, 2008, ⊞
+critic Adrian Shaughnessy tells a joke: This joke is funny because in the setup where it is easy to tell them
+apart, the reader should assume the beer fans are drunk and therefore
+raucous, misbehaving or maybe just having a lot of fun. But then he
+unexpectedly suggests that they were in fact more serious than the ⊞ers.
+This gives the reader a problem to address: is he claiming the ⊞ers were
+even more outrageous than what we assumed of the beer fans, or the beer
+fans were in fact taking their own conference seriously? As both seem
+unbelievable the true funniness of the joke hits home in it’s implied
+meaning: ⊞ers are boring as fuck. ⊞ers interact with the computer through keyboard and mouse usage.
+Compared to other computer users, my interaction involves lots of
+pressing of function keys, something common with other technical
+computer users and not so much with other creative workers. What is
+creative in the repetitive and low level operation of a computer? Is a
+pianist creative? What’s the difference, I think they are being creative
+in different ways. ⊞ers and other specialists like video editors or
+photo colourists are using a computer as a tool, the musician is
+performing on an instrument. Maybe this distinction doesn’t have to be
+so clear though. I am questioning this here because I think there is
+some fairly complicated belief system about artists and their tools that
+has had an effect on ⊞ers. ⊞ gives itself a history of conflict and
+harmony between artisans and industrialisation, for example in Bauhaus
+founder Walter Gropius claiming William Morris as a precursor (Bayer,
+1975). I think it is important to show that ⊞ers are workers with tools,
+their repetitive tasks are a form of labour as are their creative
+processes. In the annotation opposite my aim is to mystify the manual
+and digital labour, rather than demystify the creative ideation
+part. Following this annotation I made a digital tool to record all
+keystrokes on my computer. Then I printed them out with a pen plotter to
+celebrate the labour that had taken place. It took several hours to plot
+the keylogging data from just a few minutes of the ⊞er’s labour. Like many other ⊞ers, I was trained to only use Adobe products. I try
+to switch to open source alternatives because I believe in using
+software developed and maintained by a community rather than a private
+company, and as a worker believe I should be in control of my tools. In
+this annotation, I was trying to ⊞ and export a single page document in
+LibreOffice, an open source desktop publishing software. The
+documentation reflects on my frustrations and struggles to switch to a
+workflow that relies less on proprietary software for print ⊞. Proprietary software from big mean tech corporations is based on a
+model of society and economy where a few people own things and everybody
+else has a hard time. I believe the internet gives an opportunity for
+knowledge (including software code) to be shared. I like the idea of
+modifying my tools, this is easier technically and legally with open
+source software. I would prefer my tools to be developed by me and my
+peers. These are some of my beliefs as a ⊞er about my work and my tools.
+They’re a bit idealistic but also optimistic in a good way. Transitioning to open source software sucks. I spent years learning
+other tools and its like starting all over again. There is a dual
+commitment in my beliefs about how my tools should be built and my
+desire to get things done in a reasonable amount of time. My action of
+fumbling with open source programs reflects my belief that they are
+worthwhile, and my action of still using Adobe Acrobat Pro reflects my
+belief that there are better things to do with my time than restarting
+software when it crashes again. Some parts of graphic ⊞ have become so
+entangled in capitalist ways of working, it can be immobilising to try
+to act without engaging with the icky parts. Our dependencies on
+ecosystems of tools and workflows are not enforced, but it can be
+difficult to exist outside them, or more specifically, beside them. It’s so obviously not true. The conflict of wanting to change my
+workflow with wanting to complete my work tasks efficiently doesn’t keep
+me up at night, but it is important to me and other ⊞ers. Open source ⊞
+software is unreliable and unstandardised, it takes longer to do things
+and then when they are nearly done the program crashes and I’ve lost all
+my work. The standards of open source software have not been widely
+embraced by the ⊞ community. To fit into a workflow with peers you have
+to use Adobe products. Even web ⊞ers who engage with open standards can
+find the need to work with proprietary software, because these tools are
+deeply integrated into the workflows of their peers. Can you send me
+that in a normal file format please, I can’t open it. Similarly to the software changes, this documentation of my practice
+sees me choosing open source fonts. I’m really ambivalent about this. I
+do like the idea of being able to modify a font when needed, but I have
+done so regardless of whether the font licence allows it. I’m more
+comfortable ethically with a font being open source. Buying fonts is
+expensive for freelancers and small studios, and open source fonts are
+more commonly free of charge. Many ⊞ers pirate fonts rather than buy
+them, or are locked into a font subscription. In Adobe software, Adobe
+subscription fonts don’t load unless a connection to the creative cloud
+is verified. For my work, fonts are also a tool, one that I need to practice with
+and one that needs to be suitable for the job. So changing font is a
+little like a ceramicist changing clay. Work Sans is good for online use
+because Google Fonts serves it as a web font for free, the open source
+font I want to use is served most reliably by a large corporation I have
+issues with. This balancing act of practical considerations and
+idealistic beliefs is kind of ironic and reminds me again that my values
+can be inconsistent and to me a bit funny. Hey Conor, hope you’re keeping well these days? I’ve been going
+through the interview from back in December and was wondering if you
+would mind me including this piece in my thesis: I guess the thesis has become a lot about ⊞ers and the beliefs they
+have about their work, and its effect on the world around them. I was
+really interested in your answer to this question because I think it
+shows something a lot of other ⊞ers including me feel too; some desire
+to structure the world around us, to have things be resolved, organised,
+fitting together. And not just a desire but maybe even a belief that
+this is really what our job is for? Maybe I’m reading too much into it,
+but to me this maybe hints at part of the reason we’re am drawn to a
+field like graphic ⊞? Curious to know what you think. And if youre uncomfortable with being included in this way, Im
+totally fine with anonymising, removing, or editing. Thanks, Yo ◱, hope all’s good with you these days? I’ve been piecing together the interviews from December and I’d love
+to include this section about your dream if that’s alright with you? It
+seems to get at something I feel as well: this system that we’ve built
+up and these drawers full of grids, sometimes there’s an angst or
+unresolved feeling that they’re not going to work, they dont fit as an
+answer to the problem. For me I think it might be something to do with order and chaos if
+that doesn’t seem too much of a stretch, I’ve this need to structure
+things and fit them in a form, and the dream seems to get at that fear
+that it’s not going to work. The grid is solid but reality turns out to
+be jelly at best, but very often custard and little bits of tinned
+strawberry and soggy sponge. I assumed the dream is about the pressure or anxiety of running a
+studio? I wonder for you, do you see it more relating to the work itself
+or the management around that, or are these things that you consider
+separate from eachother? I’m curious to know if you think of it the same
+way, or maybe it’s something else to you and I’m projecting :) And if youre uncomfortable with being included in this way, Im
+totally fine with anonymising, removing, or editing. Thanks, Hey ◳, hope youre good! I’m thinking of putting this section of the interview we did back in
+december in my thesis. Is that ok with you? I want to include it because
+I think it really captures some emotions that ⊞ers feel quite often,
+some stress or anxiety or an attempt to grab onto something more stable.
+But I also find it really interesting that you were talking about jelly
+slipping through your hands, any idea why you didn’t say sand or mud or
+gold but jelly? To me it seems like a fun and cute material to pick,
+even though its a bit lumpy and maybe even kinda gross sometimes. I’ve been really interested in foods made of gelatin recently and
+there’s something so mesmerising about them even though they’re never
+the most appetising, and for sure unnatural or over-processed. Maybe you
+just said it off hand, but it makes sense to me as well about being a
+⊞er in some way? Something enjoyable and lovable about the jelly despite
+its weird unnatural wiggliness. Really interested to know if you have
+any thoughts or maybe you meant something completely different. And if youre uncomfortable with being included in this way, Im
+totally fine with anonymising, removing, or editing. Thanks, The title of this document, ⊞, was borrowed from the mathematical
+theory of free probability where it symbolises free additive
+convolution, a way of relating terms that is more nuanced than
+traditional ideas of cause and effect. In the fragmented look at ⊞ in
+this document, which we’ve reached the end of now, I hope to have done
+something similar: a convoluted addition, freely placing things together
+to be held for a moment. ⊞ involves a wide range of activities; typing, drawing grids,
+communicating with other specialists, quoting, drinking coffee, working
+out of office hours, having panic attacks, arguing, building myths,
+personal expression, keyboard shortcuts, dreaming, rubbing paper and
+exhaling, tilting your head and looking at the screen. We have examined
+when and how these actions happen, and more importantly, why they do,
+according to the ⊞ers carrying them out. These stories were gathered through various modes of describing,
+listening and understanding. It is important that these are different
+from conventional ways to frame the discipline, as I think a shift in
+viewpoint is needed. So not “⊞er as Author” (Rock, 1996), “⊞er as
+salesperson” (Pater, 2021) but instead ⊞er “sitting at the machine,
+thinking” (Brodine, 1990) or “⊞er without qualities” (Lorusso, 2023).
+The fragments have been situated and subjective rather than objective,
+they have been outside of categories because the categories are broken
+anyway. Last night I dreamt I was standing on a hill in the Swiss Alps and
+you were there and all of our friends and the hill was covered in little
+fields but not like a grid like lots of different shapes and sizes and
+the sky opened in two and a ring of light so bright it nearly blinded me
+came out of my chest and yours and they all merged into eachother and
+everyone opened their mouths to sing and the air was filled with so many
+sounds and one ⊞er walked up to me and smiled and said “I dunno, I’m more confused than ever” and they said and then you said “a funny feeling its a bit weird” “I’m just trying to touch it gently and acknowledge it” “live the gap between where you are and where you could
+be” and then I was them and you were me and we laughed and fell over and
+the hill turned into a bright pink jelly ocean the whole sky was this
+sort of green-blue and we all surfed wobbly waves and some people’s
+surfboards were Quiksilver and some they had built themselves from a git
+repository but the sun was a walnut and it was definitely moving but I
+couldnt tell was it rising or setting but it didn’t matter to us the
+surf was great and everything smelled like magnolias. Thanks to Ada, Aglaia, Ben, Chae, Conor, Irmak, Jenny, Joseph, kamo,
+Leslie, Manetta, Marloes, Michael, Rossi. Bayer, H. et al. (1975) Bauhaus, 1919-1928. New
+York: Museum of Modern Art. Berlant, L. (2022) On the Inconvenience of Other People,
+Durham: Duke University Press. Brodine, K. (1990) Woman Sitting at the Machine, Thinking:
+Poems. Seattle: Red Letter Press. creativechair (2018) ‘Michael Bierut’ [Interview], Creative
+Chair. Available at: creativechair.org/michael-bierut (Accessed: 15
+April 2024). Design West (2024) Design West. Available at:
+designwest.eu (Accessed: 16 April 2024). Driessen, C. P. G. (2020). Descartes was here; In Search of the
+Origin of Cartesian Space’. In R. Koolhaas (Ed.), Countryside, A
+Report (pp. 274-297) Gerstner, K. and Keller, D. (1964) Designing Programmes.
+Teufen (AR): Niggli. Google (2014) Introduction, Material Design.
+Available at: m1.material.io (Accessed: 16 April 2024). Hu, T.-H. (2024) Digital Lethargy: Dispatches from an age of
+disconnection. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. The Idea of the Book (2024) CARNIVAL: the first panel
+1967–70 [book description] Available at: theideaofthe Loos, A. (2019) Ornament and Crime. London: Penguin. Lorusso, S. (2023) What Design Can’t Do: Essays on design and
+disillusion. Eindhoven: Set Margins. Mondriaan , P. et al., (1917) ‘Neo-Plasticism in Pictorial Art’,
+De Stijl, Nov. Mould, O. (2018) Against Creativity. London: Verso. Müller-Brockmann, J. (1981) Grid systems in graphic ⊞.
+Stuttgart: Hatje. Pater, R. (2021) Caps Lock. Amsterdam: Valiz. Rock, M., (1996) The ⊞er as Author. Available at:
+2x4.org/ideas/1996/⊞er-as-author (Accessed: 16 April 2024). Shaughnessy, A. (2005) How to Be a Graphic ⊞er, without Losing
+Your Soul. Princeton: Princeton Architectural Press. Shaughnessy, A. (2013) Scratching the Surface. London: Unit
+Editions. Tufte, E (1991) The Visual Display of Quantitative
+Information. Cheshire: Graphics Press. Van der Velden, D., (2006) ‘Research & Destroy: A Plea for ⊞ as
+Research’, Metropolis M 2, April/May 2006. Van Doesburg, T. et al. (1917) ‘Manifesto I’, De Stijl,
+Nov. Van Doesburg, T. et al. (1921)
+‘Manifesto III’, De Stijl, Aug. Warde, B. (1913) ‘Printing Should be Invisible’ The Crystal
+Goblet, Sixteen Essays on Typography, London: The Sylvan Press. Weber, M., (1905) “The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of
+Capitalism”, Archiv für Sozialwissenschaften 20, no. 1 (1904),
+pp. 1–54; 21, no. 1 (1905), pp. 1–110. Special Issues are publications thrice released by first-year XPUB
⊞
+
+
+Second Reader: Joseph Knierzinger
+Word count: 7828 wordsTo de-sign design, I
+will assign a sign: ⊞
+
+Introduction
+What is a ⊞er?
+
+
+Geestelijk
+
+
+
+
+Excerpt
+from an interview with Conor Clarke, 1st December 2023
+
+
+
+
+Maths and grids
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+The ⊞ grid and the written
+word
+
+
+
+(The Idea of the Book, 2024)
+Mystically
+assigning or finding meanings in ⊞
+
+
+
+What
+does ⊞ do? What is the ⊞er trying to do by pressing all these buttons
+and making the screen vibrate?
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Excerpt
+from an interview with the members of Distinctive Repetition on 1st
+December 2023.
+
+
+
+About the interview
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Modern work
+
+
+
+The Roman grid
+
+
+
+
+
+
+An
+analysis of a joke about ⊞ in the early 21st century
+
+
+
+An
+annotation of my practices as a graphic ⊞er on a typical working day,
+23rd October 2023
+
+
+
+LibreOffice
+
+
+
+
+
+im going crazy
+im going crazy
+
+
+ Work Sans
+
+
+
+
+
+The use of fonts as tools is full of tensions from ⊞ers’ belief systems.
+Like many ⊞ers, I want to use open source fonts. I also want to use
+fonts that will load quickly from a content delivery network for web
+projects. I also want fonts to be cheap and well made and I am
+interested in fonts that are free. The internet is full of illegal and
+pirated copies of fonts that are not supposed to be free of charge. I
+sometimes receive or am asked to send font files outside of their
+licence. I dont have a huge amount of respect for some of these
+licences. But at the same time font ⊞ers are my friends and colleagues,
+I have ⊞ed fonts. What does a ⊞er’s actual use of fonts say about their
+beliefs around copyright? Do ⊞ers believe in intellectual property? What
+value do ⊞ers, specifically typographers, see in their work and that of
+their close peers, the font ⊞ers, and how does copyright relate to these
+values?
+Follow up questions for
+Conor
+
+Stephen
+Follow up questions for ◱
+
+Stephen
+Follow up questions for ◳
+
+StephenConclusion
+
+Conclusion
+
+
+
+
+
+Acknowledgements
+Bibliography
+
+
+Gates, B (2004) Remarks by Bill Gates, Chairman and Chief Software
+Architect, Microsoft Corporation [speech transcript] University of
+Illinois Urbana-Champaign February 24, 2004 Available at:
+web.archive.org/web/
+20040607040830/https://www.microsoft.com/billgates/speeches/2004/02-24UnivIllinois.asp
+(Accessed: 13 April 2024)
+book.com/pages/books/529/steve-mccaffery/carnival-the-first-panel-1967-70
+(Accessed: 13 April 2024)Special Issues