From 898d0a80078e787dc709d5b70adcf084ad683203 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Stephen
@@ -143,117 +143,6 @@ touched.
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.
+
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.
+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.
+
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.
+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.
+
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.
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.
-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.
-{.half image}
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.
+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.
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.
My desire to write a children’s book about grief and memory ignited @@ -2866,9 +2746,11 @@ important in my personal history as a prototype was a breakthrough. I feel like my interest and desire to discover new ways of writing, reading and experiencing literature is ongoing and it was a beautiful journey so far. I am looking forward to making more knots on this long -and mysterious string at hand. ## Bibliography Cope, B. -and Kalantzis, M. (2009) ‘“multiliteracies”: New Literacies, new -learning’, Pedagogies: An International Journal, 4(3), pp. 164–195. +and mysterious string at hand.
+Cope, B. and Kalantzis, M. (2009) ‘“multiliteracies”: New Literacies,
+new learning’, Pedagogies: An International Journal, 4(3), pp. 164–195.
doi:10.1080/15544800903076044.
Dettore, E. (2002) “Children’s
emotional GrowthAdults’ role as emotional archaeologists,” Childhood
education, 78(5), pp. 278–281. doi: 10.1080/00094056.2002.10522741.
@@ -2900,562 +2782,177 @@ codes-in-knots-sensing-digital-memories/.
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.
- - - +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.
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.
{.half image}
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.
+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 work is free to distribute or modify under the terms of the SIXX -license as published by XPUB, either version one of the SIXX License or -any later version. See the SIXX License for more details. A copy of the -license can be found on vulnerable-interfaces.xpub.nl/license.
- - - - - - - - - -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).
-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 +license as published by XPUB, either version one of the SIXX License or +any later version. See the SIXX License for more details. A copy of the +license can be found on vulnerable-interfaces.xpub.nl/license.
+ + + + + + + + + +Special Issues are publications thrice released by first-year XPUB diff --git a/print/print_style.css b/print/print_style.css index d51ef4f..309c533 100644 --- a/print/print_style.css +++ b/print/print_style.css @@ -193,3 +193,11 @@ margin-left: 40mm; display: inline-block; line-height: 0; } +.loops{ + margin-left: 25mm; +} +.loops .margin-note{ + color: green; + position: relative; +margin-left: -45mm; +} diff --git a/print/theatre.css b/print/theatre.css index ddbc850..684dae5 100644 --- a/print/theatre.css +++ b/print/theatre.css @@ -32,19 +32,6 @@ margin-left: -15mm; font-weight: inherit; } -@media print{ - @page: right{ - #section-2{ - p{ - margin-left: 25mm; - } - p:first-of-type{ - width: 95mm; - margin-left: 0; - } - } - } -} .xpub3 p{ margin-left: 25mm; }