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.
### A Prototype for Interactive Children's Literature
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.
<liclass="toc-title"><ahref="#section-9">What do graphic designers do all day and why do they do it and what does “graphic design” even mean?!????!!1!?</a></li>
<liclass="toc-title"><ahref="#section-8">What do graphic designers do all day and why do they do it and what does “graphic design” even mean?!????!!1!?</a></li>
do graphic designers do all day and why do they do it and what does
“graphic design” even mean?!????!!1!?</h1>
<figure>
<imgsrc="../stephen/its-ok.jpg"
<imgsrc="../images/../stephen/its-ok.jpg"
alt="Custom keyboard mapping for efficient design practice." />
<figcaptionaria-hidden="true">Custom keyboard mapping for efficient
design practice.</figcaption>
@ -2556,7 +2557,7 @@ I was thinking about you and I was in the same place as a friend of mine
and I was in the studio and we were in the studio and we were in the
studio and we were in the studio and we were in the</p>
<figure>
<imgsrc="../stephen/keylogger.jpeg"
<imgsrc="../images/../stephen/keylogger.jpeg"
alt="Keylogging research. I recorded the buttons a graphic designer (me) presses while working, as an autoethnographic research method into what exactly it is that designers do. To celebrate this labour, I then used a pen plotter to make a series of posters. Three minutes of the designers keypresses took about eight hours to plot. October 24th 2023." />
<figcaptionaria-hidden="true">Keylogging research. I recorded the
buttons a graphic designer (me) presses while working, as an
@ -2572,7 +2573,7 @@ how designers spend their time in everyday life, this designer, me, as
well as you, what are we doing? What are our worldviews, belief systems,
mythologies and ideologies?</p>
<figure>
<imgsrc="../stephen/email.jpg"
<imgsrc="../images/../stephen/email.jpg"
alt="Email answering performance using Google’s Gmail service. To reveal the work of the designer clearly, I performed the designer’s task of answering email in front of an audience. Due to the performance happening at 7pm, out of office hours, there was extensive use of the Scheduled Email feature. Some stories emerged about our precarity including overdue rent and invalid payment information for Adobe Creative Cloud subscriptions. Leeszaal, Rotterdam, November 7th 2023." />
<figcaptionaria-hidden="true">Email answering performance using
Google’s Gmail service. To reveal the work of the designer clearly, I
@ -2584,7 +2585,7 @@ information for Adobe Creative Cloud subscriptions. Leeszaal, Rotterdam,
November 7th 2023.</figcaption>
</figure>
<figure>
<imgsrc="../stephen/laziness.jpg"
<imgsrc="../images/../stephen/laziness.jpg"
alt="A performative tool that measures the laziness of the designer as they work and graphs it on a pen plotter. The less the designer uses the mouse, the longer a line the pen plotter draws, it creates a record of the tiny moments between the work." />
<figcaptionaria-hidden="true">A performative tool that measures the
laziness of the designer as they work and graphs it on a pen plotter.
@ -2600,7 +2601,7 @@ true to who I am.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Excerpt from xpub application letter, March 15th 2022.</p>
<figure>
<imgsrc="../stephen/peecee.jpg"
<imgsrc="../images/../stephen/peecee.jpg"
alt="Re-enacting dreams about work at Piet Zwart Institute, Rotterdam, Netherlands. Participants use felt dolls to tell stories of our dreams on the small and squishy stage. We’re trying to balance design labour with other labour like making food for our loved ones, we can’t stop brushing our teeth, brushing, brushing, brushing. February 5th 2024." />
<figcaptionaria-hidden="true">Re-enacting dreams about work at Piet
Zwart Institute, Rotterdam, Netherlands. Participants use felt dolls to
alt="Collective dream re-enactment at Art Meets Radical Openness, Linz, Austria. Inside a tent, a group of people perform eachother’s dreams about work and discuss and analyse them together. We feel like impostors, we don’t know how to work these machines, we’re going to crash. March 11th 2024." />
<figcaptionaria-hidden="true">Collective dream re-enactment at Art
Meets Radical Openness, Linz, Austria. Inside a tent, a group of people
@ -2619,11 +2620,11 @@ together. We feel like impostors, we don’t know how to work these
machines, we’re going to crash. March 11th 2024.</figcaption>
</figure>
<figure>
<imgsrc="../stephen/dizzy.jpeg" alt="Where do dreams come from?"/>
<imgsrc="../images/../stephen/dizzy.jpeg" alt="Where do dreams come from?"/>
<figcaptionaria-hidden="true">Where do dreams come from?</figcaption>
</figure>
<figure>
<imgsrc="../stephen/form.png"
<imgsrc="../images/../stephen/form.png"
alt="do you ever dream about work? Online research and publication where we shared our dreams, worries, rants, designs. The answers to the question are published together as a collection of voices." />
<figcaptionaria-hidden="true">do you ever dream about work? Online
research and publication where we shared our dreams, worries, rants,
@ -2631,7 +2632,7 @@ designs. The answers to the question are published together as a
collection of voices.</figcaption>
</figure>
<figure>
<imgsrc="../stephen/wood-keyboard.jpeg"
<imgsrc="../images/../stephen/wood-keyboard.jpeg"
alt="Keyboard of things designers have said. Our feelings about work." />
<figcaptionaria-hidden="true">Keyboard of things designers have said.
Our feelings about work.</figcaption>
@ -3034,8 +3035,8 @@ I made this to explore why designers make design, based on Clifford Geertz's ide
@ -3058,25 +3059,25 @@ 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).</p>
<figure>
<imgsrc="./images/orange.jpg" style="margin-top: 95mm; width: 40mm;"alt="The Cadaster of Orange, unknown ⊞er, c. 100 CE."/>
<imgsrc="../images/orange.jpg" style="margin-top: 95mm; width: 40mm;"alt="The Cadaster of Orange, unknown ⊞er, c. 100 CE."/>
<figcaptionaria-hidden="true">
The Cadaster of Orange,<br/> unknown ⊞er, c.100 CE.
</figcaption>
</figure>
<figure>
<imgsrc="./images/Niggli-Grid-systems-in-graphic-design-7.jpg" style="margin-top: 95mm"alt="Grid Systems in Graphic ⊞, Josef Muller-Brockmann, 1981."/>
<imgsrc="../images/Niggli-Grid-systems-in-graphic-design-7.jpg" style="margin-top: 95mm"alt="Grid Systems in Graphic ⊞, Josef Muller-Brockmann, 1981."/>
<figcaptionaria-hidden="true">
Grid Systems in Graphic ⊞, Josef Muller-Brockmann, 1981.
</figcaption>
</figure>
<figure>
<imgsrc="./images/albuni2.jpg"
<imgsrc="../images/./images/albuni2.jpg"
alt="Shams al-Ma’arif, Ahmad al-Buni Almalki, circa 1200." />
<figcaptionaria-hidden="true">Shams al-Ma’arif, Ahmad al-Buni Almalki,
overwriting, printing, and scanning. It was magical having an object in
the end. A whole book was made by all of us that evening. Stations,
machines, a cloud of cards, a sleeve that warms up THE BOOK.</p>
<p><imgsrc="pruning.jpg"
<p><imgsrc="../images/pruning.jpg"
alt="Irmak’s and Aglaia’s Pruning station, where people edited punctuation and text, scanned it then printed it with a dot matrix." />
<imgsrc="card-cloud-leeszaal.jpg"
<imgsrc="../images/card-cloud-leeszaal.jpg"
alt="Cloud of cards with instructions to be performed on the books" />
<imgsrc="final-book.jpg"
<imgsrc="../images/final-book.jpg"
alt="The final book produced that evening, the cover was made from hand-stiched covers of discarded books." />
<imgsrc="mint-scan.jpg"
<imgsrc="../images/mint-scan.jpg"
alt="Page of the final book containing scans of the edited book, an instruction card, a pen-plotted bookmark with a quote from the book and a sprig of mint." />
<imgsrc="drawn-book.jpg"
<imgsrc="../images/drawn-book.jpg"
alt="Page of the final book containing scans of a drawn on book, an instruction card and a pen-plotted bookmark with a quote from the book." />
<imgsrc="hand-scan.jpg"
<imgsrc="../images/hand-scan.jpg"
alt="Page of the final book containing scans of edited books, a hand and coins." />
<imgsrc="second-edition-open.jpg"
<imgsrc="../images/second-edition-open.jpg"
alt="Page of the second edition, containing scans of edited books and instruction cards." />
<imgsrc="second-edition.jpg"
<imgsrc="../images/second-edition.jpg"
alt="The second edition of the final book from the event." /> <img
src="people-bins.jpg"
alt="People choosing books from the discarded books bins, behind the instructions cards cloud." />
<imgsrc="editing.jpg"
<imgsrc="../images/editing.jpg"
alt="Part of the Pruning process, the editing of a book page." /> <img
src="open-bin.jpg" alt="Bin of discarded books from Leeszal." /> <img
src="binding.jpg"
@ -4080,8 +4081,8 @@ alt="The binding of the scans into the final book at the end of the evening." />
<!-- <section class="header-page" id="">
<h1></h1>
<!-- <section class="header-page" id="TTY">
<h1>Console</h1>
</section> -->
<sectionid="section-12"class="section">
<h1id="console-special-issue-xx">Console: Special Issue XX</h1>
@ -4106,36 +4107,34 @@ the role of ideology and social reproduction. We reinterpreted bits of
the world and created stories from it (modding, fiction, narrative)
focusing on community, interaction, relationships, grief and
alt="Screenprinted book cover of the Console Booklet, from The Upside Down Oracolotto card." />
<imgsrc="cara-ritual.jpg"
<imgsrc="../images/cara-ritual.jpg"
alt="Nighttime Ritual: Guided meditation from cardboardlamb" /> <img
src="youtube-tarot.jpg"
alt="Imagined tarot cards based on YouTube comments" /> <img
src="federici.jpg"
alt="Laser engraved quote from Silvia Federici, Love is the great magician, the demon that unites earth and sky and makes humans so round, so whole in their being, that once united they cannot be defeated." />
<imgsrc="console-open.jpg"
<imgsrc="../images/console-open.jpg"
alt="Console box with Fiction Friction, Oracolotto, the Wheel of Fortune, a Worry Doll, tea and a tealight." />
<imgsrc="console-front.jpg"
<imgsrc="../images/console-front.jpg"
alt="Screenprinted cover of the Console box." /> <img
src="license-reading.jpg"
alt="SIXX Licence reading ceremony at Page Not Found. The copyleft licence for this object included (in additional permission 4b) a term specifying the ritual absorption of intellectual property." />
<imgsrc="fiction-friction.jpg"
<imgsrc="../images/fiction-friction.jpg"
alt="Fiction Friction gameplay during the launch at Page Not Found." />
<p>z— title: tty special issue 21 author: Stephen</p>
<hr/>
<h1id="tty-special-issue-21">TTY: Special Issue 21</h1>
<p>why shd it only make use of the tips of the fingers as contact points
of flowing multi directional creativity. If I invented a word placing
@ -4197,30 +4196,30 @@ otherwise technical progress and computational genealogies.</p>
editor Martino Morandi, and contributors Andrea di Serego Alighieri,
Femke Snelting, Isabelle Sully, Jara Rocha, Roel Roscam Abbing, and
Zoumana Meïté.</p>
<p><imgsrc="imagename.png"
<p><imgsrc="../images/imagename.png"
alt="An inscription performance using the TeleType Model 33 and a 40m stairwell." />
<imgsrc="imagename.png"
<imgsrc="../images/imagename.png"
alt="A reading and writing of poetry using pedestrians and vinyl quotes." />
<imgsrc="imagename.png"
<imgsrc="../images/imagename.png"
alt="Gesture Glossary (screenshot or gif? maybe several): how a body language is documented, how it expands, how it is capable of creating or enhancing identities." />
<imgsrc="imagename.png" alt="It would have been better to fuck."/>
<imgsrc="imagename.png" alt="maybe an image at the telecom museum"/>
<imgsrc="imagename.png"
<imgsrc="../images/imagename.png" alt="It would have been better to fuck."/>
<imgsrc="../images/imagename.png" alt="maybe an image at the telecom museum"/>
<imgsrc="../images/imagename.png"
alt="Wiki strike screenshot: embedding hidden comments in a wiki to highlight the invisible labour, to provide comprehensive details about our intentions and the underlying ideas while maintaining the wiki’s regular functionality." />
<imgsrc="imagename.png"
<imgsrc="../images/imagename.png"
alt="Hey Babe arduino based telephone experience. Callers can listen to love stories, excerpts from conversations at the Houweling Telecom Museum, Rotterdam, parts from the documentary The Phantom of the Operator and a collective reading experience on binary systems, time, worms and pebbles." />
<imgsrc="imagename.png"
<imgsrc="../images/imagename.png"
alt="I’ve fallen in love with you and I have no idea what to do about it. Phone cards inviting participation in “Hey Babe”. Someone holding it in the street?" />
<imgsrc="imagename.png"
<imgsrc="../images/imagename.png"
alt="Encoding Convertor: the wacky world of character en-coding." /></p>
<p><imgsrc="imagename.png"
<p><imgsrc="../images/imagename.png"
alt="Overlap screenshot (or is there an image from when we were working on it in the MD room?) We have a bag full of planets, stars, our favorite moments, darkest fears, best intentions and worst feelings. Our bag is now in the middle, its ready for you to discover and see the networks of our minds, make knots in the middle or intervene with what we call is a collective memory of few xpubbers." />
<imgsrc="imagename.png"
<imgsrc="../images/imagename.png"
alt="Hexalogue booklet. A conversation for six voices is encoded and documented in a script." />
<imgsrc="imagename.png"
<imgsrc="../images/imagename.png"
alt="Hexalogue reading in Constant, Brussels." /> <img
Special Issues are publications thrice released by first-year XPUB Master's students. Each edition focuses on a specific theme or issue. The themes tie to external events and collaborations. Students and staff work together to explore these themes, rethinking what a publication can be. Each edition culminates in a celebratory release party.The structure, tools, and workflows are reset every trimester. This reset allows roles to rotate among participants and fosters an adapting learning environment. It provides a space to experiment beyond traditional collaborative methods.
Our inaugural Special Issue was number 19, in collaboration with Simon Browne. Garden Leeszaal was a snapshot of Leeszaal Library through the metaphor of gardening. During the release, we invited participants to engage with the library's discarded books. We pruned, gleaned, and grafted the books using pens, pen-plotters, scissors, and glue. Then we harvested a book of our collective work. Garden Leeszaal was an open dialogue. It was a tool for collective writing, a group-made collage, and an archive. For us, being a gardener meant caring for the people and books that formed the library.
The following Special Issue was number 20, assisted by Lìdia Pereira and Artemis Gryllaki. Console was 20 hand-made wooden boxes. It was an oracle and an emotional first aid kit to help you help yourself. It invites you to delve into its contents to discover healing methods. Console offers refuge for dreams, memories, and worries. It guides you to face the past. You will then meet your fortune and gain a new view through rituals and practices. It prompts everyday questions with magical answers, asking: Are you ready to play?
@ -53,12 +58,12 @@ want to break it. Removing the label is part of loosening the object,
making it avilable to transition (Berlant, 2022).
<figure>
<imgsrc="./images/orange.jpg" style="margin-top: 95mm; width: 40mm;"alt="The Cadaster of Orange, unknown ⊞er, c. 100 CE."/><figcaptionaria-hidden="true">The Cadaster of Orange,<br/>
<imgsrc="orange.jpg" style="margin-top: 95mm; width: 40mm;"alt="The Cadaster of Orange, unknown ⊞er, c. 100 CE."/><figcaptionaria-hidden="true">The Cadaster of Orange,<br/>
unknown ⊞er, c. 100 CE.</figcaption>
</figure>
<figure>
<imgsrc="./images/Niggli-Grid-systems-in-graphic-design-7.jpg" style="margin-top: 95mm"alt="Grid Systems in Graphic ⊞, Josef Muller-Brockmann, 1981."/><figcaptionaria-hidden="true">Grid Systems in Graphic ⊞, Josef Muller-Brockmann, 1981.</figcaption>
<imgsrc="Niggli-Grid-systems-in-graphic-design-7.jpg" style="margin-top: 95mm"alt="Grid Systems in Graphic ⊞, Josef Muller-Brockmann, 1981."/><figcaptionaria-hidden="true">Grid Systems in Graphic ⊞, Josef Muller-Brockmann, 1981.</figcaption>
<imgsrc="./images/po-valley2.png" style="margin-top: 95mm;"alt="The Po Valley, The Roman Empire, 268 BCE."/><figcaptionaria-hidden="true">The Po Valley, The Roman Empire, 268 BCE.</figcaption>
<imgsrc="po-valley2.png" style="margin-top: 95mm;"alt="The Po Valley, The Roman Empire, 268 BCE."/><figcaptionaria-hidden="true">The Po Valley, The Roman Empire, 268 BCE.</figcaption>
</figure>
Stephen Kerr
6 months ago