User:C3/XPUB2/Project proposal 3

6. Relation to previous practice

SI26 3DS zine

#repurposing #old-devices #tactics #strategies #media-archeology #occupy

During SI26 we explored web-making as a craft (by working with html and css) and media archeology (by working with HPGL, Postscript, pen plotters and dot matrix printers). Together with Charlie, Tessa and Eleni we overlapped these two topics for the SI project by focusing on a forgotten device from our past, the nintendo 3DS. We made a work on it by taking advantage of some outdated web-standards to show/hide information from other devices, making our publication/puzzle/game solvable only through the use of the nintendo 3DS (important: we did not rely on emulation for the realization of the project, we just used simple HTML, CSS and vanilla JS). It was a project about working within the limits, by doing so we wanted to show people that the devices that are catching dust at the corners of our lives are potentially interesting to engage with. The making of this work was a whole learning process. We had to engage with both hardware and software, we went trough a lot of trail and error that culminated in a collection of strategies we wrote to make what we had in mind visible on the 3ds, but not on any other device.

Looking back I think that the most important part was the process of discovering and making of these strategies. We partially documented it on the wiki, but I think that I wanted to show and share our small actions that lead us to make this project, something that got lost in the final project. In relation to my current interests, the sharing and distribution questions remained opened from that time, I see the cheatsheets as a potential method that I want to use to try to tackle this two unresolved topics.

SI27 Terms of servers

#read-write-execute #servers #terminal #distribution

Terms Of Servers is a terminal based publication that runs on a temporary, communal server called cerealbox (I worked with Kim on this project). Working with the server for the first year of our studies evoked questions of its materiality and reliability. We wrote a script that cycles through a text we wrote together over time reflecting on these two topics. Each section of the text was intermitted by some live commands that we used to ask simple questions back at the server, showing and commenting on the results (lshw, ping, uptime). What we did not have time to solve is the way we could distribute our work, as the terminal is our main mode of interfacing with the server, we were wondering what would it mean to occupy this technical space to distribute our writing work (that is not just text it included some live commands).

Tic-tac-toernament

A project I started last year, it is a text based (terminal) 1v1 tic tac toe program that would print the board, the moves, a generated commentary and a leaderboard on wither a dot matrix printer or a receipt printer. I was inspired by the famous work of art PenSnake by Joseph, I wanted to make a game with the dot matrix and receipt printers that could then be used for a printer/plotter gaming exhibition, to explore the notion of a what is a game through the repurpose of old technology.

The work is still in progress, what I was interested in was the possibility to print the history of multiple matches, playing with some simple text formatting, collecting usernames, commentary and messages left on the scoreboard.

7. Relation to a larger context

howspot by Doriane Timmermans

"The Skill Issue, or: How I Learned I Could Learn, and So Can You!" (video essay)

Speedrunning

If you can cheat at something it means that there are some rules in place, and that there is a "proper" preferred way to do something. By cheating at those rules you can show that alternatives exist.

This reminds me of the online speedrunning community, various groups of people that gather around ways of completing a game as fast as possible.

This is made possible by discovering and sharing tactics and glitches that allow to jump around entire sections of a videogame (or skipping them entirely), breaking the overall programmed linearity/order/structure of the software (ex. by accomplishing some actions before the time they are supposed to happen).

Generally speaking this is a form of competition, ultimately people aim to break or keep their own records, but what I find interesting is that this process revolves around cheating and sharing cheats(methods) for others to see and replicate.

User:Imre/Creation Relations Workshop

Imre (current XPUB2) had a workshop during the prototyping sessions where we all explored the relationship between creation (object, etc.) and creator by writing letters from the point of view of either these two figures, I have to say that it was very compelling and inspirational to lean more towards social activities with physical objects.

8. References/bibliography

wizard zines

analognowhere comics

Simple Sabotage

Advice well taken, Dasha Ilina