User:Daanprincen/T2 Assessment

( How did I end up here? )

When walking into the house of XPUB, I knew it was a warm place. With a sweet but awkward introduction weeks. After quite long and slow summer break I didn't know what to expect at all. The jargon that was circling around my head was noticed and thought over, while meanings didn't enter my consciousness. When I brought an old Sonos speaker to the studio that I wanted to take apart because the software didn't work the first people I bumped into were Tommi and Fred Wordie, the first one saying "AAH Fucking proprietary bullshit that is!" the latter suggesting me to find an alternative API on Github because "some dude probably made you an updated version". I didn't know what anything of that was and told myself I had a long way to go.

Coming from fine art, I was so bored with everyone selling their ego's while all practices started to look more and more the same, I started looking for alternatives. Places that would actually spark my creative and critical receptors. XPUB quickly became the best option. Alternative ways of making. A place to experiment with a wide variety of technologies. Perfect!

Special Issue 28

Quickly into SI28, due to all the topics that Steve brought up on his Mondays and the texts Marloes gave us to read, I had gotten much inspired to work with writing machines. To make writing machines, to explore what are the writing machines we have present in this room. And what can they do? How do they function? Ema showed us a video in class of a musician/composer who wrote and performed a piece where a typewriter was used as the conductor and a percussive instrument in an orchestra. Robin and I gathered around him and a whole set of possible ideas opened up in front of our eyes. Enthusiastic as we were, we directly proposed each other to work on a collective performance that somehow needed to include a typewriter and a printer.

... and so the start of Writing Machine Ensemble...

• Writing Machine Ensemble

The prototyping session where Manetta and Thijs showed us how to interact with the DotMatrix was another eye-opener, and a secret audition for Dottie as a beautiful noisemaker to become part of this performance. To be honest, I directly forgot how we were to interact with Dottie. But while Robin and Ema were figuring out technicalities of the printer, we had lots of beautiful conversations on how this printer needs a lot of care and attention in order to present our performance. Being introduced to the term 'cognitive assemblage' and 'cognitive agents', we came to understand that these terms were directly applicable to our project. We couldn't just extract from the object, the object needed maintenance and a need for us to speak it's language.

Robin and Ema wrote scores which they then printed out to see if it would get a rhythm going. And repeating this process until the week before the performance. I was focusing a lot on idealizing the stage set-up, how to place microphones, using the mixer and the physical aspect of the performance. Also I did a lot of planning, note-taking and organizing practice and rehearsing to see if we were all on the same page. After all the projects was a great ride and we all really enjoyed performing it at WORM!

Radio Shows I worked on

• Radio Worm Week 2

I happen to love making radio, cooking up something live in a room together. As the producer I joined a group with Tommi, Barbs and Kiki where I did most of the mixing and blending in everyone's audio fragments to a cohesive mixture. I underestimated the planning for a show like this. Especially when wanting to blend in spoken parts, discussions, together with music and samples of spoken pieces. Stress was sometimes high, it seemed like we were all on a different level. This showed me that it's quite good to come up with a clear protocol of what's gonna happen and a steady schedule. Also not trying to weave too much content, it takes away from the flexibility you have in these live moments.

• Radio Worm Week5

The cutup technique by dadaist Tzara and writer Burroughs that Steve constantly referred to, in combination with a John Cage's "Radio Music", made me want to experiment with extensive layering of samples, channels moving and out of the mix, finding rhythms and polyphonic moments. An improvisation live set with a maximalist approach. Luca, Lea, Tommi, Ema and Robin joined and we flood the WORM studio like it was our office space for this day. During the hour we got on a collective high where we were jamming with livecoding on Strudl, typewriters, cassettedecks, vinyl, cd's, usb's, microphones and mixers. I'm glad we had gotten this moment of free experimentation in which we stayed silent to tap into each others thoughts.

• Radio Worm/Week6

Week 6 of the radio show was a very impulsive and unplanned one. Nobody stood up to make an actual show, I think because everybody was too busy with finalizing their projects for the event at WORM, so I suggested to just play some music and promote the event. After all, we dee-jayed collectively. I showed Lea how to do the basics of beat matching and all the buttons of a Pioneer set. It was good to let go of the tension around the projects and planning the event, just to smile together in the booth.

Weasyprint and HTML/CSS basics

Exploring and beginning to understand webpages more and more. Trying out my first bits and pieces of HTML and CSS, got introduced to it in class when we discussed during Prototyping with Manetta what form our publication could take on. Then Robin self-hosted a workshop on HTML/CSS in the Aquarium, in which I learned most of the basic of setting up files for a webpage. Later on in SI28 I committed to the collective publication with two webpages for radio shows Week 2 and Week 6, doing web-to-print with Weasyprint. This helped me a lot in thinking how to design outside of licensed software like the Creative Cloud.

...meanwhile...

Life was being hectic during the transition of the trimesters. I broke up with my ex and this meant moving out of my old home. Quickly trying to find a new home and an atelier for all of my artworks. I managed to do this is in the beginning of SI29, moving into a new home the beginning of February and found an atelier a a few weeks later! But moving while mourning over the end of a relationship was very hard. Also while being in therapy and trying to get my driving license. It all became a bit too much and I was wondering if I shouldn't put studying at XPUB on hold. But I wanted to continue! And I did. Due to all the loving people around me and my sweet dog I found the strength to pull through. Though it did cause me to not very productive this trimester, which I find very hard to accept.

Special Issue 29

The subjects of SI29 were very intriguing, so playful and calling for collaboration. Both gossiping and file sharing need to have some form of collective to take their form and this made me excited to conjure up some concepts to work in. While the Monday's with Doriane were very packed, they inspired me a lot to implement the knowledge in coming projects.

Echt Nep?! A workshop on identifying AI generated images

• Spotting AI Workshop: Echt Nep?! w/ Lea and Ema
• Preparation of the workshop

Hosting a workshop was an amazing thing to do. Even the most straightforward topics or workshop where there isn't necessarily a tangible skill being taught can be very helpful and powerful. So instead of hard skills, maybe we were teaching soft skills. The interest in wanting to identify AI images came from the anecdote of Lea her dad sending her happy new year wishes within a weird AI generated video which showed incoherent contexts all together. It made Lea feel alienated, not quite a feeling you'd like to get with happy new year wishes. I had felt the same thing many times before, so I kinda jumped in and proposed to do a workshop on the topic. We saw there were so many anxious moments where you and I are unsure if it's generated or not, so the urgency became bigger and bigger.

MIDI sharing and shadowshares

• MIDI Sharing & shadowshares w/ Valentin

Valentin and I were both mesmerized at the same time by our MIDI-consoles (Roland SP404 MKII and Korg Monologue). So we saw this as a perfect file format to start our file sharing in. What would be cool ways to share MIDI-files? We asked ourselves.. I believe Valentin said as a short comment: "We can leave them in DJ-sets!" and since I directly flashbacked to when I always used to forget my USB after a dj-gig, I directly fell in love with the idea of sharing it like that. It could such a mysterious, fun and also subversive project. So we went for it! And I could directly put it to fruition because had to play at WORM that weekend.

Later on we started working on all kinds of MIDI based prototypes. We made a writing machine with MIDI-controllers and TouchDesigner. We tried connecting MIDI devices to the internet so you could jam online. This one was we spent way too long on, so we derived a bit too far off the sharing of MIDI-files. Then we asked Manetta for help and kind of went back to the core of the idea. So we tried out many small ways to share MIDI-files. We didn't conclude to much in the end. But I think there is some interesting ideas to work with in the future. Like writing letters to each other in MIDI, providing emotional outputs textually and auditory. Also I hope shadowshares will be a longer lasting project that could lead to much gossip in the Rotterdam (or even European) music scene.

A collection of webpage sketches...

Doriane as a tutor really showed me to stay true to yourself. To organize yourself and she kept saying not to romanticize complexity. Which gave me a lot of strength to position myself in the through and to validate the things that I was working on. For example in the workshop that I hosted with Lea and Ema we mostly focused on the contents of AI generated images and getting a little community together to discuss on this topic. There wasn't coding involved, or heavy programming. Just a lot of planning and having to be in good communication with venues. Also during the workshop we were mostly analyzing images by annotating them and by holding in depth discussion on the images we had gotten to constructive answers.

XTRAXPUBERRIAL

Always making sounds, good, bad, ethereal, experimental, detuned, vocal, repetitive, stretched, disruptive, hard, noisey.

XPUB opened up chances to experiment live at WORM's 25Hour Radio Relay . Me and my brother Mees, who was finishing a creative writing course during this time, started working on a project tapping into the historical and contemporary lore of our birthplace Oss. It revolves around the crimes committed and absurd situations taking place in the small industrial city. He wrote several short pieces of fiction injected with true stories which occurred in the last few years. I responded to this with a dive into footage that speaks on the inherited crimelives of inhabitants of Oss. Samples of sociologists, historians, documentary filmmakers and everyday people of Oss sharing their experiences and findings on the matter.

Excerpt from live performance at 25HR Radio Relay - at about 06:18 in the morning.

Excerpt from live performance at 25HR Radio Relay - at about 06:32 in the morning.

application onderdebladeren for popronde 2026

Reflection

What did I learn?

Collaboration is a key element in an art practice. It takes time, courage and structure to make it work. I truly committed to these tasks. Although it was hard and there is sometimes this longing to ride solo, it's best to pressure yourself less and stay onboard to try and overcome difficulties, so you can become better of them and conclude the project wholeheartedly with and outcome that mostly unthinkable if you would've done it alone.

Basics of HTML/CSS!

Notetaking! I found it super hard to listen and take notes at the same time. But I saw how useful it was to document tutoring moments and projects. I practiced a lot during class and I feel I've gotten a lot better at it compared to beginning of the schoolyear.

Time management and caring for myself in busy/hard times. It took some strength to say no sometimes or not give in to FOMO. The energy wasn't always there, and therefore I'm happy I didn't force myself to much.

What could I've done better?

Trying out things you think are not suitable for you or you think you won't be able to do. I shied away from a lot of the technical stuff when it came to implementing them in my own projects. Getting tired quickly and not knowing where to start. While if I would ask someone to help me or look for proper documentation, I could probably get quite far. I'd like to give myself less strictness and more room to fail in the future, hopefully then I can learn new tools in a more constructive way.

Annotate more of my readings. Start earlier with reading certain texts. I take a long time to read extensive texts, but I want to be involved and form opinions about it. When there's more time I have time to read it well but also annotate more comprehensible thoughts.

Ideas for future projects/research

• (New) Graffiti database - possibly including map that locates tags/pieces.
• Situating myself in Rotterdam - communities of Rotterdam, why Rotterdam? What does the city carry that makes me and others want to be here?
• webpage with all maps of Rotterdam
• KLIKO zine - tracing the city in it's trash
• I want to start making own VST's.
• Using raspberri pi's for electronic music instruments