User:Chrissy/T6 Assessment

First year

Special Issue 25

Lost in Narration

together with Alexandria, Claudio, Eleni and Kiara.

During this Special Issue I was honestly at first quite overwhelmed with possibilities given for the Special Issue event. Being part of a performance felt at first very uncomfortable, but during I started to feel a kind of togetherness with my group and the installation we build. At his point I didn't know that this will be the starting point of gaining an increasing interest of real alternative tools during my two years of XPUB. Using the python script for speech recognition and the thermal printer for printing out these outcomes were leading to my later contributions to the following Special Issues. Additionally the fact, that the installation allowed visitors to participate in the performance either by speaking in the microphone, observing and/or typing. This inviting participation of the visitors in one form or another continued in the following Special Issues, as well as the planning of the showing of my graduation project for the Grad Fest.

I also gained further knowledge in learning HTML/CSS as part of the website designs for Protocols for Collective Performance and SI#25 event website

Special Issue 26

Specific Viewer

with Kiara. Browser extension to learn and discover CSS properties Positions and Display playfully on websites.

In the second Special Issue we worked on browser extensions which also lead me to learning more HTML/CSS/JS and thinking about the process of learning itself. Working on a tool that allows you to “teach” others—even though I’m still learning myself—was a central part of my final project. Already during the process I had to accept the feeling of being unfamiliar with new tools and learning to embrace the unknown. This process showed me a way of embracing a nescience of tools and processes in order to experiment intentionally with them and not being afraid of imperfection, failure, or completeness.

super visual hyper zine

with Eleni, Kiara and Tessa. We made a collective zine with screenshots of all our browser extension experiments during prototyping class.

This project could be seen as some sort of milestone for me using Jinja and paged.js. This [use] was very helpful for my graduation projects like for one of my paged.js prototypes the internet meme zine graphic design is my pa??ion and static site generator Pelican I used for my (b)logbook.

Special Issue 27

Experimenting with the fabric of time𓂃⊹ ִֶָ

"Time perception and reception with a sensor connected to a microcontroller through GIF sequences created with ImageMagick. There are also memes."

This project sparked my general interest in diving deeper into alternative design tools like ImageMagick, a software for converting, editing and manipulating images, invoked through the terminal. I had especially an interest in designing through the terminal without any GUI software and avoiding for the first time Adobe software completely. For this project I decided on working with internet memes around the topics of labour and leisure in the form of annotation, recreating and manipulating. Through this collection of internet memes, I started already simultaneously to elaborate it with memes around labour but specialized in the field of graphic design and graphic making. This collection I later used as a centralised part of my graduation project. These topics and processes have also prompted me to further question the status quo, the norms, the tools, and the established practices of graphic design, and to adopt a process-oriented alternative approach.

Additionally to the work around ImageMagick scripts and the creation of animations I also wanted to connect the visuals with an installation in the space to create an embodied experience with interaction. By changing the distance of the animation/microcontroller (meaning closer and farther away) the animation changed accordingly its speed. This interest of transmitting an only observation to an action to the space which allows to participate and engage in the project.

I plan to continue with this general approach of offering participation in the project for the Grad Fest; see below.

Reading and Writing

To use the last sentence of my thesis to apply it to the two years in XPUB of practice and theory: "[…]constantly questioning norms, tools and established practices. I found a contrast to the exclusive interested in finished outcomes and productivity, which are typically characterising in conventional design and capitalist systems. Hence, I shifted my focus more towards actively engaging in the making process, rather than the product and embracing the unknown and unproductive detours for unusual gestures."

My reading list started in the first year of XPUB mostly with topics around visual internet aesthetics and their psychology around. I was still quite anchored in visual graphic design theory and trying to find ways to reject these. I found myself in a friction between going a complete opposite way of graphic design, since I worked and studied in that field for years, gaining increasingly disenchantment and feeling strange to it. At the same time having experience in several fields in it (work and education) and still feeling somehow attached to it. This friction lead me to ask myself questions of not just aesthetics (and later anti-design) as mode of production but also the interconnected production means of graphic designers. Although this theory of internet aesthetics reminded me eventually of internet memes, their aestheticisation, circulation and community/belonging making.

My previous art academy had a predominantly focus on practice and very(!) little on writing. This realisation I had even more while starting my first thesis draft or even already the outline and project proposal. The process was followed with lots of frustration but also reminding myself constantly about the fact of my experience and realistically accepting my possibilities. And here I am, writing a (b)logbook as my graduation. However, I want to emphasise that the process of "thought-writing" for idea-forming as in my (b)logbook helped me incredibly in documenting my practice and "discoveries" and learning what my practice actually is, where I want to go and how my perception generally changed.

Prototyping

In the beginning of the second year we should make regularly rapid prototypes. This process in general was the starting point for my online (b)logbook. I started a practice of documenting, experimenting and try outs with my Prototyping wiki page.

In the first year the write poetry generator (wiki: write_poetry) lead to a to a continuation as a prototype to my (b)logbook for generating automated Unicode patterns in the terminal. (wiki: automated_Unicode_with_python)

Thesis

graphic design is my pa??ion

Investigating alternative design tools as counterpraxis opposed to traditional graphic design, towards a process-oriented, anti-capitalist approach.

0.0 Introduction
1.0 Design and Rejection: "Good design", Exclusion, Capitalism, Education, Tools
2.0 Anti-design as counterpraxis: Radical design movement, The new ugly aesthetic, Process-based strategies
3.0 Tools while caring: Experiments, Stop normalising the grind, Encountered challenges, Implementation
4.0 Conclusion

I refer to the term “praxis” instead “practice” to emphasize the combination between theory and practice as process. In doing so, I also distinguish myself from the term practices, which is used to refer to “the repetition and improvement of skills or procedures.”

These chapters include “Design and rejection”, where I give an introduction to my experiences in the graphic design field. I examine the historical role of graphic design and its status quo within capitalism by analysing it through different perspectives. I give examples, how the software company Adobe is dominating the creative industry.

The second chapter “Anti-design as counterpraxis” gives an introduction to the radical design movement and their ideas about anti-design as reaction against “good design” and the industry norm within its later misuses. I attempt to compare it with process-based strategies and possible implications to counterpraxis.

The last chapter “Tools while caring” reflects on my selected counter-tools which give alternative approaches to proprietary software in their utilisation, appropriation, ethos and limits.

Final work

counter-tools.xyz

counter-tools.xyz is a (b)logbook on alternative graphic design tools as counterpraxis opposed to proprietary software, towards a process-oriented, anti-capitalist approach. It is fed by memes generated using these counter-tools in response to heartbroken practices in graphic design.

Almost every week I worked on another rapid prototype in the hope it would lead me to an idea of the graduation project. Therefor I started a Prototype wiki page with my try-outs and used it as a base for documenting/logging experiments. Since I worked with ImageMagick in the previous Special Issue I wanted to play around with other alternative tools as well. I discovered and utilised several generative/algorithmic tools, software and engines for generating graphics, design, layouts and paged publications. I knew that the counter-tools I am looking for have to be non-proprietary and relatively accessible due my very little experience in programming. During this documenting process through my wiki page I made friends with the idea of using this very documentation practice on different tools and engines as my graduation project. Quite early my intention was not to learn a specific tool deeply, rather overview several in different areas and gain an overall understanding of possibilities and approachability and make comparisons.

During the thesis writing I discovered the radical design movement and their ideas about anti-design, which started in the 1960s in post-war Italy also known as controdesign or counter-design. Counter described as something with an opposing reaction, opinion or action (Cambridge Dictionary, 2022) or towards a different direction, result or effect (Merriam-Webster). Out of this research I referred to these alternative tools as counter-tools, given that they stand in contradictory to usual graphic design production means, which today are generally limited to proprietary software like Adobe.

A logbook is for me a loose container of different forms of documenting or logging processes. The entries could reach from ideas, notes, observations, frustrations to summaries and more in-depth explanations (also for myself to come back to it later). It is also often used to record states, events, or conditions. Nevertheless, it needed to be looser and I wanted to avoid a feeling of (linear) "tracking" and determine somehow "productivity" between time spans of entries. It shouldn't show any records of "getting better", rather unfold a journey. Additionally, blogging in general can have a big political and social impact, providing information and opinions by real people. It also helps me personally with handling every entry more "on the spot" as a process-based approach.

The (b)logbook currently contains ~32 entries distributed in the categories "hydra", "ImageMagick", "NumPy", "p5.js", "paged.js", "runal", "rune", "weasyprint" and "Other". I decided to sort my experiments to their worked with engine for easier location. The website also contains an "about" section and a list of all the entries, as well a tags list.

The entries are written in markdown and generated to a static site with Pelican and Jinja templates for site themes. They follow different structures intentionally, because I didn't want to determine one for different approaches and outcomes. The first entries show mostly first encounters with the tools, installing instructions and documentation pages. Later entries follow often more specific plans and throughout the process I also logged my workarounds with for example the thermal printer. Some entries include the entire scripts and others are more blog-like with my thought-processes.

Every entry includes tags, which are summarised and accessible in the tags list. This list allows a good overview on different methods, processes, practices, coding languages and terms.

meme pile

Part of the (b)logbook is an online meme pile, which is currently published as a static page. This collection of internet memes on the topic of graphic design, I collected during the last Special Issue and my graduation. This logbook therefore contains both my observations on the counter-tools including the graphic design discourse through memes. With this approach I found a way to connect my praxis with my research in a low-key manner. With this mode of production I re-generate, annotated and overlay these memes and incorporate my counter-tools.

This collection is sorted into the sections "proprietary tools", "counter-tools", "capitalism", "pa??ion", "caring" and "labour". Additionally an about section which explains my the usage of these internet meme in general.

Circulating counter-tools.xyz

I went to several bath rooms in the WdkA building and Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam (bathrooms on the list: freelance cafès, HKU University of Arts Utrecht) to stick thermal prints of memes made with my counter-tools in the booths. The print includes a dithered and generated meme with one of my counter-tools and the additional information at the bottom of the print as text: "made with XYZ -> counter-tools.xyz, alternative design tools (b)logbook (f*ck adobe)"

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Plans for Grad Fest

For the grad fest meme pile I created (with lots of help!) a flask application which allows uploading memes (or images in general) to the meme collection. The uploaded memes are displayed in the whole pile and as well in a designated "uploads" section.

After an image is submitted to the meme stack, it is dithered and compressed using an ImageMagick script so that it can be printed on the thermal printer. The printed meme can be stuck in-space somewhere at the space at Agnes during the Grad Fest or spread somewhere else. I had an interest in spreading the medium internet meme in the offline public space, in opposite to its usual circulation mode. This method allows easy circulation and reproduction, since the memes are getting fast and simple printed on a receipt. I disseminate therefore my (b)logbook, the meme collection as well as the used open source and F/LOSS counter-tools.

Additionally I wrote a script, which allows to print one meme of the collection randomly, which could be executed by a button pressing connected to an Arduino board.

This idea of memetics (units of cultural meaning of information, which spreads between humans) often referred to cultural genes I want to activate by letting visitors upload and print a chosen (or random) meme and either contribute to the space or spread somewhere else. With that I hope to spark interest with discovering the memes around the space and an aspect of sharing and discourse.

Next to the thermal printer will be a metal grid with attached printed out entries of my (b)logbook as zines to connect them to the receipts, internet memes and space. This metal grid also includes information of the project, the meme pile and the upload function for the thermal printer.

The online (b)logbook itself will be presented on a shared screen/computer with Charlie, Eleni, Sevgi, and Tessa.

After the Grad Fest I want to compile and bind all the remaining thermal prints into a simple publication. Like internet memes, this publication will have an expiration date, since thermal prints last for about 5–8 years.