User:Vitrinekast/Final presentation

If I would sum up XPUB in terms of Y1 and Y2, it would be that Y1 has been a lot about exploring the technologies and methodologies that revolve around XPUB (that resonated) and working with alternative ways of prototyping through collaboration. This, at times, created resentment on my side, as I felt like I had been prototyping for years already. At times, to me, prototyping is a method of making without committing, an excuse to leave the lorem ipsum. *  

Hence the excitement during Y2. Sometimes still resentment (PMOMM's), but overall challenging and very insightful. Committing to a long-term research using the methods & technologies introduced in Y1. And also, looking forward/moving outside of the academy, where collaboration turned into community.

Y1 Prototypes & contributions to the special issue

Year 1's special issues and things that did not make it to a special issue

Servers, Games, Workshops, Printers, Smaller experiments

Exploring servers trough their logs

Experiments with penplotters and server logs. This script draws a rectangle (almost) every time a GET request is done to the server.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to an Active Archive

Choose-Your-Own-Adventure style radio program with Anita and Thijs, performed live at Radio worm. Complete with audience participation and infinite loops. Amazing to see how much we could create in such a short time.

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  Visual promo for the show

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  Instances of Performer, Navigator and Protocoller about to get WORMHOLEd

TL'DR with Senka and Thijs

part of SI23

Continuation of the deep dive into server logs: How to change the reading experience. In TL'DR a server maintainer can read annotated logs via an E-reader. Which users were created? What packages are outdated?

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  TL;DR Special Issue launch. Photo by Thijs.

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  The shelf infrastructure with chopchop and the e-reader. Photo taken by Thijs.

Hosting and attending workshops

Hosted and participated in workshops around permacomputing, circuit bending and soldering. What initially started as a fantastic format now leaves me with questions. How to get rid of the tutor-student hierarchy in a workshop? How to trigger meaningful conversation? How to deal with the waste?

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  Workshop at GR

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  Hacked printer during the fiber workshop

Printer Jam

Together with Riviera, I worked on a performance with printers and live coding. Using the OSC protocol, we were able to create a low-latency communication between a live coding environment and the printers.

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Y2: Narrowing things down

a field guide to Salvaging Sound Devices

As you've all read this thesis, I will not dive too much into it ;) The field guide gives a reader the tools to make their own sound devices using trash, whilst discussing (some of) the issues that created the waste in the first place. From the gathering of waste to the creation of sound devices using recipes.

Salvaged component library

In the research I have tried to figure out how and if I can adjust the practice of building sound devices and hosting workshops to incorporate the ideas of salvage computing, by building a salvaged component library

Reading & writing

Through the research for the thesis, I tried to expand/develop my reading/writing workflow. All references are collected in Zotero, annotated, and then (if relevant) I'll write a short note/description. Using pandoc/markdown, references can be tagged in the thesis, and then automagically be compiled into a reference list. While this did work really well for reading/gathering information, it wasn't an ideal method to formulate your own text.

<img src="https://i.imgflip.com/4fz7yy.jpg?a485856" width="250px" />

Near the end I started writing shorter pieces of text (similar to the wordhole we made in Y1) about the themes and topics of the thesis. In retrospect, I should have done this sooner.

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Workshops

In the initial proposal for this project, there was a big emphasis on using workshops as a method of sharing research. Both me and Riviera had joined the klankschool, and saw this as an opportunity to collaborate and host various workshops. Looking back, this has not happened due to two reasons:

1. The (un)repair cafe was started
2. I underestimated the difficulty of building synthesizers, and had difficulty with turning it into an accessible, hands-on workshop.

HOWEVER

❤️The (un)repair cafe was started❤️

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  thumb

During the (un)repair nights, everyone is a repair person, and everything can be a hammer. Some people attend to repair, others lay out DIY network infrastructures. We meet every other Thursday and are slowly becoming a stable hangout for Rotterdam Nerds (invite your friends!, plz come by!).

It has been absolutely fantastic and amazing to see this space grow, and I really hope it will continue to do so. It has been a great opportunity to meet all kinds of people that are busy with repair.

Future of the unrepair Recently, I've been talking to other communities to see if there can be some collaboration, and also attract people that might feel a bit intimidated to come. It is here, that I do see the value in workshops again. 

Alternative workshop format

Although I did not organize the workshops originally intended. I did experiment with the workshop format and tried to turn it more into an open research moment. Continuing the zines made last year for the circuit bending and drone synth workshops at Operator/de Kunsthal, I made forms as a method to steer conversations and activate the exploration.

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Graduation show & building the sound device

The last few weeks have revolved around building more recipes and building a modular sound device. Putting the actual recipes into practice creates new insights around the practice. It is a lot of back and forth between building the paper circuits, making the circuits, realizing I'm missing some components and need to adjust the paper circuit (etc...etc...etc...)

Additionally, the chosen material starts to matter even more. Questions about romanticizing nostalgia, which is not something I'd like to do, arise.  

During the graduation show (if i finish the sound device) there will be a short performance demoing the sounds. The exhibition side will focus on the field guide itself.

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  WIP of the modular sound device

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  plan for the grad show

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  Pop up bike repair in the north of spain

File:Video of a trash synth.mp4