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| ==== 1_ What do you want to make? ==== | | ==== 1_ What do you want to make? ==== |
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| | [https://25av.eu/apply/ 25AV] launched an open call for residency aimed at "collaboration projects and collectives from across Europe [...] in the fields of media art, sound, performance, and audiovisual experimentation." Together with my friend Queenie, we decided to apply to this open call with a browser-based performance project.<br> | | | |
| The project itself will question the defining of AI tools as "magical" and replace the human at the centre of the conversation, to emphasise the fact that AI is just another smokescreen, illusion and to bring back the poetry and sensibility into web crafting.<br>
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| We seek to create a website during a live performance, observing and using CSS for its poetry and declarativeness. <br>
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| The performance itself connects two keyboards and computer mice to one same computer, enabling the performers to write code simultaneously. The presence of the body being important here, we also wish to give a privileged space to voice: one performer is talking, the other one writing and vice-versa, in an endless circle of inter-action.<br>
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| Here is part of what we wrote for the open call about it:
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| <blockquote style="font-style: italic;">
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| Together, we would like to imagine a performance using the browser, and the web, as a main staging tool.<br>
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| The browser is a great space for creation, and its languages allow for all kinds of unexpected things to happen. Looking at CSS for its declarativeness opens a lot of creative horizons that we wish to explore in this project. We aim to look at the possibilities and crossroads offered by languages (both human-oriented and machine-oriented).
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| We both believe in an ethical web practice and in free software, as well as the importance of a crafty and poetical coding practice; for this reason, we also would like to try to build this website embracing raw and unabashed coding, meaning we embrace a code that doesn't fit the canonical standards of "well-written code". It is a code that is instinctive, that relies on feeling rather than mind and yet remains legible both by humans and machines.
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| To that extent and to match our research interests, we are aiming for a project that looks at technicity as a craft, that approaches it as a poetic and sensible tool by embracing the "trial and error" philosophy. We seek to rely on intuition as a way of finding answers, following the principle that the magic lies in the balance between technicity and sensibility.
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| Our performance aims to deconstruct the idea that AI is a magical being: agents are being designed in a way to appear as a magical solution: their branding is, in most cases, using gradients that evolve from purple to light pink, or using sparkles as icons. They also are meant to appear human, but with augmented capabilities: ChatGPT replies with a live typing input instead of delivering it in one go, mimicking a natural conversation. <br>
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| Magic relates to something usually unseen or beyond understanding, and since we can't really read through AI, it reinforces this "magical" feeling about it. There is an interesting connection to draw between this phenomenon and the actual casual magic scene: stage magicians' and illusionists' acts are a smokescreen, tricking the human brain into thinking that what is happening is magical when it is actually a play of dexterity. AI is the virtual/digital incarnation of those tricks.<br>
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| This totally shows when asking AI to write code: instead of delivering a straight answer, it would make mistakes, but also hallucinate and add features or unsollicited styles when asked to simply correct a block of code.<br>
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| We then would like to explore more about where magic truly lies, as an opposition to the great lie promoted by the promise of AI; a quirky, honest and poetical human intervention.
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| Our performance takes place on a stage where two keyboards and two computer mice are connected to the same device, both of us typing and wandering in the web browser, using it as a support to the narration. The conversation takes place both physically (as spoken word) and on the screen (through the code and its rendering in the browser), giving rhythm to the performance.
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| The deal would be to go back and forth, with one person giving instructions, out loud, to the other, typing and interpreting, giving space to their own sensibility.
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| As the performance evolves, both written and spoken dialogue bring a polyphony, and gain in intensity.<br>
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| As they are a core axis of our research, we aim to look at the many relationships being woven: in between both of us, as instructor and receiver, but also between each of us and the code; between each of us and the browser.
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| </blockquote>
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| ==== 2_ How do you plan to make it? ==== | | ==== 2_ How do you plan to make it? ==== |
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| | The results of the open call will be announced on December 16. Until then, we will keep in touch via Signal and Jitsi conversations, to exchange references<ref>such as [https://lucilehaute.fr/DSC.html Lucile Haute ''Disorder Screen Control'' (2011)], [https://youtu.be/MJzV0CX0q8o?si=zp3lueBfsSuc2_VJ Lu Wilson's ''What it means to be open?'' (2025)], etc.</ref> and to think further about the content of the performance (text). | | | |
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| Personally, I will also engage more precisely with my research subject and writing, in order to complete and enrich our message and project content.
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| Prototypes about the devices' connections and performance will also be made throughout the process (not yet sure how though).<br>
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| We also hope to make Queenie visit the XPUB studio (or at least Rotterdam) so we can prototype together, or to make me visit her in Brussels.
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| ==== 3_ What is your timetable? ==== | | ==== 3_ What is your timetable? ==== |
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| : <span style="background-color: lavender; padding: 3px; font-weight: bold; text-align:center;">September-April</span> ||| Reading, discussing and writing the thesis (gathering references, reading, investigating, listening to audio/video content, running interviews and analysis + selecting and laying out content into the thesis)
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| :: <span style="background-color: lavender; padding: 3px; font-weight: bold; text-align:center;">until December 16</span> ||| Discussing, gathering references, prototyping
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| :: <span style="background-color: lavender; padding: 3px; font-weight: bold; text-align:center;">January-April</span> ||| Writing the thesis + Continue prototyping, making design/staging decisions + Meeting IRL
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| :<span style="background-color: lavender; padding: 3px; font-weight: bold; text-align:center;">April-June</span> ||| Going into residency from May 11 to May 17 (either in the 25AV residency, or setting up our own if we don't win the open call)
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| ==== 4_ Why do you want to make it? ==== | | ==== 4_ Why do you want to make it? ==== |
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| | Again for the residency application, we wrote the following:<br> | | | |
| <blockquote style="font-style: italic;">
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| We are applying because our practices and interests match directly with the spirit of the 25av open call: our desire is to try new things with the tools at hand, sometimes trying counter-intuitive and poetical practices as a way to shift from the technically precise to the experimental. Both of our practices evolve around web creation (making pages, websites, and tools), and aim to question our relationships with technology. It simply makes sense.<br>
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| In detail: this residency offer is a perfect opportunity for Kiara, who is currently researching on themes relating to the magic and the web, while Queenie just finished the creation of a performance called ''Into the machine box'' in which poetry && web-based interfaces allowed her to explore the limitations of spoken and written text appearing at the same time.
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| Our goal here is to merge our practices together. Trough conversation, an idea leads to another! If we're being more metaphorical here, web practices are a never ending back-and-forth process; you write code, save (ctrl + S), switch to your browser window and refresh (ctrl + R), and you do it all again until things seem right. <br>
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| The same back-and-forth is at the heart of collaboration: it provides an extension to one's perspectives; by confronting and merging ideas, practices and points of view, we make our understanding of the world grow and thus allow our creative practices to evolve. It is a key aspect of creation, to be able to open our minds and our reach so we can learn and help each other in a back and forth mutual relationship.
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| Our relationship is virtual and has always been (as in, we've never met) but we're both from the same city (Toulouse, France), where we have groups of friends, places and habits in common. Instead, we met online, and for a long time our relationship was a silent one, a lurking one for years. It was knowing a lot about each other's works && practices && interests while actually knowing nothing about each other. Like a shadow hovering, waiting to be brought to shape.
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| This collaboration will act as a way of giving voice (literally - talking, speaking, screaming, whispering, etc.) to it.
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| </blockquote>
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| In addition to this, as I am interested in exploring the magic of the web, I get more and more confronted to the AI bubble (that still hasn't exploded sadly). I figured that since both the web and magic are political, the project should also be. So this project is a political stance '''against''' GenAI and '''for''' human-ness (as in poetic, making errors, sensible). It aims at reconnecting the human body to its actions through web crafting - an essentially human activity<ref>Placing the body as an essential part of the performance to signify trust and the paradoxes that makes us blindly trust AI: (1) if magic relates to something we don't understand and thus instinctively fear, how come we qualify AI as "magic" and still trust it? (2) code written by an AI is often unusable so does it not prove that to get a comfortable, functional web it has to be written by humans, even if it means the code doesn't fit canonical standards of "well-written code"?</ref> - and showing that the connections we share in-between humans can also be shared on the web. (not sure about the phrasing)
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| ==== 5_ Who can help you and how? ==== | | ==== 5_ Who can help you and how? ==== |
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| | <p style="margin-left: 50px;"> | | | |
| ☼ Lídia Pereira and Manetta Berends: broader context, writing help and references, tutoring<br>
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| ☼ Doriane Timmermans: we share research interests and practices + her research project [https://declarations.style/ declarations] is closely linked and nourishing my own research<br>
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| ☼ Lucile Haute: her work is quite inspiring, I would love to chat with her as she is an experienced (cyber)witch<br>
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| ☼ Miriam Suzanne: CSS wizard, she wrote about CSS rituals, would also love to have a chat with her regarding her relationship and views towards (CSS)web and magic<br>
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| ☼ Raphaël Bastide: his practice of code is quite atypical and creative, it seems very assertive in its sketchiness. His project often end up quite magical and very ''avant-garde'' in a way. He also wrote [https://raphaelbastide.com/etre-script/en.html this] that relates a lot to my topic<br>
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| ☼ Noémie A., my best friend, for the existential crisis times when I question the whole project
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| </p>
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| ==== 6_ Relation to previous practice ==== | | ==== 6_ Relation to previous practice ==== |
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| |It relates strongly to both our practices and interests: | | | |
| : ☼ ''Into the machine box'', by Queenie F. Charles
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| : ☼ ''Lost in Narration'', by Kiara Jouhanneau, Eleni Fili, Claudio Castro Chaponan, Lexie van Eekelen, Chrissy Ströbele and Zuhui Kang
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| ==== 7_ Relation to a larger context ==== | | ==== 7_ Relation to a larger context ==== |
| This project falls into the realm of magic and esotericism and alchemy (transforming, shaping); the realm of hyperlinks, interconnections, sharing networks and energies.<br>
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| It is tied to the indie web, web-making as a craft, web languages as a form of poetry - and expression.<br>
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| It also relates to various practices around online community building, blogging, bringing online relationships to the physical world by meeting.<br>
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| :1. Writings<br>
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| <p style="margin-left: 40px;">
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| ☼ [https://project.xpub.nl/syster-papyri-magicae/ Syster Papyri Magicae], Artemis Gryllaki, 2020<br>
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| ☼ [https://limitesnumeriques.fr/travaux-productions/ai-forcing Le forcing de l'IA], Limites Numériques, 2025<br>
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| ☼ ''An essay on magic'', Ramsey Dukes (2000)<br>
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| ☼ ''This is for everyone'', Tim Berners-Lee (2025)<br>
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| ...
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| </p>
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| :2. Projects
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| <p style="margin-left: 40px;">
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| ☼ [https://www.motorhueso.net/degenerative/ De-generative]<br>
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| ☼ [https://lucilehaute.fr/cyberwitches-manifesto/index.html Cyberwitches Manifesto]<br>
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| ☼ [https://libraryofbabel.info/ Library of Babel]<br>
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| ☼ [https://www.code-poetry.com/home Code-Poetry]<br>
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| ☼ [http://netwurkerz.de/mez/datableed/complete/index.htm Datableed (mezangelle)]<br>
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| ☼ [https://dashailina.com/work.php Dasha Ilina's website]<br>
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| ☼ [http://youpron.love/ Youpron]<br>
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| ☼ [https://macthemes.garden/d-desc/4/ Mac Garden Themes Archive]<br>
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| ☼ ''XPUB SI 26'' with Doriane and especially the stylesheet we wrote on octomode (2025)<br>
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| ☼ ''Witch'', BBC radio podcast (2023)<br>
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| ...
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| </p>
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