pad

Gijs_OSP

1. INTRO

Expub is a consortium between Nero Editions (Rome), Institute for Networked Cultures (Amsterdam), Aksioma (Ljubljana), and Echo Chamber (Brussels) for a biennial of experiments on new publishing formats. The idea is to bring to light knowledge and practices developed by members over the past years in publishing, which continues to expand beyond the classic terms of traditional linear publishing. The idea is to create an operational model for Expanded Publishing.

[+chloe to take notes]

You are partecipating in an expert sprint -> an informal space to discuss freely about your practice and ideas. While our focus is on expanded publishing, we want to know about your field

a seires of 10 interviews with experts, artists, editors to understand the whys, hows, whos, and whats of expanded publishing. That is how the interviews will be structured, allowing 10 minute for each, with a moment of open discussion. The other interviewees are Clusterduck, Silvio Lorusso, Thomas Spies, Irene de Craen, Geoff Cox, Open Source Publishing, Yancey Strickler, Kenny Goldsmith, Dušan Barok, Caroline Busta.

We are recording this with plans of creating a hybrid report, and eventually a toolkit or publication, but mistakes silences and uncertainty are part fo the plan

1. Why: Politics of Publishing (Mission/Theory/References/Ideals/Goals) - 10 mins

Why do you operate in the way you operate? Do you have a mission, ideal, goals that guide it?

collective mainly graphic designers only using open source tools, question shifted to what’s the influence of those tools on the work that you make

femke snelting: practice shapes tools shapes practice

relationship between makers of tools and users of tools, what becomes possible and what becomes easier to do

use, adapt, and publish in alternated form: software, fonts, publications

non prop softwer -> more freedom and more responability

2. How: Infrastructures of Publishing (Tools, workflows, operations, (revenue) models for Writing, Editing, Printing, Distributing, Promoting, etc ) - 10 mins

What are the main tools you are using?

browser based practice, html and css, output as website, or printed as pdf, tools to generate html (python), tools for web 2 print (pdftk, codescript), paged.js - using java to extend browser (w3c)

https://pagedjs.org/

https://pagedjs.org/documentation/

What does your workflow look like?

fair art almanac? - state of the arts (sota)- for more fair art practices https://state-of-the-arts.net/

taking notes in etherpad, thinking with the organization about the infrastructure, and suggesting an alternative, open source one

thinking about it from the very beginning

What can open access/open tools offer that proprietary software doesn’t? and what are their challenges?

tools allow for re-configurations and assemblage with other tools through e.g. api, web native,

for print, this is not so developed -> run into problems when you use e.g. pantone, tools to deal with those issues are not available, challenge of open source, experiemntal set up you run into those issues, so you have to find creative ways to work around them

paged media is not used by browsers, emulate functionality of browsers for the printed media

What is your revenue model for writing, editing, printing, distributing, promoting? what made you choose a non-profit model? How do you ensure or work towards a sustainable practice?

it’s a challenge, it doesn’t have a sustainable business model

do not separate tool and design, integrating the two in the process, collaboration agreement – TOOL – connecting to Silvios rider text

3. Who: Community of Publishing (Network, Collaborations, Readers, (sustainable) engagement) - 10 mins

How have you created your community of readers and collaborators?

https://www.prepressure.com/

the tool creates the community, no personal contact

4. Open Discussion - 15

tommaso: our consortium is trying to combine different approaches, working in knowledge translation from technical to theoretical,

• read me file - a document how the tool can be used / expanded on - documentation work is very laborous

quality of code, - within the practice they make space to share concerns and questions and there are also moments when the process is so experimental that its good just have it finished

accessibility of code, documentation -> you are so busy making the tool/object that its documentation becomes less prioritized

t: multiplicity of tools, how do you sustain them over time? how do you deal with multiplicity? how do you federate the tools?

• there is federation in two ways:

• • a tool being use dby other people or organisation - its usage creates demand and energy for the tool to be supported and maintained
  • • servers excahnge materials seems to be out of reach, software is too fragile, esp. running servers, keepig them safe
  • jcs is stable and compatible, java script + html is stable, sustainability+maintainability+archivability from the start of the project, accounting for disappearence, “freezing your website”, accepting that software is unstable, so how to stabilize is a question

ilan: expansion coming from a moment of crisis, e.g. expanding cinema, art –> is expansion a technical question? do we need new tools? or is it more a question on the role of publishing, articulated politically, economically, etc.?

there’s a duality, there’s joy and interest in the techincal questions, there is a political layer to this focus on tools

graphic design with prop. software limits your choices -> ironic in online publishing because of open sourceness of early internet ethos, boring work should be financed and sustained

• important to maintain and sustain your own infrastructure and support tools that invite this!

• dualistic - optimism or pessimism? capitalist models has found answers for publishing - but these are exploitative

qs that capitalism has answered -> those answers are exploitative

ilan: are we lacking choices? adobe using it cracked making it free. tools aren’t limiting, what i’m doing might not be relevant, would chaning the tools make them more relevant? -> brussels has more generous cultural policies

free libre open source - free as in libre ratehr than “gratis”

our practice installs and alternative to the default adobe cloud, generating new possibilities of collaboration, research collaboratively and horizontally, making editing quicker, functionality of the tool

romantic idea that the tool is never finished, assumption of prop. software that this is it, instead ops you can change it,\

marta: mentions irene - stop publishing - and goeff - poor publishing - how do you relate to this? do you see your work as able to synthetise subversive publishing in a direct way?

in osp work they create structures that apply these strategies

thinking more of structure than outcome

against move fast and break things

lorenzo: wordpress

impressive how much of the internet is driven by it (silvio’s meme of the little guy in nebraska)

• elements of bricolage in their work - maybe somethin

do we want to democratize or keep entry level high /gatekeep for high quality

janez: on accessibility and expanding - if we want to expand the concept by using tools, sooner or later we will encounter compatability problem, the wall of geeks, accessibility point is too high - democratize vs gatekeep, interoperability is important,

we do actially want to democratize our tools, because that is elitist, we’re not able to in part

code encodes a processa nd allows things to be possible through a computer, to make it more easy, you reduce the possibilities, scale of their work is too small

open formats, formats that can be red by multiple tools

• pushing back from elitism - important - skills of the practice cant encompass solving everything

tommaso: democratization -> getting annoyed when people want things even more user friendly,

designer in graphic design - author to write text - but to use tools we think its easy - but what you are contributing is taking a step back and reflect on the tools - do we go more or less user friendly?

gijs: we ask - what would be possible if we try things differently? - in the content, in the editing process, in the collaboration platforms/interfaces/tools

maybe literacy>user friendliness

important the tools are not hostile - made, commmunity, documentation - we still need to improve on wlecoming tools

tommaso - i also mean in implementation // we should collaborate more with coders

takes skill

5. What: Future of Publishing (Defining and Speculating together on Expanded publishing) - 10 mins

What are the more urgent aspects that need to be addressed in the future of publishing?

community of designers and programmers who don’t necessarily have a desire

not a single solution

there are different desires, experiemtnal practices answer the desire of experiments, which is not always priority or interesting

how can needs be combined -> ondividual experiemnt + larger stable tools + knowledge and networks of makers, more engagement with materiality

tools nourished by individual experiments to facilitate general needs

full pipeline isn’t fixed

idea for report

asking guests to add links/references to report, opening it up in the future to a public, — ye s!! they can create annotations / links :)