Hosting

hosting

Eleni Kamma

Hosting: a material practice that is linked to events in which humans are invited to participate. Hosting as a material practice relates to conditions of production in the field of socially engaged art, aimed at creating a community. Hosting operates in hybrid contexts between the physical and the online. Its relevance for social, technological, and cultural interactions is the re-imagination of how ‘I’ may relate to ‘we’ and vice versa.

During the Making Matters conference (November 2020), three live Etherpad sessions were hosted by researchers Anja Groten, Eleni Kamma and Pia Louwerens. These were interactive meetings in an online collaborative notepad, where participants discussed symposium topics that came up during the conference. Each of the three sessions experimented with online collaborative engagement. Communicating through the pad takes place purely on a level of ideas and writing and utilizes one’s ability to relate mentally through typing. All participants control and co-edit the text that is produced on the pad during the meeting. Despite its democratic intentions, the pad privileges those who prefer writing over speaking as a means of expression; it does not allow for equal access or experience for analphabets, people who have dyslexia and other learning disorders; and it excludes active participation for those not explicitly invited to the conversation. The one(s) who set up a conversation on the pad are also those who establish the group and do the inviting by sending the link. It depends on the pad’s host(s) whether they will publicly or privately share the link online.

On March 3, 2021, I explored ‘hosting’ further through an online participatory event hosted by Jubilee, a platform for artistic research and production, of which I am a member. The aim of this experimental public event, which consisted of four unique presentations, was to offer perspectives on nourishing through online communication tools. Upon registration, future participants were sent four simple ‘recipes’ (each conceived by one of the event’s hosts: Samah Hijawi, Philippine Hoegen, Eleni Kamma and Gosie Vervloessem), which they were invited to prepare beforehand. This event was recorded.

My prepared script went as follows:

1. Welcoming the audience
(we see and hear each other on Zoom)

Welcome! Tonight, we will explore a pilot version of ‘The Corners of the Mouth’, a project I initiated that focuses on our current hybrid life of physical confinement and increased online presence. How can we use this hybridity to cultivate new forms of artistic expression and strengthen the relation between ‘I’ and ‘we’ (‘we’ meaning: virtual communities of contemporary online users)? Tonight, I, Eleni Kamma, have invited Brussels-based artists Samah Hijawi, Gosie Vervloessem and Philippine Hoegen to share their expertise in practicing affective communication. Over the following two hours, we will offer different perspectives on recipes and nourishment. First, I will take around 20–25 minutes and ask you to take your drink and join us on Etherpad. Please stop your videos but do not mute yourselves. The link is in the chat. Please follow it and meet me there.

 

2. Participants come to the pad
(we hear each other on Zoom)

Please position your cursor in the space of the pad and experiment with typing. Could you share your name and what you are currently drinking with us?

I would encourage you to actively sense how your favourite beverage slowly slides from your mouth into your digestive system during the following twenty minutes.

During the first lockdown I became interested in whether Etherpad, an open-source online text editor, can reflect collectivity in these times. On Etherpad, each user’s contributions are indicated by a colour code and recorded onscreen in real time. Thought processes are revealed as thinking takes shape through typing. The pad enables writing that is collectively performed and witnessed.

I type:

Since then (especially during lockdowns), I think about communication under hybrid conditions, more precisely about possibilities to create affect by combining physical and digital communication processes.  

I type:

Faced with this question, I consulted the I Ching or The Book of Changes, an ancient Chinese form of divination consisting of 64 hexagrams. With a question in mind, you drop the coin six times, receiving a hexagram. The answer to my question was:

 

Several readings by commentators are available, such as Richard Wilhelm’s:

I am puzzled about how to interpret this.

What abstract images can ‘we’ construct with the question, the people involved, the time and place we are in? I will now feed the pad with the Hexagram’s lines that led me here. I invite you to a collaborative reading of the text. Let’s eat and digest the Hexagram’s words together. I invite you to vocalize the text, any way you like, loud, soft, or in your own language. Please try to both respect your rhythm and listen to the others!

• Line 1 (bottom line): You let your magic tortoise go, and look at me with the corners of your mouth drooping. Misfortune.
• Line 2: Turning to the summit for nourishment, deviating from the path to seek nourishment from the hill. Continuing to do this brings misfortune.
• Line 3: Turning away from nourishment. Perseverance brings misfortune. Do not act thus for ten years. Nothing serves to further.
• Line 4: Turning to the summit for provision of nourishment brings good fortune. Spying about with sharp eyes like a tiger with insatiable craving. No blame.
• Line 5: Turning away from the path. To remain persevering brings good fortune. One should not cross the great water.
• Line 6 (top line): The source of nourishment. Awareness of danger brings good fortune. It furthers one to cross the great water.

While I am typing this, we hear an ensemble of voices reading/translating the text in several languages. Simultaneously, the user icons indicate who speaks
on Zoom.

Thank you! Let’s take five minutes together on the pad. Consider it a digestion-absorption process. Feel free to select a spot on the pad, to find your position along the text. You are welcome to re-feed the pad and the rest of us with your thoughts, feelings, experiences, and concerns in relation to ‘The Corners of the Mouth’.  

Audio playing: (belly noises) Water enters the hungry belly