View source for Chapter 2: Workshop Production

== Workshop Production ==

=== Summary ===

The workshop is an ambiguous format for time-boxed collaboration. It
encompasses a vast range of domains and design practices, crossing
boundaries between art and activism, between different disciplines and
institutions, between commercial and educational contexts. The
pervasiveness and, at times, confusing use of the term \'workshop\'
raises the question; why and how are workshops valued and practiced?

My argument draws on different perspectives and understandings of
workshops, including the workshop as a site for specialized material
production and as a format for assembling groups of people to learn
together by practicing new techniques and using new tools. This chapter
critically interrogates the workshop as a temporary, dynamic learning
environment. More specifically, the significance of the 'workshop' as a
concept and format for the actualization of self-organized collectives
will be discussed.

=== Introduction ===

I have been involved in workshops in various roles; as a participant,
facilitator, observer and organizer. I have facilitated workshops by
myself and with friends and colleagues in the Netherlands and abroad, in
art schools,[^1] academic and commercial conferences,[^2] art, design
and technology festivals,[^3] within grass-roots self-organized
contexts,[^4] and in the context of client work as a designer.[^5] In
fact, workshops have, for a long time, played a prominent role in my
work as a designer, educator, and organizer, and have also been central
to the Hackers & Designers collective. Yet, it was only after I started
this PhD research that I realized I had overlooked the 'workshop' as
such.

When referring to the workshop \'as such\', I already touch upon one of
the main concerns that is underlying this chapter,---a certain
acceptance or unquestionability of the workshop in general terms.[^6]
The term \'workshop\' travels through a manifold of contexts, crossing
boundaries between art and activism, between different disciplines and
institutions, between commercial and educational contexts. It is perhaps
due to its flexible characteristics that it is co-opted frequently. At
times, it seems anything can be a workshop. Furthermore, the workshop
format is often expected to be highly productive, where outcomes can be
achieved, learned or produced within a short amount of time. Some
workshops draw inspiration from rapid prototyping,[^7] sprints,[^8] or
hackathons,[^9] all formats and methods that originate in soft- and
hardware development. Alongside the establishment of the \'new
economy\', these modes have become attractive for time-boxed
collaboration within tech companies and creative agencies. Such methods
frequently appear in workshop outlines at cultural institutions, art and
design symposia and festivals, academic conferences, as well as in
curricula at art and design schools. In such contexts, the workshop may
or may not include soft- and hardware development, however by using such
rhetoric (rapid, sprint, agile, marathon), the workshop organizers
(perhaps unintentionally) insinuate high-velocity, efficient and
result-oriented production.

Taking H&D as an example, it is undeniable there has also been a
sustained attraction to the workshop format since the first
workshop-based event that I co-organized under the title \'Hackers &
Designers\' in 2013. Since then, the workshop format has been
interpreted, practiced and circulated in various ways and has
significantly influenced how H&D evolved as a collective. Through the
recurrence of the workshop format within H&D\'s activities it could be
argued that H&D contributes to and feeds off the growing popularity of
workshops. In addition, H&D workshops may be implicated in knowledge
economies that promote the ease with which the workshop, as a temporary,
dynamic learning environment, can be applied to supposedly any context.
The overuse as well as confusing use of the term \'workshop\' and the
term's pervasiveness within this vast range of domains and practices
raises the question, why and how are workshops valued and practiced?

A clue may be found in the word \'work\' within \'work-shop\'. In his
book *The Corrosion of Character: The Personal Consequences of Work in
the New Capitalism* (1998), the sociologist Richard Sennett referred to
the changing meaning of work and the effects of contemporary
flexibilization of work conditions on people\'s characters (within the
context of Western societies). That is, changing working conditions also
influence the ways people build and maintain social relationships. Thus,
a person's \'character\' does not only imply \'personality\' but rather
describes \"the ethical value we place on our own desires and on our
relations to others.\"[^10] In its ambiguity, the term \'workshop\'
blends effectively into the trajectories of contemporary flexible
workers who, according to Sennett, do not build carriers in a cumulative
fashion anymore. Rather, workers today \"are asked to behave nimbly, to
be open to change on short notice, to take risks continually, to become
ever less dependent on regulations and formal procedures.\"[^11]
According to Sennett, the emphasis on flexibility within
conceptualizations of work, changed the very meaning of work and the
words we use for it.[^12] Flexibilization of work may require flexible
terms like \'workshop\' (or \'collective\', or \'tool\', or
\'platform\'). Such terms have also become part of the common vocabulary
used by creative workers, freelance artists, designers and programmers
who, according to designer and writer Silvio Lorusso, deal with
\"disorientation caused by a constant shuffling of the cards \[\...\]
\'living in flexible time, without standards of authority and
accountability\' (Sennett, 1999).\"[^13]

My relationship to the workshops is conflicted. On the one hand,
workshops\' flexible characteristics have functioned largely in favor of
the H&D collective, in the sense that the shared activity of organizing
workshops (while simultaneously defining and redefining what that
means), is an activity that is equally loose and stable enough to keep
doing what H&D\'s is doing, and keep those involved in H&D connected. On
the other hand, there are certain ethical concerns arising when
perpetuating an image of the workshop as a format full of \'potential\'.
Building collective ties and practices based on conditions and formats
that are flexible, spontaneous and open for interpretation, can become
difficult to combine with values such as commitment and responsibility,
caring for someone or something long-term. In my view, this tension
becomes particularly apparent when workshops are organized with the
intention of solving problems or resolving issues. The act of organizing
a workshop in and of itself can falsely signal that issues are being
dealt with, while in reality, it often remains unclear how such issues
are being dealt with in the long term, and who is accountable for
checking on these issues.

The difficulty of defining the workshop, or rather the format's inherent
flexibility, contributes to the (mis)conception that anything can be
workshopped. Due to the format's ambiguity, it is rather difficult to
argue *for* or *against* the workshop as an interesting, productive,
appropriate, format, and it therefore also remains unclear what the
workshop does or might do in different contexts, what is expected from
it, who is responsible for the conditions in which it is organized and
the effects it has in the long-term.

Thus, my desire to articulate workshops more precisely, relates to a
more essential question: Can workshops be organized responsibly? In
order to address this question, it is necessary to pay attention to the
two sides of \'workshop\'. On the one hand, there are the manifold
contexts that shape articulations around workshops, different workshop
meanings, practices and legacies. On the other hand, there are some
circumstances in which a workshop is not only a flexible format that can
be \'applied\' to different contexts, but a consequence of
uncertainties, contingent and fragmented work and social relations. In
the following section, I will focus on different, possibly contradicting
registers of workshops.

=== Workshop: Site and/or format? ===

==== Workshop / Werkstatt / Werkplaats ====

In German and Dutch, the Anglicism \'workshop\' is used mostly to refer
to the more ephemeral derivation of the workshop. Bringing together
groups of like-minded people, the workshop, in that understanding of the
term, may be an occasion to meet, spend time together, and work
intensively on a specific topic, exploring techniques or tools. Such
workshops usually take place within a defined time frame and are
somewhat exceptional as they tend to occur outside of daily work
routines. Throughout this chapter, I use the term \'workshop format\'
when referring to the particular meaning outlined above and in order to
differentiate it from other meanings of \'workshop\'.

In addition to the workshop as a format, the workshop may also be
understood as a \'site\', the artisan workplace or place of specialized
manufacture. In German, the word *Werkstatt* or in Dutch *werkplaats*
differentiates the site, the artisanal workplace from the workshop as a
format. *Stätte* or *plaats* describes a place that brings together
tools, machines and materials, to produce or repair goods. The
\'workshop site\' centers expertise, skillful processes of working with
specific materials, equipment and techniques such as woodwork, textile,
metal, electronics, glass, ceramics and metal.

In the context of art and design schools where I have studied and
taught, both meanings; *format* and *site* seem to merge at times.[^14]
In these often international and interdisciplinary environments where
meanings are unstable and travel with translations, the terms
workshop/werkplaats/werkstatt are often used interchangeably and
describe sites and/or formats for material and knowledge production. In
art schools (and here I am mostly referring to the European / Western
art educational context in which I was educated), principles of hands-on
as well as interdisciplinary learning are practiced similarly to the way
they were practiced at the Bauhaus (founded by Walter Gropius in Weimar
in 1919). At the Bauhaus, the workshop was regarded as a place that
bridged the divide between making and thinking, in addition to
disciplinary divisions such as sculpting and painting. The role of
workshops at the Bauhaus was to bring together art and technology in an
attempt to provide solutions to the social problems posed by an
industrialized, capitalist society.[^15]

Distinct from the understanding of the workshop as a format, the
workshop as a site can also be understood as bound to a fixed location
as it relies on specific infrastructure, equipment, and sometimes heavy
machinery. Committed and skilled people are required to coordinate,
maintain and take care of such facilities. The people running these
workshops develop a close relationship to the place. Their expertise, as
it is obtained over a long period of time, is intertwined with the
particularities of the specific place. Having studied and worked with
workshop instructors at art and design schools, their knowledge and ways
of working seems site-specific. They know how to produce, repair and
manipulate materials, that is, according to what is available in their
specific workshop, aware about its possibilities and limitations.

Workshop instructors shared their knowledge with me, as I have been
passing through their workshops as a student and tutor, by explaining
how to operate machines, by demonstrating how to apply certain
techniques, and by showing off examples with excitement and pride.
Donald A. Schön, philosopher and professor of urban planning, described
the habitual, embodied forms of knowledge of a skilled maker, as
challenging to make verbally explicit. Making processes, according to
Schön, entail sequences of skillful judgements, decisions and actions
that an experienced maker undertakes spontaneously and without conscious
deliberation, a process he terms "knowing-in-action."[^16] The revealing
and transmission of such embodied knowledge to others is not explainable
solely with words. Rather, it requires demonstration and observation.

In my view, the role of workshop instructor/master as the experienced
maker and their acquired knowledge, which Schön has described as
habitual and embodied, should not be considered in a vacuum. In a number
of workshop contexts that I had access to and was able to familiarize
myself with, the demonstration and knowledge of a skilled instructor
must be understood in relation to the wider context of the workshop.
Importantly, it needs to be considered within the ecology of social
relations that take shape within and actively shape a workshop
environment. Knowing-in-action is not a solitary process. Rather, it is
relational and distributed amongst many. Examples of this relationality
are those moments in the workshop when an instructor proudly shows off
what students managed to create within the specific possibilities and
limitations of a workshop. These gestures of slight surprise and
astonishment signal a moment of acknowledgment of the relationality of
the workshop space.

During two years of studying at the Sandberg Instituut Amsterdam,
(master course of the Gerrit Rietveld Academy), I made extensive use of
the workshops (werkplaatsen) at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy.[^17] I
established affinities with certain places. I often visited the printing
and book binding workshops. The more often I went, the more I understood
what is (im)possible in terms of production. Yet, perhaps even more
important, I learned the importance of taking time to get to know the
people working there. Workshop instructors developed their own terms
which others had to abide by while working in their facilities. Such
terms were sometimes explicit but, oftentimes, I had to test the
boundaries to find out more about them. I learnt how to read and
interpret an instructor\'s gestures and their implicit ways of
choreographing the space. Spoken and unspoken rules seemed necessary to
ensure careful treatment of tools and facilities but also to sustain a
reasonable and sane work environment.

Workshop sites bring about particular ways of coexisting in the space,
social codes and forms of interaction, such as the skill of negotiating
the expectations of those who enter the workshop without much
experience. I remember rushing into a workshop as a student and taking
out my stress, accumulated due to upcoming assessments, on the workshop
instructor. My expectations of how much time certain processes would
take were quickly recalibrated as they did not align with the wider
ethos, pace and culture of the workshop. It was as if the clock ticked
slower in the workshops. I had to learn to attune to these slower
conditions, to the gentle rhythm and to the prevailing social conduct.

I learned to cooperate, not to demand things, not to enter the workshop
with a predefined idea of what I wanted to execute and when. Instead, I
learned to approach a workshop with curiosity and openness, to adjust to
its \'vibe\'. After all, I was a guest in someone else\'s domain, and I
had to adjust to its boundaries. It seemed out of the question that I
might change the music in Kees Maas\'s silkscreen workshop.[^18] Whether
or not I liked jazz, it would become part of my printing experience. I
also remember this particular workshop set up as highly efficient. There
was no time to waste, no slippages permitted. Conversations were
friendly but short and to the point. One needed to stay focused, to not
let the ink get too dry.

The bookbinding workshop had an entirely different mood. Chatter and
gossip were welcomed. It felt like an informal, laid-back place to hang
out in. Asking if it was possible to add paint to the bookbinding glue,
Xavier would respond: \"Just try and see\".[^19] I returned to certain
workshops because I was interested in learning about specific techniques
and using specific equipment but almost equally important were evolving
affinities with specific atmospheres of workshops as social spaces, an
alignment with their (implicit) socio-material conducts, that evolved
along with the students passing through.

### Workshops and events: The first H&D workshop-based events (2013-2015)

Most people I graduated with ended up working \'on their own\'. Some say
they are \'self-employed\', some call themselves \'independent\',
\'without a boss\'; some say they are \'freelancers\', and others say
they are \'precarious creative workers\' or \'unemployed\'. What we have
in common is that there is seemingly no pre-given structure or system to
abide by in our working environments. Having worked as an employed
graphic designer in advertising agencies for about two years before I
embarked on a postgraduate degree in design, I was equally anxious and
excited after my graduation to finally shape my own work life, to set up
my own schedules, decide who I wanted to work with and under what
conditions.[^20] Yet, I missed regular contact and exchange with peers,
sharing moments, discussions about work-in-progress, learning from, and
getting inspired by each other. These new self-organized working
conditions were lacking a form of stability or comfort that comes with
having peers around, as I had gotten used to during my study time. My
personal motivation for involving myself with the Hackers & Designers
collective stemmed from my desire to connect and exchange, to continue
to learn, organize and make things together, virtues that appeared not
to be pre-given in the reality of working as a self-employed designer.

At first, \'Hackers & Designers\' (H&D) was the title of a series of
workshop-based events (which we also referred to as \'meetups\').[^21] I
co-initiated H&D in 2013 with James Bryan Graves (software developer)
and Selby Gildemacher (visual artist). At the time, Selby and I were
running a project space with a few peers, most of whom were fellow
graduates from the Sandberg Instituut Amsterdam. The monthly and later
bi-monthly Hackers & Designers get-togethers, were organized in a rather
spontaneous and sometimes chaotic manner. However the possibility of
hosting the workshops at De Punt (the name of the project space)
provided a stable venue, which would contribute to their
recurrence.[^22] The interest in sharing knowledge across disciplines
and through \'making things\' and the possibility for sharing of skills,
were some of the distinct characteristics of the H&D workshop-based
events. At the time, it seemed that the combination of ad-hoc,
self-organized, and community-driven activities with a hands-on
practical approach was uncommon and interesting to the communities we
were involved with.

Spontaneity seemed to have been part of H&D\'s charisma. Yet, it was not
without commitment and effort that these workshops-based events were
realized. The laborious process however was not always visible, even to
us organizers. In the following section, I will briefly clarify how
responsibilities were differentiated and actualized, not only as tasks
or roles ascribed to people but also actualized more implicitly and
therefore less recognizable. I will briefly introduce the roles of the
organizer, facilitator and participant, which were not always mutually
exclusive roles or explicitly articulated tasks, but in my view have
influenced the ways 'Hackers & Designers' workshop-based events were
(mis)perceived, valued, and continue to be organized.

### \[Image: H&D Meetup, January 2014 [[https://hackersanddesigners.nl/s/Activities/p/ICalligraphy]{.underline}](https://hackersanddesigners.nl/s/Activities/p/ICalligraphy) [[https://wiki.hackersanddesigners.nl/images/f/f8/Icalligraphy_02.jpg]{.underline}](https://wiki.hackersanddesigners.nl/images/f/f8/Icalligraphy_02.jpg) \]

### Organizing 

During the first two years of H&D, James, Selby and I took on the
responsibility of organizing the events. However, we also relied on
friends and colleagues, and their willingness to facilitate and
participate in workshops voluntarily. Next to planning and coordinating
the get-togethers, we would frequently participate in and sometimes
facilitate workshops. H&D was to some extent an opportunistic project.
As self-employed artists, designers and computer programmers, James,
Selby and I missed engaging in active exchange and receiving feedback in
our daily work lives. We saw H&D as an opportunity to open up our
individual practices, to share work in progress in the context of an
informal setting, to meet new people and gain new insights.

In the lead up to the H&D events, we initially invited people from
within our circles of friends and colleagues to ask if they were
interested in facilitating a workshop, most of whom were also
self-employed and worked at the intersection of technology, design, art
and education. After a while, more people approached us with proposals
and we would add them to the program of upcoming H&D events. The events
were rather informal, the setup more or less the same at each of them.
We planned two workshops of 30-45 minutes at each event. There was a
self-run bar, people chatted in and outside of the space. Nobody was
paid. No profit was made. Thus, we did not offer a fee to the workshop
facilitators, which may have been the reason that it became challenging
to find people who were interested in facilitating workshops, after
organizing the events for about two years. After all, preparing a
workshop requires time and energy, even if it is very short and
spontaneously organized. It seemed we had exhausted our community, and
it started to feel as if we were asking for favors. Yet, at the same
time, it also felt as if we had established an expectation within our
community and a responsibility to continue. I remember being
increasingly tired of preparing and cleaning the space and chasing
people. Eventually, H&D in the format of workshop-based, evening events
became less regular and eventually we stopped organizing them.[^23] In
parallel to the waning of these events, other opportunities for
organizing and facilitating workshops arose, including invitations by
cultural and educational institutions and we began organizing the H&D
Summer Academy, which took place for the first time in 2015.[^24] For
the HDSA we received a grant from the Dutch Creative Industries Funds,
which allowed us to compensate workshop facilitators and ourselves for
the organization.

### Participating

In the early H&D workshops, the number of participants spanned from 5 to
50. Registration was not required. Therefore, we did not know how many
people would join until the event commenced. Participants had often
attended H&D workshops before, though there were usually a few first
time attendees. Participants represented a wide range of backgrounds.
There were visual artists, photographers, film makers, graphic,
architectural and web designers, software engineers, system
administrators, backend developers, some were educators in art academies
or technical universities, others were students, some working and paid
for their work. Oftentimes, workshop participants had been workshop
facilitators at a previous H&D event, or planned to facilitate a
workshop at a later date. The community of attendees grew mostly through
hearsay and our announcements on the platform meetup.com.[^25] Attendees
seemed to be drawn to the practical and informal approach of H&D, moving
away from verbal exchange as the primary means of getting to know and
learning from each other, and toward an approach that centered hands-on,
material experimentation.

### Facilitating

Workshop facilitators prepared a topic, technique or method, which they
proposed to explore together with the group of participants. The
workshop themes and names of the facilitators were announced prior to
the event. As aforementioned, the practices and expertise of
participants and facilitators varied. Thus, facilitating a workshop at
H&D required taking into consideration different levels of expertise,
experience and interests. When facilitating a workshop that involved
basic programming markup such as HTML and CSS, it could not be assumed
that participants were acquainted with such markup languages. The
workshops were not primarily instructive or explanatory, but prioritized
learning-by-doing and learning together; about each other\'s practices
and approaches in a non-hierarchical manner. Rather than taking the
position of an expert, a workshop facilitator would introduce a subject
they were not yet familiar with, something they were curious about and
wanted to explore together. Furthermore, the finality or perfection of
workshop outcomes was not important. Thus, the focus was not on the
product but the *process*,---on learning how to let a plant tweet when
it needed water,[^26] drawing calligraphy with self-made tools,[^27]
turning battery powered toy cars into drawing robots,[^28] programming
browser animations,[^29] planting dead drops,[^30] creating generative
typefaces,[^31] and learning about tricks for color separation in offset
printing.[^32]

### Sociality 

In comparison to the kind of knowledge exchange that would occur in a
traditional artisan workshop, a space of specialized production, H&D
workshops (particularly those of the early days) only briefly touched
upon topics and techniques. The emphasis was not so much on transferring
specific skills or tools, but rather on offering an occasion to witness
how *others* do and make things. As a designer, I could experience (even
though only briefly) how the approaches of practitioners from different
disciplinary backgrounds, and different levels of expertise *diverged*
from what was familiar to me. Vice versa, others could \'see\' or
experience me doing and making things in my particular way. Observing
and learning from each other\'s approaches (some of which diverged, some
seemed familiar) created a particularly generative condition. It is
particular as it cannot be entirely foreseen by any of the participants.
The uncertainty of the moment, the not-knowing, is what workshop
attendees had in common.

In her book *In Catastrophic Times* (2015), Isabelle Stengers wrote that
divergence does not belong to a single person. Rather divergences "are
related to the situation and not to persons, \[and\] are propositions
whose truth derives from their efficacy."[^33] I came to understand
these short workshops as occasions for trying and testing articulations
of diverging practices, experimenting with making oneself understood and
understanding the other through different registers; verbal, aesthetic,
technical, methodical utterances. At the time, I was interested in
getting to know more web developers and to learn about coding, seeing
how they work through issues, hearing how they speak about or respond to
issues, and also trying to learn to code myself. It was not my intention
to become a programmer myself. While working on websites as a designer,
I noticed a kind of discrepancy between my ideas, concepts and desires
and the 'reality' of web programming (in terms of technical feasibility
but also the time it takes to realize things). In my experience of
designing websites at the time, I thought it required design mock-ups
(sketches that look like websites but do not function as such) to be
handed over to a programmer, rather than working on the design and
development of a website side-by-side. Furthermore, it seemed that I did
not always speak the same language as the developers I worked with.
There was difficulty with our communication.

To recap: To some extent both the artisan workplace and what I have
called the 'workshop format' require a certain openness, flexibility and
attunement to their socio-material dynamics. There is often divergence
in ways of doing and making amongst practitioners. Discrepancies between
what one is used to and how things are done in a particular workshop do
not necessarily have to be overcome, yet becomes a condition that
requires attention. As such, workshops (sites and formats) may always be
peculiar, temporary social spaces that are uncontrollable to some
degree. Besides methods, techniques, tools, and protocols, such
environments bring about social dynamics that evolve from the particular
composition of participants, facilitators and organizers, the
environment they find themselves in, as well as the tools, techniques
and materials they are dealing with.

In H&D workshops, workshop organizers, facilitators, participants,
environment and tools shape and reshape the dynamics of the here and
now. Producing a concrete result, for example a functioning prototype or
learning how to master a particular skill, may not necessarily be the
goal. Conditions that factor into the composition of the workshop and
workshop outcomes are not fully in control of any of the participants or
facilitators. On the contrary, a workshop may become an opportunity to
escape the pressures of producing something final or instantaneously
useful. When the stakes are low, a unique condition for learning and
making things is established. The goal is not to accomplish or finish
anything beautiful, functioning or impactful. Yet it would be dismissive
to say that nothing is produced, or that it does not matter what is
being produced, or how it is being produced. In *Meeting the Universe
Halfway Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning*
(2007) feminist theorist Karen Barad wrote

> "the point is not merely that knowledge practices have material
> consequences but that practices of knowing are specific material
> engagements that participate in (re)configuring the world. Which
> practices we enact matter--in both senses of the word. Making
> knowledge is not simply about making facts but about making
> worlds."[^34]

By establishing an informal context in which final products or expert
knowledge allegedly does not matter, the notion of "nothing really is at
stake\" becomes accepted and appreciated. Due to *repeatedly* organizing
such workshop-based events from 2013-2015, under the same title
\'Hackers & Designers\', the manner in which they were organized and
talked about, H&D\'s workshops became known as easy going, easy to join,
and easy to organize, and as such, this very fact of \'not mattering\'
started to matter.

The workshops were also \'packaged\' as events and resonated partially
because they were enjoyable activities outside of working hours.
Scheduling them in the evenings created an entertaining atmosphere.
While the workshops were often a laborious process for all who were
involved (organizers, participants, facilitators), they were held
outside of working hours, and therefore outside of the scope of
\'work\', which shaped the way they were perceived. These workshop-based
events blurred the line between work and leisure, friendships and work
relations. The spontaneous approach to ad hoc organization may have been
perceived as \'easy going\' or \'easy to do.\' Yet this spontaneity was
also accompanied by stress, often caused by lack of clarity around
numbers of attendants. Often we would not know how many people would
turn up. At times, a sense of failure was felt if not many people turned
up. At other times, it would be overwhelming if more than we could
accommodate turned up.

The incentive of H&D workshops has been to create exceptional learning
environments. The workshops break with disciplinary routines, habitual
ways of doing and making, emphasizing instead collective hands-on
experimentation. Simultaneously, the repeated organization of workshops
and the particular conditions in which they were organized, also became
a kind of practice or routine, which was upheld by the organizers,
facilitators and participants, all committed to a particular way of
workshopping together. Similar to a workshop instructor who develops
certain socio-material skills and conducts that evolve from the activity
of coordinating and hosting students and colleagues in their workshop, I
have also learned and practiced context-specific social-material skills
through the coordination and hosting of hands-on workshops in the
context of H&D. Though I practiced this coordination in a manner that
aligned with the fragmented experiences of the self-employed creative
practitioners involved. Such workshop-based events reflected and
perpetuated a certain culture of flexible work and contributed to a
perception of workshop organization being effortless.

\[images:
[[https://wiki.hackersanddesigners.nl/images/c/c7/Modes_of_reproduction.jpg]{.underline}](https://wiki.hackersanddesigners.nl/images/c/c7/Modes_of_reproduction.jpg)\
[[https://wiki.hackersanddesigners.nl/images/f/f0/Toyhacking.png]{.underline}](https://wiki.hackersanddesigners.nl/images/f/f0/Toyhacking.png)

[[https://wiki.hackersanddesigners.nl/images/b/bf/Toyhack1.jpg]{.underline}](https://wiki.hackersanddesigners.nl/images/b/bf/Toyhack1.jpg)
[[https://wiki.hackersanddesigners.nl/images/7/7d/So_smart.jpg]{.underline}](https://wiki.hackersanddesigners.nl/images/7/7d/So_smart.jpg)

[[https://wiki.hackersanddesigners.nl/images/e/eb/So_smart_1.jpg]{.underline}](https://wiki.hackersanddesigners.nl/images/e/eb/So_smart_1.jpg)
[[https://wiki.hackersanddesigners.nl/images/f/f8/Icalligraphy_02.jpg]{.underline}](https://wiki.hackersanddesigners.nl/images/f/f8/Icalligraphy_02.jpg)\]

## The evolving workshop market 

### Self-organized learning 

A student by the name of Lucy once asked me: 'Why does everything have
to be a workshop these days?' In my understanding the question arose out
of a certain workshop fatigue,---an exhaustion with the 'workshop
market', and perhaps a general disappointment in what workshops are
actually capable of. I had asked the design students at the Sandberg
Instituut to develop and host workshops in smaller groups. The workshops
took place throughout the course of one semester and were intended to
function as occasions where the students could teach each other a skill,
a subject or a curiosity. I have taught this class several times and
usually contextualized the course with a presentation that contained
examples of workshops I had co-organized and participated in, in the
context of H&D. I also added some historical examples of self-organized
extracurricular activities in the 1960s and 1970s that were taking
place, in addition to or outside of the regular curriculum of
universities, art and design schools. Examples include the 'Free
International University\' (Germany, 1973-1988),[^35] 'Anti University'
(UK, 1968),[^36] 'Non-school' (France, 1966),[^37] and the
aforementioned Haagse Vrije Academie that lasted significantly longer
(Netherlands, 1947-2015).

Interdisciplinarity, unconstrained learning and egalitarianism seemed a
common desire in these self-organized collective learning environments,
some of which run by artists. The Free International University founded
by Joseph Beuys after he was dismissed from his professorship of
Monumental Sculpture at the Düsseldorf Academy \"for his involvement in
sit-ins and for disregarding the usual admittance procedures for
students (he permitted anyone to enter his class).\"[^38] The FIU was an
artist-initiated counter-educational initiative to democratize
education. Beuys wanted \"to free schools and colleges from the control
of the political parties and the state.\"[^39] Beuys\' intention was to
fundamentally renew and extend the educational system. (For his
\"expanded concept of art\" the renewal of the entire educational system
was necessary both, the methods and content of teaching and in the
organization of research and teaching.\")[^40] George Brecht\'s and
Robert Filliou\'s Non-school of Villefranche rejected any preestablished
program. The artists proclaimed \"\[p\]erfect freedom, equality,
availability to all, mindfulness, are enough. This is where \[the
Non-School differed\] from \"anti-universities\", which seem to carry
the hangover of the patterns they inherited from the universities they
wish to replace.\"[^41] The Non-school, was a critique on \"the expanded
commodification and capitalization of art in the 1960\" and fittingly,
rarely left any material trace. It only existed in the form of an
official-looking letterhead \"\[T\]he artists seemed systematically to
refuse to advance beyond the phase of ideas and processes.\"[^42]

In sharing these examples from the past with the students, my intention
was to convey a certain emancipatory potential in student-led,
self-organized educational formats, to appeal to the students\' own
ability to take things into their own hands, rather than relying too
much on a given curriculum. It seemed to me as if the format of the
workshop as it is interpreted and actualized in the context of H&D, is
carried by comparable energies as the aforementioned historical examples
of self-organized educational initiatives of the 60s and 70s.
Self-cultivation seems to be valued also in the context of H&D, and
articulated through notions such as learning-by-doing, experimentation
with new techniques and methods independent of established disciplines,
institutions or daily work routines. However, the examples of
experimental self-organized learning initiatives need to be understood
in relation to the specific time and contexts in which they occurred,
and to which they responded. It seems to me as if such initiatives were
driven by a particular kind of urgency, and can also be understood as a
form of protest, act of resistance or defiance. Workshops, as they are
organized today, in my view, do not exclude those aspects. Nevertheless
the emphasis in workshop organization seems to lie on the workshop being
a format that is easy to access, easy to organize. A workshop is a
flexible format for doing things differently, *in* or *outside* of
institutions or daily work routines. In my view, \'taking things into
one\'s own hands\', changes its meaning within institutional context,
and in a time when taking things into one\'s own hands seems to have
become the norm.

Alternative or complementary learning communities sprouted throughout
the 1960s and 1970s \"as organizations for underground activism and
political education. \[\...\] They were also known as experimental
colleges, open education exchanges, and communiversities. \[some\] moved
their programming off-campus and continued to exist as a venue for
\'lifelong learning\'.\"[^43] Following principles of learning-by-doing,
education as an emancipatory practice was not to end with the boundaries
of the prevailing learning institutions. As John Dewey wrote\" I believe
that education \[\...\] is a process of living and not a preparation for
future living.\"[^44]

Around the same time *The Whole Earth Catalog* promoted the importance
of self-education in the format of a product catalog that was published
between 1968 and 1972 in North America.[^45] It compiled information on
how to build and get access to tools and infrastructures that cater to
essential forms of hands-on production and self-education. The emphasis
was not so much on mastery of such tools, but learning as much as
necessary about them to get around, and to live a self-determined life,
independent from industrialized, and capitalist society[^46]. According
to Florian Cramer, the occurrence of *The* *Whole Earth Catalog* also
marked a turning moment: \"the convergence of proto-"Maker
Culture,"[^47] Thoreau-inspired counterculture and DIY superstores. As
both a manual and a product catalog, it gave \'access to tools\' (its
motto) for squatters as well for homesteaders. Its publisher, Stewart
Brand, went on to become a Silicon Valley entrepreneur.\"[^48]

Notions such as self-motivated self-cultivation, the desire for
independence from prevailing educational and governmental bureaucracy,
seems to align well with the so-called \'learning economy\'. In her
article \"Lifelong Learning and the Professionalized Learner,\"[^49]
artist researcher Annette Krauss turns towards European policy papers on
lifelong learning. She described developments such as \'life-long
learning\' and the \'learning economies\' as examples \"of
progress-oriented accumulative models of learning that pervades
institutions and subjectivities today.\"[^50] According to Krauss,
\"learning from preschool to post-retirement, lifelong learning
\[encompasses\] the whole spectrum of formal, non-formal and informal
learning and is tightly interwoven with the commodification of
education.[^51]

Thinking back to Lucy, the design student\'s expression of frustration
with workshops, I understand her question \"Why does everything have to
be a workshop these days?\" as a critique of a certain pervasiveness of
workshops. The question stayed with me as I started to wonder if
workshops\' characteristics of being ephemeral, non-binding, solely
produce an image of empowerment, while simultaneously perhaps also
weakening collective ties. In the context of the students\' assignment
to develop workshops for each other, and the implied appeal to
self-organize collective learning environments, I question whether I
have tried to help students in becoming independent
thinkers/learners/designers or if I am preparing them to abide by work
conditions that are uncommitted, short-term, in which it is left up to
the individual to self-sustain and to continuously self-improve. To
formulate it more broadly, is a course that focuses on developing
workshops, as a way to encourage students to self-organize their own
study environments, reinforcing superficial collaboration and
fragmentation of work conditions, rather than strengthening connections
between them and enabling long-term collaboration?

### Postponing accountability 

There has been an increase of extra-curricular workshop initiatives,
many of which are student-run, some attempting to address structural
problems of the academic institution. An example of a student-run
self-organized initiative is PUB, an interdepartmental publishing
platform, started by a student from the design department, Daniel
Seemayer, who was looking for opportunities to exchange with students of
different departments, as well as more opportunities to focus on matters
of (self-)publishing. Many students became involved in PUB[^52] and were
granted financial support by the institution to continue organizing
publishing related workshops, and projects. Other initiatives are
Unsettling Rietveld Sandberg,[^53] and HearHere![^54] and a manifold
self-initiated student unions.[^55] The organizers of such initiatives
are students, tutors or staff. Usually the motivation to start
organizing these initiatives starts from a frustration, in Daniel\'s
case the lack of interdepartmental exchange on publishing matters;
others address the lack of representation of certain groups, or a lack
of communication between different departments of the institution. The
workshop seems to be a recurring format within all of these initiatives.
Oftentimes external experts are invited to induce their knowledge by
facilitating workshops, for example, on issues of inclusivity and
diversity, to sensitize and train teachers, students and staff in
creating safe(r) learning environments. To give an example, two
workshops I participated in were organized by the initiative \'HearHere!
\' who invited two coaches to facilitate a workshop on \"Non-Violent
Communication,\"[^56] and by \'Unsettling Rietveld Sandberg\' who
invited Camille Barton to facilitate a workshop about \"White
Privilege\"[^57] for tutors, coordinators and administrative staff.

The hope is that workshops can actually lead to structural change in an
institution such as an art academy. These workshops intend to empower
educators and students but I came to wonder if such workshops merely
satisfy an instantaneous need momentarily, by providing a format for
superficial engagement of participants with serious issues that run
deeply in the fabric of an institution. Workshops are short-lived
one-off instances, workshop participation is often non-obligatory and
commitments remain brief. How issues are followed-up with, are continued
and practiced in the everyday reality of students and staff often
remains unclear. The risk of the workshop is that it becomes an evasive
strategy in certain contexts. Issues are outsourced to freelance
coaches, (often also artists, designers and educators that already work
under precarious conditions) -- along with the responsibility of
creating structural change.

Another question that arose for me is, in promoting temporary learning
formats, in privileging processes over outcomes, do workshop initiatives
(which Hackers & Designers is also an example of) contribute to the
valorization and commodification of the workshop, and therefore the
commodification of learning as such? Does the \'image\' of the workshop
as a potent format, economize the sphere of education? While being
occupied with sustaining a space for experimentation, reducing the
pressures of finding solutions to problems, or producing final outcomes
or products, the process may have become a product.

**Commodified learning\
**The workshop format seems to function well within the context of
commercial conferences, incubator programs, and creative retreats and at
times it seems the workshop is understood as a product itself. Taking
place outside of the daily work routine, workshops ought to be fun while
enhancing the participants' CV. *Next Nature* a Dutch organization that
describes itself as \"a network of makers, thinkers, educators and
supporters \[\...\] interested in the debate on our future---in which
biology and technology are fusing\") designed a workshop-in-a-box.[^58]
Here, the workshop takes on the format of a saleable card game and is
described as a "2-hour dynamic crash course \[that\] helps you to better
understand and discuss technology."[^59] It might not be intended as
such, but this workshop-in-a-box comes across as an ironic commentary on
compulsive self-improvement, learning-by-doing and the pressure to
participate in one workshop after the other. The implication of
presenting a workshop as a neatly packaged product is that the workshop
in and of itself is a highly productive format that can be reproduced
easily.

![](media/image10.png){width="6.0in" height="4.680555555555555in"}

Screenshot: Next Nature \"Workshop in a Box\"

![](media/image9.png){width="2.307790901137358in"
height="5.005208880139983in"}

Screenshot: Another example of a workshop-in-a-box \"The crazy thing
about Workshop Tactics. It's now sold tens of thousands of copies all
around the globe. To consultants, managers, professors and doctors.
Designers, engineers, managers and CEOs. It's trusted by folks at the
BBC, Microsoft, IBM, Google, Apple, Meta, Stanford University, and
Lockheed Martin. The list is endless.\" -- Charles Burdett, founder of
Pips Decks\
[[https://pipdecks.com/products/workshop-tactics?variant=39770920321113]{.underline}](https://pipdecks.com/products/workshop-tactics?variant=39770920321113),
last accessed March 2022.

![](media/image8.png){width="6.0in" height="4.680555555555555in"}

Screenshot: Jonathan Courtney, *The Workshopper Playbook*, \"Jonathan
Courtney is a facilitation genius who designs and runs workshops for the
coolest companies on the planet. This book contains his secret formula -
so don\'t just stand there, read it!\", quote by Jake Knapp, author of
*Sprint : how to solve big problems and test new ideas in just five
days* (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2016),
[[https://www.workshopperplaybook.com/book-choice]{.underline}](https://www.workshopperplaybook.com/book-choice),
last accessed March 2022.

The \'workshop market\' promises collective experiences as opportunities
for self-improvement, and as a return for investment especially if the
workshop leaders are renowned, influential players in their professional
fields. The free spirit of experimentation is easily replaced by
coercive forces of a neoliberal workshop market, the fear of missing out
on latest workshop trends and the pressure to constantly engage in
processes of self-improvement. I participated and organized workshops in
various contexts and frequently encountered a general assumption that
the workshop format can save the day, that it is able to offer magical
solutions to an array of problems. I found such \'workshop magic\'
depicted astutely in a particular scene of the popular Netflix series
*Broad City*, in which one of the protagonists, Ilana, is caught by
surprise when invited by her professor to the front of the auditorium to
present her research project. She is obviously not prepared to do so,
yet she walks to the front, confidently claps her hands together and
shouts: \"Let\'s workshop this!\" The phrase \"Let\'s workshop this!\"
stands in for what is not (yet) there.\
\
In March 2018, I participated in a workshop by invitation from a friend
who worked at a design and technology lab at the time.[^60] I was one of
four invited participants. The personal email invitation from my friend
emphasized the experimental character of the session and the opportunity
to collaborate with a unique group of makers, consisting of a writer,
and two programmers.[^61] My friend asked me to join because of my
expertise as a designer and my involvement with the H&D collective. In
the following section, I will reflect upon this workshop as it allows me
to highlight certain dilemmas that I have come across frequently, which,
in my view, relate to the unquestionability and popularity of the
workshop that have created certain expectations of the workshop that
posit it as a compelling format in and of itself. I refer to this
workshop as a hackathon-like workshop, as in my view it is exemplary of
the ways principles of different fields---such as software development,
travel and change meaning through workshops. In this case such traveling
principles that remind of hackathon principles, produced issues that are
exemplary also for the commodification of workshops, in the sense that
the workshop is often assumed to be a highly productive format
(productive in neo-liberal terms).

In its initial meaning a \'hackathon\'[^62] (neologism of \'hacking\'
and \'marathon\') describes a time-constrained collaborative event that
focuses on soft- and hardware development. The aim of a hackathon is to
combine various expertise of soft- and hardware development to come to a
(useful, creative, or unique) product or to find the solution to a
problem. Hackathons usually focus on a specific topic or technology.
According to the OpenBSD (a security-focused, free and open-source,
Unix-like operating system) website, the first event termed
\'hackathon\' was organized in 1999 and developers from around the world
gathered.[^63] Since the mid to late 2000s, hackathons started to become
popular formats in technology companies as a way to quickly develop new
software technologies.

In my understanding, the term "hackathon" seems to combine work and
leisure and can be found on event pages and symposia schedules within
the cultural sector in the Netherlands, particularly in the context of
workshop-based events that target artists and creative
technologists.[^64] In that context, the hackathon-like workshop often
promises a hands-on practical approach and sometimes involves technology
production but not necessarily.[^65] Participants are often unpaid and
work towards concrete solutions or products in a compressed amount of
time and often within a competitive setup. Sometimes a jury selects the
most innovative project, which is then awarded a prize.[^66]

Upon arrival at the hackathon-like workshop all participants were asked
to engage in an introduction game to get to know each other. The game
required physical exercises. One participant refused to take part. The
others went along with it although all we had met before in other
circumstances,---perhaps to placate the workshop facilitator, who was
hired especially to support the collaborative process. What followed
were two days of intensive \'brainstorming\'.

We were asked to tackle the following challenge in collaboration:
\"Create an interactive story that is set in the future. And use code.\"
The workshop space was well-equipped: markers, sticky notes, and walls
covered with paper to sketch on. While intentions for outcomes of the
workshop were communicated openly at the beginning of the workshop,
during the two days, a certain collective expectation of a tangible,
presentable outcome arose. The group's collective ambition led to
producing a functioning prototype, an interactive installation that
would be presented and tested at a public event at the end of the
workshop process. While it is impossible to fully locate this emerging
ambition and determine how it came about, in my recounting of this
workshop experience, I realize it may have been related to the fact that
one hundred people had been invited for the final presentation before
the workshop had officially started. Posters and flyers had been printed
and distributed. I felt pressured to \'perform\' due to the expectation
of output, to live up to the expectations of an audience but also
feeling conscious of not letting down my friend and fellow
collaborators. Furthermore, our workshop facilitator seemed highly
motivated to mediate the \'idea finding\' process. Drinks and snacks
were frequently offered to bolster our energy. A videographer was hired
to interview every participant about the qualities and challenges of our
collaboration.[^67] The video interviews were published on social media
platforms and on the project website.[^68]

Towards the end of the second day, the tension was mounting. It became
clear we would not be able to produce a functioning prototype within the
constraints of the given timeframe. To be able to present a convincing
demo to the audience, some of us would have to continue working on the
project in our free time. A whole enterprise of workshop facilitation
arose, which contributed to keeping up the image of a workshop as a
short intensive format for collaboration. In this estimation, a workshop
can produce \'magic\', although the consequences of this were that some
participants had to over-compensate working into their leisure time in
order to uphold the image of the workshop as full of potential.

![](media/image11.png){width="6.0in" height="3.75in"}\
Image: Video documentation, if then / what now: the making of, June
2018, https://vimeo.com/273102715

![](media/image16.png){width="6.0in" height="4.291666666666667in"}

Image: Screenshot of the workshop website, \'If Then What Now\', which
is no longer online.

![](media/image13.jpg){width="2.564851268591426in"
height="3.8593755468066493in"}![](media/image12.jpg){width="2.5781255468066493in"
height="3.8671872265966756in"}![](media/image15.jpg){width="2.5781255468066493in"
height="3.5409098862642168in"}![](media/image14.jpg){width="2.5477055993000874in"
height="3.519721128608924in"}

Image: Outcome of the workshop: A script produced and designed through
an interactive installation. A visitor/reader/listener would be provided
with headphones and listen to a text written by writer Auke van Hulst
with the title \"Het Normalisatiebureau\". Furthermore the
visitor/reader/listener would be connected to different sensors, i.e. a
sensor that measures their body temperature and one that measures their
heart beat. While listening to the text a script of the text would be
produced. The type size and styling of the text is adjusted according to
the sensor data. Eventually the visitor/reader/listener received a
print-out of the script, designed according to their personal data.

To clarify and temper an overly negative representation, there were also
joyful and inspiring moments and shared excitement throughout the days
of gathering. However, in my experience as a participant in the
workshop, some challenges became apparent that I have also experienced
as a workshop organizer and facilitator in other contexts. I found
myself in the role of the over-facilitating mediator. I have also been
responsible for documenting workshops, capturing the most outwardly
collaborative and productive workshop moments, in order to prove to a
wider audience, to the funding institutions, but also to myself, that
the workshops had in fact taken place, that there was a good turn-out,
that something valuable had been produced and that participants had had
a good time.

This example demonstrates the extent to which workshops are often
\'dressed up\' as highly productive, creative or inspiring. In reality,
these workshops often lack a clear intention or purpose, while the
parameters are often tightly defined and inflexible. Furthermore,
workshops are often only considered successful if a tangible result is
produced: a product or prototype that can be presented to a wider
audience. By organizing a public event as the concluding moment for the
workshop, the organizers introduced additional pressure to the process.
The perception of the success of a workshop then becomes dependent on
the result, which in the case of the hackathon-like workshop, needed to
be tangible, finished or at least presentable to a wider audience.

Over-facilitation of the workshop was another pitfall. By introducing a
mediator, unnecessary exercises, a wide range of workshop equipment,
along with elaborate modes of documentation (external photographers,
videographers conducting interviews), the workshop organizers
established a controlled environment and decreased the chance for
unexpected turns. The arbitrariness of the assignment (\"Create an
interactive story that is set in the future\") combined with an imposed
hackathon-like setup (\"And use code\") implied there was a problem that
needed to be solved. In my view, without providing the time and space to
investigate commonalities or an understanding of the necessity of
producing something together in the first place, the workshop became an
end in itself.

Through introducing a range of recognizable workshop props a workshop
may produce certain aesthetics and articulations, reproducing an image
of workshops that emits productivity and professionality, while criteria
for working together, or definitions for productivity remain obscure.
Workshop documentation (photos, notes, mind maps), workshop equipment
(sticky notes, whiteboards, projection screens), mediation and
entertaining presentation formats (video documentary, public evening
event) sustain a certain perception of workshops. However, such an
overload of probably well-intended facilitation might not align with the
actual experience as a participant, and can even create coercive
dynamics and discomfort.

## Temporary critical publics 

### Resisting finalization

In contrast to the hackathon-like workshop mentioned above, the aim of
workshops in the context of H&D is not primarily to fix a presented
problem. There is usually no imposed competitive element, and making
processes do not necessarily result in producing finalized outputs.[^69]
On the contrary, the artifacts produced during the workshops have the
characteristics of disposals rather than proposals. They are the
side-products of a process.

In a talk on Free Jazz improvisation with children, German journalist
and cultural critic Diedrich Diederichsen asked if it can be the purpose
of the workshop to never finish a thing?[^70] Indeed, the permission
*not* to produce anything can be a crucial asset in workshops. In fact,
it is often the shared activity of postponement, of usual chores and
obligations that offers an opportunity to rethink productivity together.

Shifting the focus away from a preoccupation with producing finalized
outcomes towards processes of material, technical, social exploration,
can make space for a perspective on personal and collective
relationships with the inner workings of technical objects, their
subjectivities and implications. As Thomas James Lodato and Carl DiSalvo
write:

> "a distinction needs to be made between the prototype and prototyping,
> as an activity. \[...\] The object is crucial, but it is a product of
> the social process of conceptualizing and expressing the wants and
> needs. The activity of prototyping, then, is dialogic in that its
> structure is one of exchange and its purpose is the discovery and
> elucidation of the conditions or factors of a design."[^71]

As typically temporary and to some extent uncommitted collective
environments, workshops create a condition for questioning obligations
or dependencies between people and their digital tools. As alluded to in
the previous chapter, a workshop at H&D that involves people and
technical objects creates collective conditions that uphold
possibilities for discontinuation of relationships between them in the
future. This is possible because the ties of those involved are loose.

For example, the three-day workshop *Internet of Bodies* took place
during the HDSA in 2016 and was facilitated by Simone Niquille and
Carina Namih. The workshop facilitators invited participants to reflect
on the manner in which computers \'look at\', measure and assess bodies.
In one of the exercises, participants were equipped with a map of facial
feature points as well as a map of Henry Dreyfuss' human scale
measurements.[^72] Using one sheet of 1m by 2m paper, the participants
were asked to form groups of three in order to map each other\'s bodies
onto the paper, according to the points on the provided maps. They used
the tip of their nose as a starting point for their measurements.[^73]

![](media/image4.jpg){width="6.0in" height="4.5in"}

Image: *The Internet of Bodies,* workshop by Simone Niquille and Carina
Namih, 2016.

The exercise was a rather tedious and intimate process, at times
awkwardly funny but also uncomfortable for some. Participants covered
each other with spot stickers, using string and measuring tape to
capture their dimensions. This process resulted in a series of life-size
scale data portraits. In another exercise, participants were asked to
use an open source 3D scanning app to scan their bodies, and use the
Blender app to create new collective avatars---combining several body
scans into one image.

*The* *Internet of Bodies* is an example of how a workshop may not
prioritize finalizing products, but use propositions for outcomes (data
body maps, 3D scans, animations, and prints of 3D body renderings) as
markers within an evolving explorative learning process. These
materializations, of which some were physical artifacts, digital
renderings and performative expressions, function as occasions to
gather, discuss and reflect within different constellations---in smaller
groups, individually or with the entire group. The workshop was narrated
and structured all the while leaving room for participants to explore
freely, discuss, reflect, and at times refuse to participate, or change
the terms and conditions for their participation. The physical mapping
exercise caused some discomfort and probed the limits of some
participants\' personal boundaries. Therefore, some of them refused to
be mapped or to map other people\'s bodies, which eventually led to a
lively discussion around the transgression of personal boundaries in the
digital realm. That is, when the \'gaze\' or \'touch\' of a machine, or
algorithm cannot not be directly or immediately felt.

In my view, the potential of the workshop as a space for experimenting
with new forms of social-technological interaction lies in it being
dynamic and non-conclusive, which makes it a difficult format,
impossible to fully control or reproduce as a model.

### Critical public 

> *\"I respect your difference \[of opinion\]\' is a rather empty thing
> to say, which smells of tolerance and commits whoever says it to
> nothing. On the other hand, what can enter into communication with the
> word "honor" is something that will be apprehended not as a
> particularity of the other, but as what the other makes matter, what
> makes him or her think and feel, and which I cannot dream of reducing
> to the "same" without being insulting \[\...\]\"*[^74]

In the earlier example of the hackathon-like workshop, I illustrated how
a public event at the culmination of a workshop can influence the
ambitions and expectations of a temporary collective. Knowing a large
audience had been invited and that we were required to present a final
outcome, shaped my expectation of the workshop. An external audience
needed to be convinced our workshop production was worthwhile. However
the members of the temporary collective of a workshop can also be
understood as a temporary public of sorts. Workshop participants and
facilitators gather in a somewhat exceptional manner. That is, the
workshop takes place in a limited timeframe and outside of daily
obligations. A usually implicit, perhaps intimate work routine is, to
some extent, exposed in a novel context. The workshoppers may apprehend
what Stengers described as \"what the other makes matter, what makes him
or her think and feel.\"[^75] The fleeting character of a \'workshop
public\' may become even confrontational, as future, or long-term
relations are not a necessity. Yet it seems to me a workshop public is
committed enough to bring to the fore, differences of opinions or
differences of manners (methodically and in terms of behavior). As
temporary socio-technical compositions, \'workshop publics\' are
semi-committed to each other and therefore differences can arise and
persist.

**Expressing differences**

In the following section, I recall a workshop I facilitated with H&D at
the Libre Graphics Meeting (LGM) of 2016,[^76] which elucidated my
understanding of the wavering commitments of workshop publics and the
ways in which they can bring to the fore and sustain differences as
opposed to collapse into consensus.

In 2015, H&D developed an instant publishing tool that we refer to as
*Momentary Zine*, and which we experimented with in different workshop
situations.[^77] The tool could be described as a publishing-karaoke
machine. It uses speech input to instantly produce printed output. By
speaking into a microphone, participants can produce a printed zine---a
publication containing image and text.[^78] The person interacting with
the zine station enters into direct conversation with the tool, which
simultaneously produces the publication. The experience of producing a
zine is informed by the immediacy of speaking and instantly creates
printed output. The reader is then confronted with unexpected results.
Not every word will be recognized accurately by the software, and the
result of the image search might be unexpected. The zine is generated in
an improvisational manner. This project was presented and
\'workshopped\' in various contexts.[^79] It is an entertaining and
accessible tool that allows you to produce a publication instantly. The
production is easy, fast and cheap. People generally enjoy the surprise
effect.

> ![File:MomentaryBuch4.jpg](media/image2.jpg){width="1.9713265529308837in"
> height="2.9531255468066493in"}![File:Zinefest
> 3.jpg](media/image7.jpg){width="4.117187226596675in"
> height="2.744792213473316in"}![File:Zinefest
> 2.jpg](media/image6.jpg){width="4.118260061242345in"
> height="2.7488877952755906in"}
>
> Images: *Momentary Zine* -- walk-in workshop at *ZineFest* Berlin,
> 2015

H&D submitted the *Momentary Zine* as a workshop proposal to LGM.[^80]
The *Momentary Zine* uses different programming interfaces (APIs),[^81]
one for the translation of speech to text, and one to extract images
from the internet. Using the web API provided by Google caused some
controversy during the workshop. As the LGM\'s code of conduct states,
the conference exclusively promotes the development and use of free and
open-source software graphics applications.[^82] One of our motivations
for participating in LGM with the *Momentary Zine was* to explore
alternatives to Google API / Webkit. During our workshop's introduction
it became apparent that we had implemented Google APIs in the software,
which caused immediate resistance on the part of two participants.

The choice to use the Google API as a fundamental part of the software
was conceived of as unacceptable in the context of an open-source
software conference. The two participants left the workshop after
clearly and vocally opposing and disregarding our contribution to the
conference. Around fifteen participants remained to continue the
workshop. The workshop took a different turn than we had planned. We had
initially prepared a few exercises that would give direction for
producing publications in smaller groups, taking a \'telephone game\'
approach.[^83] Yet, inspired by the protest against the Google API, the
*Momentary Zine* became a kind of documentation tool for a discussion
about working with proprietary software and whether it should be fully
abandoned in the context of a conference for open-source software
graphics applications.

As the workshop proceeded, zines were produced and vital conversations
were had. Admittedly, it was not a moment I look back on fondly. Yet, I
do think about the workshop frequently because of---to borrow Isabelle
Stengers' words---its \'stupidity\'. The workshop and the reasonably
critical response to it were a result of our lack of attention for the
contexts within which it took place, a conference that has been
organized since 2006 out of a need to create an occasion for developers,
artist and designers to gather and exchange ideas about using and
improving free and open-source software graphics applications.

The explicit rejection, the vocality of disagreement and the drastic
departure on the part of the two participants made an important
contribution to the workshop. As Stengers wrote they made \"divergences
present and important \[which\] has nothing to do with respect for
differences of opinion \[\...\]. It is the situation that, via the
divergent knowledges it activates, gains the power to cause those who
gather around it to think and hesitate together.\"[^84] I have seen
other forms of resistance in workshops. For instance, participants may
silently disengage, roll their eyes and sneak out. Sometimes, they stay
in the room to boycott or nag throughout. While our workshop continued
without the two protestors, their message was clear and remained with us
-- made us hesitate and think together. It became part of the workshop
and continues to stay with me as a sore spot that sometimes reappears
when preparing for a workshop.

## Explicating workshops 

### The H&D Summer Academy (2015-ongoing)

At the time of writing this dissertation, the H&D collective has grown
from three to nine members, has been organizing workshops in different
formats for nine years, and is starting to plan the eighth edition of
the H&D Summer Academy (HDSA). The HDSA is an annual one to two week
intensive workshop program, taking place in the summer in Amsterdam.
With the first edition in 2015, H&D\'s approach to organizing workshops
changed. After two years of organizing \'Hackers & Designers\' as a
workshop-based event series that took place during workdays in the
evenings, we envisioned the HDSA as a more committed format, a temporary
school of sorts, that would give us an opportunity to expand on the
preceding shorter evening events and experiment more with the workshop
format as such.

Since then, each edition of the HDSA has been organized in a slightly
different manner, taking into consideration learning from previous
editions and experimenting with new approaches. In 2018, during the
organization of the fourth edition of the HDSA, for the first time, we
did not differentiate workshop participants from workshop facilitators
in our open call. People who were interested in joining the HDSA would
all apply by submitting a workshop proposition. Thus, they would commit
to facilitating a workshop and participating in the full duration of the
two week long workshop program. No prior experience in teaching or
facilitating workshops was required. As part of the preparation towards
the HDSA in 2018, we introduced a peer review process during which
workshop proposals would be reviewed by everyone who had submitted a
workshop. That way, we involved workshop facilitators in developing each
other\'s workshop preparations and created connections between them
before the actual HDSA began.

However, it seemed that the lack of specificity as to what exactly
characterizes the \'workshop\' as a format, made it hard to describe,
defend or critique the proposed workshops in a peer review process. The
submitted workshop descriptions remained brief. They either reflected on
the subject of the workshop or on the technicalities, but rarely did
they address both, or in ways that invited suggestions and feedback on
the workshop. The proposals did not incorporate descriptions of how a
workshop would actually play out in a space, over a certain amount of
time and did not take the different needs and levels of expertise of the
participants into consideration. This observation led me to submit a
workshop proposal with Shailoh Phillips, who was at the time my
colleague at the research consortium 'Bridging Art, Design and
Technology through Critical Making'.[^85] Our workshop would take place
at the beginning of the HDSA and would focus on the format of the
workshop itself. The title was *Work the Workshop*.[^86]

###  

### A Workshop about Workshops 

![](media/image1.jpg){width="6.0in" height="4.0in"}

Image: Anja Groten and Shailoh Philips behind a glass window observing
how the workshop executes \'itself\', *Work the Workshop,* H&D Summer
Academy 2018.

![](media/image5.jpg){width="5.861111111111111in"
height="8.083333333333334in"}Image: Workshop toolkit from *Work the
Workshop*, H&D Summer Academy 2022,

Each prompt was clipped to a piece of paper. The prompts instructed
participants on what to do with the piece of paper.

The workshop was intended to be self-explaining -- executable like a
'script\' without a facilitator.

![](media/image3.jpg){width="6.0in" height="4.0in"}

Images: Work the workshop at HDSA2018

[[https://wiki.hackersanddesigners.nl/images/6/67/Worktheworkshop5.jpg]{.underline}](https://wiki.hackersanddesigners.nl/images/6/67/Worktheworkshop5.jpg)

[[https://wiki.hackersanddesigners.nl/images/b/b9/Worktheworkshop1.jpg]{.underline}](https://wiki.hackersanddesigners.nl/images/b/b9/Worktheworkshop1.jpg)

[[https://onions.io/dump/how-tos/Workshop-toolkit.jpg]{.underline}](https://onions.io/dump/how-tos/Workshop-toolkit.jpg)\]

> *I remember arriving on the first day and I think it was you Anja
> together with Shailoh that led the 'Work the Workshop' workshop. I
> remember being so excited about the possibility of throwing out
> everything that I had prepared before, and creating something entirely
> new that was particularly built on the relations that were performed
> in that initial encounter with everyone.*
>
> Quote from a conversation with H&D summer academy participant Lucas
> LaRochele, published in *Hackers & Designers -- Network Imaginaries*,
> self published in October 2021\"

We formulated exercises that were meant to offer different perspectives
on everyone\'s workshop plans. The exercises were intended as an
invitation to view the workshop itself as a medium, something that could
be externalized, tweaked and reiterated. The first exercise was to
imagine the workshop as a set of instructions, almost like an algorithm
or script that could be executed without the workshop facilitators being
present. We also presented this exercise as a script---delivered without
us workshop facilitators being present in the space. We prepared the
script and workshop kit in such a way that it would explain itself. This
exercise was inspired by THE THING,[^87] an automatic workshop. Writing
up a complete workshop script that can be executed without a facilitator
present is a tedious process. Aspects of the workshop that might usually
be improvised, needed to be scripted and explained. Unexpected outcomes
needed to be anticipated. However, it was also important to leave some
space for interpretation and improvisation.

The second exercise asked participants to attend to what we called
\'workshop props\' -- materials and equipment that frequently appear in
workshop settings, such as sticky notes, a white board, a projector,
chairs and tables arranged in a circle, in addition to cookies and
coffee. First, we asked the workshop facilitators to create an inventory
of their workshop props and then replace them with other self-made props
in order to play out the consequences. The last exercise invited
participants to physically rehearse the workshop at a high speed.
Workshop facilitators had to physically move their participants\' bodies
around, in the way they imagined participants would be taking up space
throughout their workshop.

This \'meta\' workshop about workshops did not intend to provide a
recipe or protocol for the perfect workshop. Rather than showcasing best
practices, the intention behind facilitating a workshop about workshops,
was to explore the format of the workshop itself as it has become a
substantial ingredient for H&D\'s activities but had remained mostly
unquestioned and never clearly articulated. With every new group we are
used to slightly adjusting the ways in which we approach the workshop.
We wanted to attend to the ways the workshop format itself can be
conceptualized and designed, including unforeseen aspects.

Furthermore, we wanted to facilitate exchange regarding past workshop
experiences and expectations in order to find ways of articulating
similar and different incentives for facilitating and participating in
workshops. As we were all facilitators as well as participants, we had a
shared interest in having a discussion and exchange about how we wanted
the workshops to play out, how we would support each other with
feedback, and perhaps how we would take the opportunity to rethink the
workshops within their specific context.

The way a workshop unfolds depends on many variables, which are
conditioned by the environment the workshop takes place in. It was
useful to hear about the various workshop experiences and expectations
of participants, in addition to articulating collective desires but also
insecurities that were specific to that particular temporary group---a
first step in making individual and collective intentions explicit and
in creating a workshop atmosphere before and along with embarking on the
workshop program together.

Video reports of H&D Summer Academy 2018,\
concept and design by Juliette Lizotte, development by Heerko van der
Kooij:\
[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVqCS7wPUh4&ab_channel=Hackers%26Designers]{.underline}](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVqCS7wPUh4&ab_channel=Hackers%26Designers)

[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YANEHZd-MbQ&ab_channel=Hackers%26Designers]{.underline}](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YANEHZd-MbQ&ab_channel=Hackers%26Designers)

[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aD-H7Pqg9s&ab_channel=Hackers%26Designers]{.underline}](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aD-H7Pqg9s&ab_channel=Hackers%26Designers)

[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpq0cFM7vSk&ab_channel=Hackers%26Designers]{.underline}](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpq0cFM7vSk&ab_channel=Hackers%26Designers)\
[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioW9RkHc6mc&ab_channel=Hackers%26Designers]{.underline}](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioW9RkHc6mc&ab_channel=Hackers%26Designers)

[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYN2XZMem8E&t=1s&ab_channel=Hackers%26Designers]{.underline}](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYN2XZMem8E&t=1s&ab_channel=Hackers%26Designers)

## Conclusion 

In this chapter, I have paid attention to and questioned the
implications of the \'workshop\' format, which I have come to understand
and appreciate most cogently in the context of H&D. Characteristics that
I have brought to the fore in the context of H&D workshops are learning
by doing in addition to learning and doing with others in a
semi-committed manner, exploring topics, methods and technologies,
without claiming authority over knowledge. In such workshops, the
understanding of productivity shifts from focusing on producing
finalized products to processes. The emphasis is on opening up such
processes in a social environment.

I have explained that ways of doing and making things are, to some
extent, exposed in such workshops. By partaking in each other's ways of
doing and making, diverging approaches become the subject of attention
and potential questioning. By opening up making processes that are
usually implicit or solitary, they can be called into question when they
fail to meet expectations of how 'things are done'. The process of
determining what is considered (un)productive, (un)important or
(un)acceptable becomes part of a dynamic presence of diverging practices
and creates, in my view, an exceptional environment in which
\'not-knowing\' is what people have in common. Such workshops are
therefore also occasions to experiment with making oneself understood
across different practices and registers, i.e. through demonstrating,
gesturing, discussing, peeking over one\'s shoulder or just through
co-inhabiting in the same space for a while.

The value of workshops can be located in their semi-committed,
contingent and non-conclusive characteristics. These characteristics
also make them impossible to reproduce in the same way twice. Such
workshops can offer opportunities for encountering and experimenting
with *other* processes and manners of socio-technological interaction
and articulation, testing and trying without the pressures of producing
anything final or ultimately useful. Yet, as I have also addressed, a
number of issues come to the fore when attending to the pervasiveness of
the workshop, as it travels through various domains, often without clear
articulation of intentions, expectations and long-term consequences.

As a flexible term, \'workshop\' lends itself to adaptation across
various contexts. However, workshops as temporary semi-committed
collective environments, need to be considered also as a consequence of
uncertain, contingent and fragmented work and social relations. While
offering short-lived occasions for collective material experimentation,
workshops also perpetuate a certain work and learning culture of
self-reliance and a lack of care for long-term social and work
relations. Furthermore, repeatedly organizing workshops in a particular
manner perpetuates an image of workshops that detracts from the reality
that workshops are in fact a lot of work.

That is, by nourishing an informal egalitarian atmosphere, by removing
the pressure of producing polished end products, and by organizing
workshops outside of working hours (in the case of H&D, often in the
evening or during holidays) workshops are moved out of the scope of
\'work\'.

Despite (or perhaps because of) its entanglements with neoliberal
dynamics in the creative sector and the economization of education, I do
not want to abandon the workshop as a format for collective practices.
My proposition is to remain with the workshop as a format and a concept
that crosses boundaries, and to work against its ambiguity. I hope to
have contributed to its disambiguation to some extent in this chapter.
What are the implications of remaining bound to the workshop format? For
me, it means always taking into account the fact that the workshop is a
fundamentally questionable format that requires critical attention.
Organizing workshops responsibly requires context-specific interrogation
of *how* and within which frameworks a workshop may be organized. This
question cannot be answered in general terms. Thus, it must be revisited
again and again and is perhaps most pertinently answered according to
the terms of each particular workshop composition---of people,
resources, tools, infrastructures and environments. Another important
question relates to how to self-organize temporary collective learning
environments, while also developing relationships that are committed and
long-term, thus counterbalancing flexibilization and fragmentation of
work and life. How to not perpetuate but rather work against the
insecurities and disorientations that come with that reality?

Over the years, the H&D collective developed social and technical
conduct that could be compared to the workshop instructors\' who take
care of maintaining their spaces, in terms of facilities, as well as
hospitality. The workshops H&D organizes seem instantaneous but there
are aspects of continuity and long-term commitments that evolve
alongside. The continuously evolving technical infrastructure around
collective organization includes collaborative online notepads and
spreadsheets, the websites H&D uses to announce and document workshops,
the server on which our websites and tools and our emails are hosted, as
well as the H&D mailing list. Furthermore, there are certain expressions
that evolve along with the organization of H&D workshops that enter into
a collective vocabulary. They are mentioned once and are then picked up
by others and repeated in different workshop contexts.

The notion of the \'workshop script\' evolved from commitment towards
the workshop but also to staying connected throughout the global COVID19
pandemic. The workshop script became another \'thing held in common\', a
concept and artifact, something that was shaped and reshaped
collectively and could be referred to while members were distributed and
trying to continue organizing, facilitating and participating in
workshops remotely. Collective utterances such as the workshop script
express a particular (not universal) relationship to the workshop format
and explicate collective efforts of staying connected, even while there
are other forces at play that seem to work against that effort. Rhetoric
such as rapid, sprint, agile, marathon, insinuate and reproduce a
general perception of the workshop as a recipe for high-velocity or
result-oriented production. By resisting one definition of \'workshop\',
for instance by including participants, organizers and facilitators in
questioning and redefining the particular conditions of workshops every
time there is a new occasion, the workshop as such becomes less
\'agile\', less of a \'panacea\', less adaptable to all and any context.

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Relevant links

\"The Workshop. Investigations Into an Artistic-Political Format.\" ICI
Berlin, international Conference organized by Kai van Eikels and Stefan
Hölscher, (March 26-28, 2021)
[[https://www.ici-berlin.org/events/the-workshop/]{.underline}](https://www.ici-berlin.org/events/the-workshop/)

[[https://www.bordersessions.org/lab/building-a-vr-empathy-machine/]{.underline}](https://www.bordersessions.org/lab/building-a-vr-empathy-machine/)

[[https://maydayrooms.org/portfolio/antiuniversity-of-london/]{.underline}](https://maydayrooms.org/portfolio/antiuniversity-of-london/)

https://antihistory.org/

http://www.fiuamsterdam.com/html/f_i\_u\_\_history.html

[[https://web.archive.org/web/20110910110005/http://www.beuys.org/fiu.htm]{.underline}](https://web.archive.org/web/20110910110005/http://www.beuys.org/fiu.htm)

[[http://dewey.pragmatism.org/creed.htm]{.underline}](http://dewey.pragmatism.org/creed.htm)

[[http://www.anthampton.com/thething.html]{.underline}](http://www.anthampton.com/thething.html)

[[http://www.contrepied.de/soon/portfolio_page/the-thing-an-automatic-workshop-in-everyday-disruption/]{.underline}](http://www.contrepied.de/soon/portfolio_page/the-thing-an-automatic-workshop-in-everyday-disruption/)

[[https://nextnature.net/story/2018/next-nature-academy-workshop]{.underline}](https://nextnature.net/story/2018/next-nature-academy-workshop)

https://www.openbsd.org/hackathons.html

https://www.hackerearth.com/blog/developers/good-bad-overrated/

\"Diedrich Diederichsen (Vienna): Free Jazz with Children\"
https://vimeo.com/547117231

[[https://libregraphicsmeeting.org/2016]{.underline}](https://libregraphicsmeeting.org/2016)

[[https://libregraphicsmeeting.org/lgm/public-documentation/code-of-conduct/]{.underline}](https://libregraphicsmeeting.org/lgm/public-documentation/code-of-conduct/)

[[http://making-matters.nl/about/consortium]{.underline}](http://making-matters.nl/about/consortium)

[[https://hackersanddesigners.nl/s/Summer_Academy_2018/p/Work_the_Workshop]{.underline}](https://hackersanddesigners.nl/s/Summer_Academy_2018/p/Work_the_Workshop)

https://etherpad.hackersanddesigners.nl/p/hdsa2020-how-to-workshop

https://etherpad.hackersanddesigners.nl/p/student-workshops

http://www.anthampton.com/thething.html

[[http://www.uni-lueneburg.de/personal_fuehrung/index.php/Workshop]{.underline}](http://www.uni-lueneburg.de/personal_fuehrung/index.php/Workshop)

[[https://www.umsetzungsberatung.de/methoden/moderation.php]{.underline}](https://www.umsetzungsberatung.de/methoden/moderation.php)

[[http://www.workshopproject.org]{.underline}](http://www.workshopproject.org/)

Workshops in a box:

Next Nature:
[[https://www.nextnature.net/2018/06/next-nature-academy-workshop/]{.underline}](https://www.nextnature.net/2018/06/next-nature-academy-workshop/)

Pipdecks Workshop tactics:
https://pipdecks.com/products/workshop-tactics?variant=39770920321113

Forkshop:
[[https://2018.transmediale.de/content/fork-politics-in-post-consensus-cryptoeconomics]{.underline}](https://2018.transmediale.de/content/fork-politics-in-post-consensus-cryptoeconomics)

\'Hackathon-like workshop\': \'If then What Now\'
[[http://www.ifthenwhatnow.nl/]{.underline}](http://www.ifthenwhatnow.nl/)

\"The Thing An Automatic Workshop\"
[[http://www.anthampton.com/thething.html]{.underline}](http://www.anthampton.com/thething.html)

Iowa's Writers Workshop: (1936)

[[https://writersworkshop.uiowa.edu/about/about-workshop/history]{.underline}](https://writersworkshop.uiowa.edu/about/about-workshop/history)

Workshops: Designing and Facilitating Experiential Learning:
[[http://web.a.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.leidenuniv.nl:2048/ehost/ebookviewer/ebook/bmxlYmtfXzQ2NzA3M19fQU41?sid=07f63ba4-6326-4362-b33c-22e0e92b561f@sessionmgr4010&vid=0&format=EB&rid=1]{.underline}](http://web.a.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.leidenuniv.nl:2048/ehost/ebookviewer/ebook/bmxlYmtfXzQ2NzA3M19fQU41?sid=07f63ba4-6326-4362-b33c-22e0e92b561f@sessionmgr4010&vid=0&format=EB&rid=1)

Workshops: Optimal vorbereiten, spannend inszenieren, professionell
nachbereiten:
[[https://books.google.de/books?id=y9Eph3xdRlkC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_atb#v=onepage&q&f=false]{.underline}](https://books.google.de/books?id=y9Eph3xdRlkC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_atb#v=onepage&q&f=false)

Workshops, Seminare und Besprechungen: mit Kreativität und Methode zum
sicheren Erfolg:
[[https://books.google.de/books?id=WENiPpEEnwAC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_atb#v=onepage&q&f=false]{.underline}](https://books.google.de/books?id=WENiPpEEnwAC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_atb#v=onepage&q&f=false)

[^1]: Some examples of workshops I facilitated at art and design schools
    in the Netherlands and abroad:\
    2018: \'Controller Hacking,\' Design Academy Eindhoven, Information
    Design, The Netherlands. (In collaboration with Heerko van der
    Kooij)

    2018: 'ctrl-c', Hochschule für Gestaltung Karlsruhe, Germany.

    2018: 'Challenging interfaces', KASK, Gent, Belgium.

    2018: Live coding workshop, Aalto University School of Arts, Design
    and Architecture, Helsinki, Finland. (In collaboration with Jamesy
    Bryan Graves)

    2017: 'Face the Interface', 1-week workshop, Design Master, Sint
    Lucas, Antwerp, Belgium.

[^2]: Selection of workshops I facilitated at academic and commercial
    conferences:

    > 2020: 'Network Imaginaries' at 'Glossary for Undisciplined Design'
    > symposium, GfZK Leipzig, Germany. (In collaboration with Juliette
    > Lizotte)

    > 2019 \"Interfacial Workout\", \'POST Design Festival 2019\',
    > Copenhagen, Denmark. (In collaboration with Loes Bogers and Selby
    > Gildemacher)

    > 2018 Workshop about the \'Feminist Search Tools\' at \'Society for
    > Artistic Research\' conference in Plymouth, UK.\
    > 2018 'Smart Cities' workshop and talk, University of Twente, The
    > Netherlands. (In collaboration with Dani Ploeger and Lucas Evers)

    > 2018: 'Tools for co-creation and situated making', talk and
    > workshop at \'In/equalities - Narrative & critique, resistance &
    > solidarity Conference\', Central European University, Budapest,
    > Hungary.

[^3]: Selection of workshops I facilitated in the context of art, design
    and technology festivals:

    > 2021: \'Chattypub\' workshop with H&D at the summer festival
    > 'DigIt\', at GfZK, Leipzig, Germany. (In collaboration with André
    > Fincato, Heerko van der Kooij and Karl Moubarak)

    > 2017 Zine making workshop at the conference MAKE!, organized by
    > the Willem de Kooning Academy, in Rotterdam, The Netherlands.

    > 2016: Presentation and workshop, FORMS Festival, Toronto, Canada.
    > (In collaboration with James Bryan Graves and Selby Gildemacher)

    > 2016: 'The Momentary Zine', Northside Festival, New York (In
    > collaboration with James Bryan Graves and Selby Gildemacher)

[^4]: Selection of workshops I facilitated in the context of grass-roots
    self-organized environments:

    > 2013: \"Our Autonomous Life?\" workshop, at the Metelkova squat in
    > the context of the \'City of Women Festival\', Ljubljana,
    > Slovenia. (In collaboration with Maiko Tanaka, Klaar van der
    > Lippe, and Bart Stuart)

    > 2015: \'The Momentary Zine\', at \'Zinefest Berlin\', Germany. (In
    > collaboration with James Bryan Graves and Selby Gildemacher)

    > 2013: 'Dramatize your Housing Struggle', 4-day workshop, MilesKm
    > residency, Rood Noot, Utrecht.

[^5]:
    > Selection of workshops I facilitated in the context of design
    > commissioned design work:\
    > In 2018 I facilitated a \'paper prototyping\' workshop for a group
    > of gender studies researchers, who commissioned me to develop an
    > online exhibition. The workshop took place at the conference
    > \'In/equalities - Narrative & critique, resistance & solidarity\',
    > Central European University, Budapest, Hungary. The final website,
    > which I developed in collaboration with Joana Chicau, can be
    > accessed at:
    > [[https://footnotesonequality.eu/]{.underline}](https://footnotesonequality.eu/),
    > last accessed: February 2022.

    > Between 2013 and 2014, I facilitated monthly workshops with the
    > editorial team at Perdu, a center for experimental poetry in
    > Amsterdam. The purpose of these workshops was to design the
    > monthly printed newsletter \'Post Perdu\' together. Opening up the
    > design process to the editorial team gave me, as the designer, the
    > possibility to discuss and develop a better understanding of Perdu
    > as an organization, its history, the people who worked there, and
    > the audience. The workshops and the conversations deriving from
    > the workshops served as input for a new visual identity, which I
    > was developing simultaneously at the time, and which can still be
    > seen on the website:
    > [[https://perdu.nl/nl/]{.underline}](https://perdu.nl/nl/), last
    > accessed: February 2022. Examples of the \'Post Perdu\'
    > newsletters/posters:
    > [[https://perdu.nl/nl/archief/2013/r/post-perdu-201310/]{.underline}](https://perdu.nl/nl/archief/2013/r/post-perdu-201310/)
    > [[https://perdu.nl/nl/archief/2013/r/post-perdu-201311/]{.underline}](https://perdu.nl/nl/archief/2013/r/post-perdu-201311/)\
    > [[https://perdu.nl/nl/archief/2013/r/post-perdu-201312/]{.underline}](https://perdu.nl/nl/archief/2013/r/post-perdu-201312/)

[^6]: After I began work on this chapter, a conference titled \"The
    Workshop. Investigations Into an Artistic-Political Format\" was
    organized by ICI Berlin Institute for Cultural Inquiry. I attended
    the conference and felt affirmed in my endeavor to look closely and
    critically at the specificities of the workshop, its various
    lineages, understandings and adaptations in different fields of
    knowledge. The conference description aligned with the concerns of
    this chapter, \"This international conference will investigate the
    workshop at the intersection of art, politics, and economy,
    examining the format both in its historical success and in its
    relevance for current notions of collectivity.\"
    https://www.ici-berlin.org/events/the-workshop/ Accessed May 2022.
    Online access information needed here.

[^7]: In the context of workshops that have crossed my paths the notion
    of rapid prototyping broadly describes a process that leads to
    certain workshop outcomes. To give one example: \"Yes, we will be
    building prototypes in one day! \[...\] In the first half of the day
    we will \[\...\] create a storyline and explore sensory aspects to
    incorporate in the virtual environment. The other half we will spend
    on building (and testing) a rapid prototype." Border Sessions, Labs,
    \""Building a VR Empathy Machine"
    [[https://www.bordersessions.org/lab/building-a-vr-empathy-machine/]{.underline}](https://www.bordersessions.org/lab/building-a-vr-empathy-machine/),
    last accessed October, 2018.

[^8]: The notion of the \'sprint\' occurs in the context of \'agile\' or
    \'scrum\' sprint cycles for product-oriented software-development
    [[https://www.agilealliance.org/agile101/]{.underline}](https://www.agilealliance.org/agile101/),
    last accessed May 2022.\
    Kelly Waters \"All about Agile. Step 4: Sprint Planning (Tasks)\",
    in: \"How To Implement Scrum in 10 Easy Steps\" (October 2007).
    [[http://www.allaboutagile.com/how-to-implement-scrum-in-10-easy-steps-step-4-sprint-planning-tasks/#sthash.jbSG5uIV.dpuf]{.underline}](http://www.allaboutagile.com/how-to-implement-scrum-in-10-easy-steps-step-4-sprint-planning-tasks/#sthash.jbSG5uIV.dpuf),
    last accessed October, 2018.

    The booksprint is another example of time-boxed high-velocity
    workshop production\
    Mushon Zer-Aviv; Michael Mandiberg; Mike Linksvayer; Marta Peirano;
    Alan Toner; Aleksandar Erkalovic; Adam Hyde (2010). \"Anatomy of the
    First Book Sprint\". *Collaborative Futures*. Transmediale, Berlin:
    April, 2011.

[^9]: A \'hackathon\' (neologism of \'hacking\' and \'marathon\') is a
    time-constrained collaborative soft- and hardware development event.
    The aim of a hackathon is to combine different expertise of soft-
    and hardware development to come to a (useful, creative, or unique)
    product or to find solutions to a problem. Hackathons often focus on
    a specific topic or technology.

[^10]: Richard Sennett, *The Corrosion of Character: The Personal
    Consequences of Work in the New Capitalism*. (New York: W.W. Norton,
    1999): 10.

[^11]: ibid. 9.

[^12]: ibid. 9.

[^13]: Silvio Lorusso, *Entreprecariat: Everyone Is an Entrepreneur.
    Nobody Is Safe.* (Eindhoven: Onomatopee 170, 2019): 44.

[^14]: At the time of writing this dissertation, I studied Communication
    Design in Germany (BA/Diplom) and in Scotland (exchange year, BA),
    Design in The Netherlands (Master), and in the U.S.A. (exchange
    semester, MA), taught at Willem de Kooning Academy, Sandberg
    Instituut Amsterdam, at the Design Academy in Eindhoven, and as a
    guest tutor in various international institutions.

[^15]: \"\[...\] to use fundamental craft and design training to prepare
    young people for the modern, industrially‐determined labour market,
    by bringing art and technology together as a "new unity" to meet the
    design challenges of the period and to create a new kind of human
    being by reconciling art and life (Kentgens-Craig, 1998)\" in:
    Christina Volkmann, Christian De Cock \"Consuming the Bauhaus\" in:
    *Consumption, Markets and Culture, Vol. 9, No. 2, (June 2006):
    129--136.*

[^16]: Donald A. Schön, *Educating the Reflective Practitioner* (San
    Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1988).

[^17]: The workshop facilities of the Gerrit Rietveld Academie:
    [[https://rietveldacademie.nl/en/page/375/workshops-facilities]{.underline}](https://rietveldacademie.nl/en/page/375/workshops-facilities),
    last accessed, May 2022.

[^18]: At the time the silkscreen workshop was run by Kees Maas.

[^19]: Xavier Fernandez Fuentes († April 17, 2017) studied Graphic
    Design at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie where he graduated in 2008.
    He ran the bookbinding workshop from 2008 until his passing in 2017.
    [[https://rietveldacademie.nl/en/page/9927/xavi%E2%80%99s-books-at-the-rietveld-sandberg-library]{.underline}](https://rietveldacademie.nl/en/page/9927/xavi%E2%80%99s-books-at-the-rietveld-sandberg-library),
    last accessed March 2022.

[^20]: After my graduation at Hochschule Niederrhein Krefeld in
    Kommunikationsdesign in 2008, I first worked as a graphic designer
    at the advertising agency \'Cayenne\', and then in 2008-2009 as a
    junior art director at the advertising agency \'Grey Worldwide\' in
    Düsseldorf, Germany.

[^21]: At the beginning H&D workshop-based events were announced on the
    platform meetup.com, which is the reason why the term meetup was
    often used to refer to these events
    [[https://www.meetup.com/]{.underline}](https://www.meetup.com/).

[^22]: De PUNT was a space in the ground floor of the same building in
    which I rented a studio/atelier. The studios were offered for an
    affordable rental price, by the Sandberg Instituut Amsterdam to
    artists and designers who had recently graduated.

[^23]: H&D started organizing informal meetups starting again in 2021.\
    Examples:
    [[https://hackersanddesigners.nl/s/Activities/p/H%26D_Meetup_3%3A_Filesha]{.underline}](https://hackersanddesigners.nl/s/Activities/p/H%26D_Meetup_3%3A_Filesha)
    [[https://hackersanddesigners.nl/s/Activities/p/H%26D_Meetup_2%3A_Feminist_Search_Tools]{.underline}](https://hackersanddesigners.nl/s/Activities/p/H%26D_Meetup_2%3A_Feminist_Search_Tools),
    last accessed March 2022.

[^24]: i.e. by organizations such as Waag, Bits of Freedom, or Fiber
    Festival, V2, or the Willem de Kooning Academy

[^25]: Later we also sent out email newsletters and built a website for
    H&D to announce and archive our activities.

[^26]: Lightning workshop by Arjan Scherpenisse:
    [[https://hackersanddesigners.nl/s/Activities/p/Hardware_hacking]{.underline}](https://hackersanddesigners.nl/s/Activities/p/Hardware_hacking),
    last accessed January 2022.

[^27]: Lightning workshop by Stefan Schäfer:
    [[https://hackersanddesigners.nl/s/Activities/p/ICalligraphy]{.underline}](https://hackersanddesigners.nl/s/Activities/p/ICalligraphy),
    last accessed January 2022.

[^28]: Lightning workshop by Heerko van der Kooij:
    [[https://hackersanddesigners.nl/s/Activities/p/Toyhacking]{.underline}](https://hackersanddesigners.nl/s/Activities/p/Toyhacking),
    last accessed January 2022.

[^29]: Lightning workshop by Jonas Otten:
    [[https://hackersanddesigners.nl/s/Activities/p/ICalligraphy]{.underline}](https://hackersanddesigners.nl/s/Activities/p/ICalligraphy),
    last accessed January 2022.

[^30]: H&D meetup \'NSA\':
    [[https://hackersanddesigners.nl/s/Activities/p/NSA]{.underline}](https://hackersanddesigners.nl/s/Activities/p/NSA)
    during which we \'planted so-called Dead Drops. "'Dead Drops' is an
    anonymous, offline, peer to peer file-sharing network in public
    space initiated by artist Aram Bartholl. \"USB flash drives are
    embedded into walls, buildings and curbs accessible to anybody in
    public space."
    [[https://deaddrops.com/]{.underline}](https://deaddrops.com/), last
    accessed January 2022.

[^31]: Lightning workshop by Moniker (present were Luna Maurer and
    Jonathan Puckey):

    [[https://hackersanddesigners.nl/s/Activities/p/So_if_you_are_so_smart...]{.underline}](https://hackersanddesigners.nl/s/Activities/p/So_if_you_are_so_smart%25E2%2580%25A6),
    last accessed January 2022.

[^32]: Lightning workshop by Karoline Swiezynski:
    [[https://hackersanddesigners.nl/s/Activities/p/Hardware_hacking]{.underline}](https://hackersanddesigners.nl/s/Activities/p/Hardware_hacking),
    last accessed January 2022.

[^33]: Isabelle Stengers, *In Catastrophic Times: Resisting the Coming
    Barbarism.* (London: Open Humanities Press, 2015): 143.

[^34]: Karen Barad, *Meeting the Universe Halfway. Quantum Physics and
    the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning* (Durhan, London: Duke
    University Press, 2007): 91.

[^35]: Founded by Joseph Beuys in the early 1970\'s in Düsseldorf, Waldo
    Bien \"The Founding of F.I.U. Amsterdam with Joseph Beuys,\" FIU
    Amsterdam, 2007,
    http://www.fiuamsterdam.com/html/f_i\_u\_\_history.html, last
    accessed 17 June 2022.

[^36]: \"The Antiuniversity of London was a short-lived and intense
    experiment in self-organized education and communal living that took
    off at 49 Rivington Street in Shoreditch in February 1968.\"
    [[https://maydayrooms.org/portfolio/antiuniversity-of-london/]{.underline}](https://maydayrooms.org/portfolio/antiuniversity-of-london/),
    last accessed February 2022.\
    \"The group included the anti-psychiatrists R.D. Laing and David
    Cooper; veterans of the Free University of New York, Allen Krebs and
    Joe Berke; the feminist psychoanalyst Juliet Mitchell; and the
    cultural theorist Stuart Hall. In February, 1968, the
    Anti-University of London opened its doors.\"
    [[https://www.historyworkshop.org.uk/remembering-1968-the-campus-of-the-anti-university-of-london/]{.underline}](https://www.historyworkshop.org.uk/remembering-1968-the-campus-of-the-anti-university-of-london/),
    last accessed May 2022.

[^37]: Founded by Fluxus artists Robert Filliou and George Brecht, in
    Villefranche (1966), Natilee Harren \"La cédille qui ne finit pas:
    Robert Filliou, George Brecht, and Fluxus in Villefranche,\" Natilee
    Harren \"La cédille qui ne finit pas: Robert Filliou, George Brecht,
    and Fluxus in Villefranche,\" *Getty Research Journal*, no. 4
    (2012): 127-143.

[^38]: Christa-Maria Lerm Hayes, \"Beuys's Legacy in Artist-led
    University Projects,\" in: *Tate papers*, Volume 31, (2019).

[^39]: [[https://web.archive.org/web/20110910110005/http://www.beuys.org/fiu.htm]{.underline}](https://web.archive.org/web/20110910110005/http://www.beuys.org/fiu.htm)

[^40]: [[https://web.archive.org/web/20110910110005/http://www.beuys.org/fiu.htm]{.underline}](https://web.archive.org/web/20110910110005/http://www.beuys.org/fiu.htm)

[^41]: Robert Filliou \"La Fête est Permanente / The Eternal Network,\"
    in: *Teaching and Learning as Performing Arts*. first published in
    1970.

[^42]: Natilee Harren \"La cédille qui ne finit pas: Robert Filliou,
    George Brecht, and Fluxus in Villefranche,\" *Getty Research
    Journal*, no. 4 (2012): 127-143.

[^43]: Bill Draves. *The Free University: A Model for Lifelong Learning*
    (New York: Association Press, 1980).

[^44]: John Dewey \"My Pedagogic Creed,\" *The School Journal,* Volume
    54 (January 1897), 77-80.

[^45]: Stewart Brand (ed.), *The Whole Earth Catalog: Access to Tools*
    (1968 -- 1972).

[^46]: Jeroen van den Eijnde \"A Hall of Mirrors of Art Production\" in:
    'Materialization in Art and Design' ed. Herman Verkerk and Maurizio
    Montalti (Sandberg Instituut and Sternberg Press, 2019).

[^47]: Florian Cramer \"Does DIY mean anything? - a DIY attempt (=
    essay)\" (2019), originally commissioned for Anrikningsverket
    Journal #1 by Norbergfestival, Sweden,
    [[http://cramer.pleintekst.nl/essays/does_diy_mean_anything/]{.underline}](http://cramer.pleintekst.nl/essays/does_diy_mean_anything/),
    last accessed February 2022.

[^48]: ibid.

[^49]: Annette Krauss \"Lifelong Learning and the Professionalized
    Learner,\" in: \'Unlearning Exercises. Art Organizations as Sites
    for Unlearning\' (Valiz, Amsterdam and Casco Art Institute Working
    for the Commons, Utrecht, 2018).

[^50]: ibid.

[^51]: ibid.

[^52]: PUB is an trans-departmental initiative funded and run by
    students of the Sandberg Institute. For further information see:
    [[https://pub.sandberg.nl]{.underline}, last accessed May
    2022.](https://pub.sandberg.nl/)

[^53]: Unsettling is a bottom-up initiative that supports \"existing
    initiatives, while also developing outreach programs, drawing in new
    perspectives, and making the context of the academy more inclusive
    to other voices, minds and bodies -- those who are here and those
    who are not, yet.\" For further information see:
    [[https://unsettling-rietveldsandberg.net/]{.underline}](https://unsettling-rietveldsandberg.net/),
    lsat [accessed May 2022.](https://pub.sandberg.nl/)

[^54]: \"Hear! Here! is an experimental listening and dialogue platform
    that \[\...\] works to encourage a culture of dialogue for students
    and staff of Rietveld and Sandberg.\" For further information see:
    [[http://www.hearheredialogue.nl/]{.underline}](http://www.hearheredialogue.nl/),
    last [accessed May 2022.](https://pub.sandberg.nl/)

[^55]: The student-organized unions are organized bottom up and aim to
    represent underrepresented voices in the academy. Examples are the
    Asian student union
    [[https://www.facebook.com/theasianuniongransandberg/]{.underline}](https://www.facebook.com/theasianuniongransandberg/),
    last accessed May 2022.

    [[https://www.instagram.com/the.asian.union/]{.underline}](https://www.instagram.com/the.asian.union/),(last
    accessed May 2022, the Black Student Union:
    [[https://www.instagram.com/blackstudentunion.usb/]{.underline}](https://www.instagram.com/blackstudentunion.usb/),
    last accessed May 2022, the Near East Union:
    [[https://extraintra.nl/initiative/near-east-union/event/near-east-union-gathering]{.underline}](https://extraintra.nl/initiative/near-east-union/event/near-east-union-gathering),
    last accessed May 2022, the Latin American and Caribbean Union:
    [[https://extraintra.nl/initiative/latin-american-and-carribean-student-union/event/lacu-dinner]{.underline}](https://extraintra.nl/initiative/latin-american-and-carribean-student-union/event/lacu-dinner),
    last accessed May 2022.

[^56]: \"HH#2 Non-Violent Communication /w Cara Crisler and Mirjam
    Schulpen\"

    [[https://extraintra.nl/initiative/hear-here/event/hh-2-non-violent-communication-w-cara-crisler-and-mirjam-schulpen]{.underline}](https://extraintra.nl/initiative/hear-here/event/hh-2-non-violent-communication-w-cara-crisler-and-mirjam-schulpen),
    last accessed May 2022.\
    The workshop facilitators work under the name \'Connecting
    Communication\'
    [[https://connectingcommunication.nl/our-offer/]{.underline}](https://connectingcommunication.nl/our-offer/),
    last accessed May 2022.

[^57]: \"Unsettling Workshop /w Camille Barton\"
    [[https://extraintra.nl/initiative/unsettling-rietveld-sandberg/event/unsettling-workshop-w-camille-barton]{.underline}](https://extraintra.nl/initiative/unsettling-rietveld-sandberg/event/unsettling-workshop-w-camille-barton),
    last accessed May 2022.

[^58]: \"Are you working on projects where technology and human
    interaction are involved, and are you looking for a new approach? As
    of today, we offer a brand-new workshop concept for you and your
    team. In just two hours you learn how to work with the Pyramid of
    Technology toolbox in an active, dynamic and 100% analogue way!\"
    [[https://nextnature.net/story/2018/next-nature-academy-workshop]{.underline}](https://nextnature.net/story/2018/next-nature-academy-workshop),
    last accessed March 2022.

[^59]: ibid.

[^60]: The foundation Lava Lab, which profiled itself as a design and
    technology lab, was founded by the Amsterdam-based design company
    Lava and dissolved in 2017.

[^61]: Other participants were: Auke Hulst (writer), Adriaan Wormgoor
    (developer), Arjan Scherpenisse (developer).

[^62]: According to *Dictionary.com* a hackathon is usually \"a
    competitive event in which people work in groups on software or
    hardware projects, with the goal of creating a functioning product
    by the end of the event\",
    [[https://www.dictionary.com/browse/hackathon]{.underline}](https://www.dictionary.com/browse/hackathon),
    last accessed May 2022.

[^63]: See: OpenBSD website:
    [[https://www.openbsd.org/hackathons.html]{.underline}](https://www.openbsd.org/hackathons.html),
    last accessed May 2022.

[^64]: Thomas James Lodato and Carl DiSalvo, 'Issue-oriented hackathons
    as material participation', *New Media & Society* volume 18, no. 4
    (April 2016): 544.

[^65]: [[https://waag.org/nl/event/ai-ai-barbie-hackathon]{.underline}](https://waag.org/nl/event/ai-ai-barbie-hackathon),
    last accessed March 2022.\
    [[https://waag.org/nl/article/hoe-zorgen-we-ervoor-dat-vergroening-van-steden-even-urgent-blijft]{.underline}](https://waag.org/nl/article/hoe-zorgen-we-ervoor-dat-vergroening-van-steden-even-urgent-blijft),
    last accessed March 2022.

[^66]: Hackathons have been criticized for exploiting the willingness of
    participants to perform free labor.
    [[https://www.hackerearth.com/blog/developers/good-bad-overrated/]{.underline}](https://www.hackerearth.com/blog/developers/good-bad-overrated/),
    last accessed March 2022.

[^67]: Video documentation, if then / what now: the making of, June
    2018,
    [[https://vimeo.com/273102715]{.underline}](https://vimeo.com/273102715),
    last accessed December 2021.

[^68]: The workshop website, \'If Then What Now\' is no longer online.
    Information can still be found on:
    [[http://www.letterenfonds.nl/nl/entry/1910/if-then-what-now]{.underline}](http://www.letterenfonds.nl/nl/entry/1910/if-then-what-now),
    last accessed May, 2022.

[^69]: An exception is the HDSA 2021, where Zimbabwean maker Bongani
    Ricky Masuku, asked participants to work on and out elements of a
    DIY water pump. The participants then documented the process and
    created small publications. As organizers we send Bongani the
    electronic parts back so he could continue his project in Zimbabwe.
    :
    [[https://hackersanddesigners.nl/s/Summer_Academy_2021/p/Building_On_Demand_Water_Solution_for_the_City_of_Harare_with_Bongani_Ricky_Masuku]{.underline}](https://hackersanddesigners.nl/s/Summer_Academy_2021/p/Building_On_Demand_Water_Solution_for_the_City_of_Harare_with_Bongani_Ricky_Masuku),
    last accessed March 2022.\
    Furthermore H&D workshops at times consist of game or play elements
    and timed exercises that could be interpreted as introducing
    competition into the workshop.

[^70]: \"Diedrich Diederichsen (Vienna): Free Jazz with Children,\"
    [[https://vimeo.com/547117231]{.underline}](https://vimeo.com/547117231),
    last accessed March 2022.

[^71]: James Lodator and Carl DiSalvo, "Issue-oriented hackathons as
    material participation," in: *New Media & Society* (Georgia: 2016).

[^72]: \"Henry Dreyfuss Associates\' classic Humanscale design manuals
    to be reissued\"
    [[https://www.dezeen.com/2017/07/25/henry-dreyfuss-associates-classic-humanscale-design-manuals-to-be-reissued/]{.underline}](https://www.dezeen.com/2017/07/25/henry-dreyfuss-associates-classic-humanscale-design-manuals-to-be-reissued/),
    last accessed March 2022.

[^73]: [[https://hackersanddesigners.nl/s/Summer_Academy_2016/p/Internet_of_Bodies]{.underline}](https://hackersanddesigners.nl/s/Summer_Academy_2016/p/Internet_of_Bodies),
    last accessed March 2022.

[^74]: Isabelle Stengers, *In Catastrophic Times: Resisting the Coming
    Barbarism* (London: Open Humanities Press, 2015): 143.

[^75]: ibid.

[^76]: See Libre Graphics Meeting 2016,
    https://libregraphicsmeeting.org/2016.

[^77]: The code for Momentary Zine is available at:
    https://github.com/hackersanddesigners/momentary-zine.

[^78]: A zine is a small-circulation self-published work of original or
    appropriated texts and images.

[^79]: Some examples of contexts in which the Momentary Zine has been
    activated are:
    [[https://hackersanddesigners.nl/s/Activities/p/The_Momentary_Zine]{.underline}](https://hackersanddesigners.nl/s/Activities/p/The_Momentary_Zine)

    [[https://hackersanddesigners.nl/s/Activities/p/Get_the_Font_and_Zine_Karaoke]{.underline}](https://hackersanddesigners.nl/s/Activities/p/Get_the_Font_and_Zine_Karaoke)

    [[https://hackersanddesigners.nl/s/Activities/p/Publishing_Karaoke%3A_A\_Workshop]{.underline}](https://hackersanddesigners.nl/s/Activities/p/Publishing_Karaoke%3A_A_Workshop)

    [[https://hackersanddesigners.nl/s/Activities/p/Momentary_Zine_in_Bucharest%21]{.underline}](https://hackersanddesigners.nl/s/Activities/p/Momentary_Zine_in_Bucharest!)

    [[https://hackersanddesigners.nl/s/Activities/p/Momentary_Zine_at_Neulab]{.underline}](https://hackersanddesigners.nl/s/Activities/p/Momentary_Zine_at_Neulab),
    all links last accessed March 2022.

[^80]: See Libre Graphics Meeting 2016,
    https://libregraphicsmeeting.org/2016.

[^81]: In computer programming, application programming interfaces (API)
    are closed and controlled systems. They are also a set of
    definitions, protocols and tools for building software.

[^82]: "LGM Code of Conduct,"
    [[https://libregraphicsmeeting.org/lgm/public-documentation/code-of-conduct/]{.underline}](https://libregraphicsmeeting.org/lgm/public-documentation/code-of-conduct/),
    last accessed March, 2022.

[^83]: Also referred to as the \'broken telephone\', or \'transmission
    chain experiments\' are , usually is about information passing from
    one person to the another. In our workshop, we initially planned to
    proposed the participants would use the *Momentary Zine* as their
    telephone and explore the unreliability of the speech recognition in
    this way

[^84]: Isabelle Stengers, *In Catastrophic Times: Resisting the Coming
    Barbarism* (London: Open Humanities Press, 2015): 143.

[^85]: My PhD research project was made possible due to a full-time
    research position at the NWO funded research project 'Bridging Art,
    Design and Technology through Critical Making'. The consortium was
    later renamed \'Making Matters work group\' and has organized two
    symposia and one publication in the period of 2017-2022.
    [[http://making-matters.nl/about/consortium]{.underline}](http://making-matters.nl/about/consortium),
    last accessed May 2022.

[^86]: [[https://hackersanddesigners.nl/s/Summer_Academy_2018/p/Work_the_Workshop]{.underline}](https://hackersanddesigners.nl/s/Summer_Academy_2018/p/Work_the_Workshop),
    last accessed March 2022.

    Workshop script of later workshop iterations:\
    [[https://etherpad.hackersanddesigners.nl/p/hdsa2020-how-to-workshop]{.underline}](https://etherpad.hackersanddesigners.nl/p/hdsa2020-how-to-workshop),
    last accessed March 2022.\
    [[https://etherpad.hackersanddesigners.nl/p/student-workshops]{.underline}](https://etherpad.hackersanddesigners.nl/p/student-workshops),
    last accessed March 2022.

[^87]: Participant description of her experience at \"The Thing\": to
    dwell in a space where there is not a clear cut answer\", \'The
    Thing. An Automated Workshop\', concept and creation by Ant Hampton
    & Christophe Meierhans.
    [[http://www.anthampton.com/thething.html]{.underline}](http://www.anthampton.com/thething.html),
    last accessed March 2022.\
    [[http://www.contrepied.de/soon/portfolio_page/the-thing-an-automatic-workshop-in-everyday-disruption/]{.underline}](http://www.contrepied.de/soon/portfolio_page/the-thing-an-automatic-workshop-in-everyday-disruption/),
    last accessed March 2022.