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== Situating 'tools' within the collective practice of Hackers & Designers  
== Tooling ==
=== Situating 'tools' within hyrbid collective practices ===
<span class="author">Hackers & Designers</span>


‘Tools’ can have different meanings. For instance 'tools' may refer to pedagogical tools and tools for collaboration. 'Tools' may also refer to digital tools, software or hardware that we, as designers, artists, technologists and organizers interact with, on a daily basis. In the contributions to this toolkit both meanings are relevant and inform each other. Tools have been used and further developed within experimental learning environments, such as workshops and hack events. In turn, collective learning formats, prompts, how-tos and workshop scripts evolved along with using and building experimental, DIY software and hardware. 


In the context of Hackers & Designers, ‘tools’ usually refer to digital tools, software or hardware that we, as designers, artists, technologists and organizers interact with, on a daily basis. H&D tends toward free and open-source tools. In H&D workshops, the accessibility of source code offers possibilities for using, copying, studying and changing, thus learning from and with technical objects. In contrast to the restrictions of using, sharing and modifying proprietary software, free and open-source principles derive from software development practices where technical objects “are made publicly and freely available.”1 According to the Free Software Foundation, ‘free’ is defined as liberty, as “free from restriction, not as ‘free of charge.’”2 The collective aspects of free and open-source software are expressed through particular modes of licensing and the practice of documentation and publication of source code on platforms for distributed version control and source code management such as Github and Gitlab. In the context of H&D, these principles are explored in and outside of the domain of computer programming.3 Such principles
are nurtured through a shared understanding that nothing
is really made from scratch, and that the software
and hardware we are working with, have been passed
through many hands


There are certain open-source tools that H&D accumulated
Folks involved with the H&D collective tends toward free/libre and open-source tools, because the accessibility of source code offers possibilities for using, copying, studying and changing, thus learning from and with technology.<ref>Christopher Kelty, Two Bits: The Cultural Significance of Free Software (Durham: Duke University Press, 2008), xi.</ref>
around organizational activities, such as the web
According to the Free Software Foundation, ‘free’ is defined as liberty, as “free from restriction, not as ‘free of charge.’”<ref>“The Free Software Foundation is dedicated to eliminating restrictions on copying, redistribution, understanding and modification of software. The word “free” in our name does not refer to price; it refers to freedom. First, the freedom to copy a program and redistribute it to your neighbours, so that they can use it as well as you. Second, the freedom to change a program, so that you can control it instead of it controlling you; for this, the source code must be made available to you.” GNU Bulletin 1, no. 1, (1986), https://www.gnu.org/bulletins/bull1.txt, last accessed May 2022.</ref>
spreadsheet tool Ethercalc4 to create overviews for budgets
and plans or the real-time collaborative note taking
tool Etherpad.5 As free and open-source projects, these
tools are used by many collectives and individuals who
put them into practice across various contexts. For H&D,
such tools are enmeshed with organizational routines,
with other technical systems and are also connected to
other communities of toolmakers and users.


Furthermore, H&D builds and works with digital
tools that are situated in the realm of experimental
publishing and graphic design. These include self-made
publishing tools such as ChattyPub,6 Momentary Zine,7 and the Heartbeat-to-print tool.8 In experimenting
with design and publishing tools, H&D draws inspiration
from other collectives and individuals, such as the
Brussels-based collective Open Source Publishing9 and
‘Constant Association for Art & Media’,10 the Rotterdambased
collective Varia,11 the Amsterdam-based collective
fanfare,12 the publishing practice of Vienna-based artist
Eva Weinmayr,13 or the embodied publishing practices
of Rotterdam-based designers Amy Suo Wu and Clara
Balaguer.14 In addition, the knowledge and practices
evolving from educational environments are encapsulated
by the student-led interdepartmental initiative
PUB at the Sandberg Instituut Amsterdam15 or
the experimental publishing program XPUB at Piet


Zwart Institute in Rotterdam,16 as well as the digital
The collective aspects of free and open-source software are expressed through particular licenses and through documenting and publishing of source code on platforms for distributed version control and source code management such as Github and Gitlab. H&D has explored these principles in and outside of the domain of computer programming.
and hybrid publishing research groups of the Institute of
<ref>In his dissertation “Sandbox Culture: A Study of the Application of Free and Open Source Software Licensing Ideas to Art and Cultural Production” Aymeric Mansoux wrote about the ways in which principles of free and open-source have been interpreted and actualized in free and open-source software on art and culture since the late nineties. Aymeric Mansoux, “Sandbox Culture: A Study of the Application of Free and Open Source Software Licensing Ideas to Art and Cultural Production” (PhD diss., Centre for Cultural Studies, Goldsmiths, University of London,2017).</ref>
Network Cultures.17
 
At H&D, such tools are often activated through
 
workshops and are used to design small edition
'''In this toolkit you will find external links – little ant helpers residing on a leave that indicate there are resources to be found elsewhere – such as code repositories, how-to's, scripts or instruction manuals.''' Besides providing useful resources the ants are also a reminder that the tools, practices and experiments in this toolkit are connected to various other contexts and practices and that none of these proposal are made from scratch but build forth on the labor of various communities. 
self-published printed matter. H&D’s experiments with
 
design tools have challenged my design routines, more
 
specifically the relationships I have built with design
For instance there are certain open-source tools that H&D accumulated around organizational activities, such as the real-time chat app Zulip <ref> https://zulip.com/</ref>, the web spreadsheet tool Ethercalc <ref>Documentation of the Ethercalc instance hosted by H&D: https://hackersanddesigners.nl/s/Tools/p/H%26D_Ethercalc, last accessed May 2022.</ref>  to create overviews for budgets and plans or the real-time collaborative note taking tool Etherpad.
software, the tools I have become used to since my design
<ref>Documentation of the Etherpad instance hosted by H&D: https://hackersanddesigners.nl/s/Tools/p/H%26D_Etherpad, last accessed May 2022.</ref>
education. In the context of H&D, publishing tools
As free and open-source projects, these tools are used by many collectives and individuals who put them into practice across various contexts. For H&D, such tools are enmeshed with organizational routines, with other technical systems and are also connected to other communities of toolmakers and users.
are not replacements but function in parallel to proprietary
 
tools. They are indicative of an attempt to envision
 
a process of designing a publication differently than it
Furthermore, H&D builds and works with digital tools that are situated in the realm of experimental publishing and graphic design. These include self-made publishing tools such as ChattyPub,<ref>ChattyPub documentation can be found at:
would be conventionally done. The practical and experimental
https://hackersanddesigners.nl/s/Tools/p/Chattypub https://chatty-pub.hackersanddesigners.nl/, last accessed March 2022.</ref> Momentary Zine,<ref>Momentary Zine documentation can be found at: https://hackersanddesigners.nl/s/Tools/p/Momentary_Zine, last accessed March 2022.</ref> and the Heartbeat-to-print tool.<ref>Documentation on the Heart-beat-to-print tool can be found at:
approach to conceptualizing and building design
https://hackersanddesigners.nl/s/Tools/p/Heartbeat-to-print,
and organizational tools differently has allowed me to
last accessed March 2022.</ref> In experimenting with design and publishing tools, H&D draws inspiration from other collectives and individuals, such as the Brussels-based collective Open Source Publishing<ref>Website of Open Source Publishing: http://osp.kitchen/,
test out other scenarios for tool-designer relationships
last accessed March 2022.</ref> and ‘Constant Association for Art & Media’,<ref>Website of Constant Association for Art and Media
and interactions.
https://constantvzw.org/site/, last accessed March 2022.</ref> the Rotterdam-based collective Varia,<ref>Website of Varia—Center of Everyday Technology: https://varia.zone/,
Furthermore, H&D’s hands-on workshops bring
last accessed March 2022.</ref> the Amsterdam-based collective fanfare,<ref>Website of fanfare: https://fanfarefanfare.nl/
together people and tools, in a temporary, focused environment.
http://fanfareinc.world/colophon, last accessed March 2022.</ref> the publishing practice of Vienna-based artist Eva Weinmayr,<ref>Website of Eva Weinmayr: http://evaweinmayr.com/work-categories/
Such workshops feed off and nurture communities
publishing/ http://andpublishing.org/, last accessed March 2022.</ref> or the embodied publishing practices of Rotterdam-based designers Amy Suo Wu and Clara Balaguer.<ref>Lecture and workshop by Clara Balaguer about ‘’Publishing as Bloodletting,’’ https://www.kabk.nl/agenda/studium-generale-lecture-clara-balaguer
of tool users and makers who consider it relevant
https://pub.sandberg.nl/sessions/pub-e-pub-4-session-3-publishing-as-bloodletting-w-clara-balaguer.
to expand the conception of tools and tool-building
Example of Amy Suo Wu’s ‘embodied publishing’ practice: “garments [that] are experiments in embodied publishing, spectral publishing, navel expanding, and ghostwriting” https://amysuowu.net/content/dear-ursula
processes, to learn about the ways in which tools are
https://amysuowu.net/content/shapeshifty-0, last accessed March 2022.</ref> In addition, the knowledge and practices
constructed in a hands-on, practical and often playful
evolving from educational environments are encapsulated by the student-led interdepartmental initiative PUB at the Sandberg Instituut Amsterdam<ref>Website of the student initiative of the Sandberg Instituut, PUB https://pub.sandberg.nl/, last accessed March 2022.</ref> or the experimental publishing program XPUB at Piet Zwart Institute in Rotterdam,<ref>Website of the Piet Zwart Experimental Publishing Master: https://www.pzwart.nl/experimental-publishing/, last accessed March 2022.</ref> as well as the digital and hybrid publishing research groups of the Institute of Network Cultures.<ref>Joe Monk, Miriam Rasch, Florian Cramer and Amy Wu, eds., Hybrid Publishing Toolkit: https://networkcultures.org/blog/publication/from-print-to-ebooks-a-hybrid-publishing-toolkit-for-the-arts/,
manner. In all instances it seems to me that people
last accessed March 2022.</ref>
involved with H&D ascribe a certain value to toolmaking.
 
Yet, it also seems as if the shared enthusiasm for experimenting
 
with tools cannot be located within the tool
''(Some excerpts of this text come from: A.Groten "Figuring Things Out Together: On the Relationship Between Design and Collective Practice," PhD Diss., Leiden Universtity, 2022)''
itself, nor in the products or outcomes these self-made
 
tools produce. The appreciation for such self-made
=== Resources ===
tools seems to lie in the process of building tools. In my
 
experience of experimenting with tools in the context
{{ClippyAnt|advice=Dig in H&D's Wiki-to-print experiments. The interesting thing about web to print and more specifically utilizing Mediawiki as a CMS in that context, it facilitate the co-creation and management of publications and traces editing histories. There is a whole community of designers and developers out there building forth on each others work. This take on the wiki-to-print workflow builds forth on the work of folks at ConstantVZW, OSP, Varia and Titipi.|external=https://github.com/hackersanddesigners/wiki2print}}
of H&D, there is a common understanding that tools are
 
not mere instruments but that, as tool-users and makers,
{{ClippyAnt|advice=Check out this other take on web-to-print called CC (creative crowds) – a server for publishing experiments that emerge around Rotterdam-based collective space Varia to better understand how different ways of working are shaped by (and shape) different realities.|external=https://cc.vvvvvvaria.org/}}
we are implicated in them, in ways that go beyond their
 
immediately evident utility or the products they may
{{ClippyAnt|advice=If you are interested on other – non-wiki related publishing experiments of H&D feel free to visit this incomplete tool compendium on the H&D website|external=https://hackersanddesigners.nl/s/Tools}}
produce.

Latest revision as of 13:52, 30 May 2023

Tooling

Situating 'tools' within hyrbid collective practices

Hackers & Designers

‘Tools’ can have different meanings. For instance 'tools' may refer to pedagogical tools and tools for collaboration. 'Tools' may also refer to digital tools, software or hardware that we, as designers, artists, technologists and organizers interact with, on a daily basis. In the contributions to this toolkit both meanings are relevant and inform each other. Tools have been used and further developed within experimental learning environments, such as workshops and hack events. In turn, collective learning formats, prompts, how-tos and workshop scripts evolved along with using and building experimental, DIY software and hardware.


Folks involved with the H&D collective tends toward free/libre and open-source tools, because the accessibility of source code offers possibilities for using, copying, studying and changing, thus learning from and with technology.[1] According to the Free Software Foundation, ‘free’ is defined as liberty, as “free from restriction, not as ‘free of charge.’”[2]


The collective aspects of free and open-source software are expressed through particular licenses and through documenting and publishing of source code on platforms for distributed version control and source code management such as Github and Gitlab. H&D has explored these principles in and outside of the domain of computer programming. [3]


In this toolkit you will find external links – little ant helpers residing on a leave that indicate there are resources to be found elsewhere – such as code repositories, how-to's, scripts or instruction manuals. Besides providing useful resources the ants are also a reminder that the tools, practices and experiments in this toolkit are connected to various other contexts and practices and that none of these proposal are made from scratch but build forth on the labor of various communities.


For instance there are certain open-source tools that H&D accumulated around organizational activities, such as the real-time chat app Zulip [4], the web spreadsheet tool Ethercalc [5] to create overviews for budgets and plans or the real-time collaborative note taking tool Etherpad. [6] As free and open-source projects, these tools are used by many collectives and individuals who put them into practice across various contexts. For H&D, such tools are enmeshed with organizational routines, with other technical systems and are also connected to other communities of toolmakers and users.


Furthermore, H&D builds and works with digital tools that are situated in the realm of experimental publishing and graphic design. These include self-made publishing tools such as ChattyPub,[7] Momentary Zine,[8] and the Heartbeat-to-print tool.[9] In experimenting with design and publishing tools, H&D draws inspiration from other collectives and individuals, such as the Brussels-based collective Open Source Publishing[10] and ‘Constant Association for Art & Media’,[11] the Rotterdam-based collective Varia,[12] the Amsterdam-based collective fanfare,[13] the publishing practice of Vienna-based artist Eva Weinmayr,[14] or the embodied publishing practices of Rotterdam-based designers Amy Suo Wu and Clara Balaguer.[15] In addition, the knowledge and practices evolving from educational environments are encapsulated by the student-led interdepartmental initiative PUB at the Sandberg Instituut Amsterdam[16] or the experimental publishing program XPUB at Piet Zwart Institute in Rotterdam,[17] as well as the digital and hybrid publishing research groups of the Institute of Network Cultures.[18]


(Some excerpts of this text come from: A.Groten "Figuring Things Out Together: On the Relationship Between Design and Collective Practice," PhD Diss., Leiden Universtity, 2022)

Resources

Dig in H&D's Wiki-to-print experiments. The interesting thing about web to print and more specifically utilizing Mediawiki as a CMS in that context, it facilitate the co-creation and management of publications and traces editing histories. There is a whole community of designers and developers out there building forth on each others work. This take on the wiki-to-print workflow builds forth on the work of folks at ConstantVZW, OSP, Varia and Titipi.

Read more...




Check out this other take on web-to-print called CC (creative crowds) – a server for publishing experiments that emerge around Rotterdam-based collective space Varia to better understand how different ways of working are shaped by (and shape) different realities.

Read more...




If you are interested on other – non-wiki related publishing experiments of H&D feel free to visit this incomplete tool compendium on the H&D website

Read more...



  1. ↑ Christopher Kelty, Two Bits: The Cultural Significance of Free Software (Durham: Duke University Press, 2008), xi.
  2. ↑ “The Free Software Foundation is dedicated to eliminating restrictions on copying, redistribution, understanding and modification of software. The word “free” in our name does not refer to price; it refers to freedom. First, the freedom to copy a program and redistribute it to your neighbours, so that they can use it as well as you. Second, the freedom to change a program, so that you can control it instead of it controlling you; for this, the source code must be made available to you.” GNU Bulletin 1, no. 1, (1986), https://www.gnu.org/bulletins/bull1.txt, last accessed May 2022.
  3. ↑ In his dissertation “Sandbox Culture: A Study of the Application of Free and Open Source Software Licensing Ideas to Art and Cultural Production” Aymeric Mansoux wrote about the ways in which principles of free and open-source have been interpreted and actualized in free and open-source software on art and culture since the late nineties. Aymeric Mansoux, “Sandbox Culture: A Study of the Application of Free and Open Source Software Licensing Ideas to Art and Cultural Production” (PhD diss., Centre for Cultural Studies, Goldsmiths, University of London,2017).
  4. ↑ https://zulip.com/
  5. ↑ Documentation of the Ethercalc instance hosted by H&D: https://hackersanddesigners.nl/s/Tools/p/H%26D_Ethercalc, last accessed May 2022.
  6. ↑ Documentation of the Etherpad instance hosted by H&D: https://hackersanddesigners.nl/s/Tools/p/H%26D_Etherpad, last accessed May 2022.
  7. ↑ ChattyPub documentation can be found at: https://hackersanddesigners.nl/s/Tools/p/Chattypub https://chatty-pub.hackersanddesigners.nl/, last accessed March 2022.
  8. ↑ Momentary Zine documentation can be found at: https://hackersanddesigners.nl/s/Tools/p/Momentary_Zine, last accessed March 2022.
  9. ↑ Documentation on the Heart-beat-to-print tool can be found at: https://hackersanddesigners.nl/s/Tools/p/Heartbeat-to-print, last accessed March 2022.
  10. ↑ Website of Open Source Publishing: http://osp.kitchen/, last accessed March 2022.
  11. ↑ Website of Constant Association for Art and Media https://constantvzw.org/site/, last accessed March 2022.
  12. ↑ Website of Varia—Center of Everyday Technology: https://varia.zone/, last accessed March 2022.
  13. ↑ Website of fanfare: https://fanfarefanfare.nl/ http://fanfareinc.world/colophon, last accessed March 2022.
  14. ↑ Website of Eva Weinmayr: http://evaweinmayr.com/work-categories/ publishing/ http://andpublishing.org/, last accessed March 2022.
  15. ↑ Lecture and workshop by Clara Balaguer about ‘’Publishing as Bloodletting,’’ https://www.kabk.nl/agenda/studium-generale-lecture-clara-balaguer https://pub.sandberg.nl/sessions/pub-e-pub-4-session-3-publishing-as-bloodletting-w-clara-balaguer. Example of Amy Suo Wu’s ‘embodied publishing’ practice: “garments [that] are experiments in embodied publishing, spectral publishing, navel expanding, and ghostwriting” https://amysuowu.net/content/dear-ursula https://amysuowu.net/content/shapeshifty-0, last accessed March 2022.
  16. ↑ Website of the student initiative of the Sandberg Instituut, PUB https://pub.sandberg.nl/, last accessed March 2022.
  17. ↑ Website of the Piet Zwart Experimental Publishing Master: https://www.pzwart.nl/experimental-publishing/, last accessed March 2022.
  18. ↑ Joe Monk, Miriam Rasch, Florian Cramer and Amy Wu, eds., Hybrid Publishing Toolkit: https://networkcultures.org/blog/publication/from-print-to-ebooks-a-hybrid-publishing-toolkit-for-the-arts/, last accessed March 2022.
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