Bulletin 1 Introduction

Introduction

Anja Groten, Sylvie van Wijk

The H&D Bulletin is a quasi quarterly publication that opens up, and accommodate research activities and workshop production of the larger H&D ecosystem of peers, infrastructures and tools. The content of the bulletin derives from and aims to feeds back into this ecosystem. It is a (re)mix of practical and reflective contributions, as well as experimental, poetic, visual or otherwise speculative contributions from H&D coop members, invited and uninvited guests, participants and critical friends. It will be published on the H&D website, the mailing list, and distributed via various media channels. Printed and (printable) versions are distributed through the H&D network as well as the networks of our collaborating partners, printing presses, independent bookstores as well as manifold occasions of hosting H&D workshops at festivals, symposia, universities and art schools.

Bulletins are released at moments where there are things to announce. Bulletins also take the function of connecting the different activities, rehashing and deepening subjects addressed, picking up themes and formats that derived from previous events and point towards what will happen at future events.

The design, production and dissemination process of the bulletins is part of an ongoing research into the ecology of small printing presses, more specifically in finding out how experimental, open source, DIY publishing tools (often made by repurposing web technologies) and the, at times, janky pdfs they produce, intersect with material realities of pre-press processes and different eco-conscious printing techniques.

Publishing tools

The activity of developing experimental open source publishing tools is interlinked with H&D's documentation practice. Along with organizing workshops, H&D produce on and offline publications and build open source tools and platforms, to preserve and disseminate the otherwise ephemeral practice of organizing temporary learning environments. 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 digital tools, software or hardware that we, as designers, artists, technologists and organizers interact with, on a daily basis.

With the bulletins H&D continues experimenting with hybrid publishing tools, formats and workflows, which is an ongoing activity that accommodates all our activities throughout the year.

The series of bulletins leads up towards a publication, which will be further enriched through reflections and contributions of collaborators from our activities of the previous year. Throughout the year we will be experimenting with a range of experimental publishing tools from the tool ecology of H&D and will probe the html pages and pdfs they produce with various small printing presses. This research into (in)compatibilities of web-rendered publications with print reproduction aims to gather and share insights into the possibilities and limitations of web to print techniques and will inform our final choice for printing technique for the final publication.