Advising researcher Design
– 31.12.06
As a matter of principle, I do not wish to appreciate design for crafting the ultimate fix in informational and communicational drift. My work since 1993, in contrast, is based on a continuous flow of presentations and publications in text and image, through a variety of venues, most notably networked media. With personal publishing being an important part of this body of work, I see the decisive conditions for experimental cultural production in the coming decades met in the young public/private realm of the Internet and World Wide Web. My main project consists of three websites which have been set up over the years 1998–2000. Their portal is at nqpaofu.com, 'Notes Quotes Provocations and Other Fair Use', containing a web log by the same name and two other publications: Innovation and Design for Information Empowerment idie.net and the Le Moulin du Merle dotcom estate lemoulindumerle.com.
NQPaOFU forms the spine of the three sites, tracking my daily operations both within and outside their construction, both in and outside my private and professional lives. IDIE was originally provoked by my discontent with the First Things First 2000 design manifesto and it concentrates on issues of design competence in a changing media and communication environment. Finally lemoulindumerle.com is the on-line annex to the Moulin du Merle estate in Burgundy, France. The site is conceived and developed together and in sync with the house and grounds, both digging into its past, monitoring its presence and speculating on its future. The site's main character is the house — the site, like an annex, belongs to it and will be owned by the consecutive proprietors of the place who will continue to write a history that started in the 17th century or before.
At the Jan van Eyck Academie I am currently developing multiple publishing projects and platforms. As a follow-up to the Design Recast symposium, which I organised in April 2002, I will prepare its Proceeding (the publication series of the Jan van Eyck Academie) for publication in 2003, entitled 'Wild Edit'. This will be done with a small research team and a hopefully large group of connected participants. The publication speculates on the possibilities of the general content abundance in, and partially thanks to, today's communication media market, all the while weighing the answerability of an editing competence which is both respectful of and critical towards how our information and knowledge is produced, processed and distributed. This speculative enterprise will incorporate an awareness that consumption today is also a vital production of information which can be shared in a myriad of ways, preferably not informing the capital media industries.
An expanded idea of what publishing is today – who authors and edits it, what is produced and, of course, which are its readerships – quite naturally leads away from the fixed page or disk, canned linear footage, or site-exclusiveness of the various 'stand-alone' formats and venues, into server distributed, connected content management and linked publication venues – be they web pages, multi-media wireless telecommunication or (possibly GPS guided) real-time site-specific screening. Along such technically driven developments in new media, traditional publishing also increasingly organises itself around networked platforms for its presentation and distribution, in addition to using the long-established platforms.
As a feature of its editorial and logistical innovation, expanded publishing also allows to 'route around' institutionalized intermediation, as released from publishing houses and academies, art world institutions, or newspapers and periodicals. The infamous weblog or personal publishing revolution challenges traditional journalism, not merely in its paper base and Internet expansion, but especially at the heart of its news gathering and verifying activity. Ad hoc journalism leads to discussions about prime news interests and ethics, as verification issues. These can roughly be divided in first-factual (eye witness) accounts and most inclusive-reflective (background/critique) accounts, though they tend not to force a choice upon their readers, if only because the 'making' of the news is in itself a process which is becoming predominantly democratic; one could even say it is popular, with a large amateur base. At the same time, more professional knowledge is mobilized by means of cheap and pervasive publishing tools and channels. Peer-to-peer file sharing serves a large variety of interest groups, most manifestly the music-sharing community.
Digital reproduction and information processing is at the heart of the content-sharing system, which we recognize as a publishing landslide. UbiScribe investigates the consequences of its emerging possibilities for artistic production.
Wassenaar, NL.
Graphic design, Academie Minerva. Groningen, NL.
Innovation and design for Information Empowerment.
Commissioning editor Netherlands Design Institute website, Netherlands Design Institute. Amsterdam, NL.
Co-editor Doors of Perception 4-6 conference, Mediamatic. Amsterdam, NL.
Co-organiser Doors of perception 2 conference, Mediamatic. Amsterdam, NL.
Independent designer.
Eigenaar; bewoner; huisbezorger. In: De witte raaf, 116, pp. 4-5.
Ik publiceer dus ik besta. In: Metropolis M, 3, pp. 108-114.
Het postmonumentale beeld. Over de duurzame zichtbaarheid in de netwerksamenleving. In: Open (special issue: (On)zichtbaarheid), 8, pp. 34-47.
Exquisite/enclave/exquise. Amsterdam, NL: Korsaar.
Hier waak ik! Het publieke domein in de informatiemaatschappij (Beware of the dog! The public domain in the information society). In: Open (special issue: (On)veiligheid), 6, pp. 122-129.
Recreant - maar nu even niet. Over natuur, media en mobiliteit. In: Ingrid Commandeur (Ed.), Dreamscapes. (Exh. Cat.), pp. 20-22. Wageningen, NL: Blauwdruk.
Stemmingmakerij. In: De witte raaf, 105, (September-October), pp. 2-3.
Zoo for a temporary autonomous zone. In: Martijn van Nieuwenhuyzen (Ed.), 10 years SMBA: we show art, pp. 15-20. Amsterdam, NL: Artimo.
Een onbetekenende tijd. In: De witte raaf, 100, (November).
De wereld als markt en medium. In: De witte raaf, 97, (May).
Ubiscribe presentation. (4 November). With Arie Altena, Sandra Fauconnier, Matthew Fuller, Wilfried Houjebek & Simon Worthington. Maastricht, NL: Jan van Eyck Academie.
Welcome to fusedspace database. In: Kunst in de openbare ruimte. (14 September). With Joes Koppers, Susann Lekàs & Tom Lommée. The Hague, NL: Stroom.
Ubibook-mark-up. In: The tomorrow book (13 September). Maastricht, NL: Jan van Eyck Academie.
Out of print, out of mind. In: Opening week 2005. (10 – 14 January). Maastricht, NL: Jan van Eyck Academie.
UbiBook. In: The Charles Nypels lectures. The tomorrow book. (10 December). Maastricht, NL: Jan van Eyck Academie.
Stand-up publishing. (17 May). Maastricht, NL: Jan van Eyck Academie.
Ubiscribe. Pervasive publishing in networked media. (15 January). In: Opening week 2004. Maastricht, NL: Jan van Eyck Academie.
Radius Loci. In: In Residence, in Transit. (27 September). Organized by Jan van Eyck Academie & Res Artis. Amsterdam, NL.
Wild edit. In: Charles Nypels lectures. (6 December). Organized by Charles Nypels Foundation. Maastricht, NL: Jan van Eyck Academie.
Logo parc. (16 November). Organized by Jan van Eyck Academie & Lectoraat Kunst en Publieke Ruimte & Premsela Foundation. Amsterdam, NL: Gerrit Rietveld Academie.
Final results. With Wouter Davidts, Moritz Küng, Karel Martens & Daniel van de Velden. In: Micropolis. Louvain, BE: Cultureel Centrum.
Ensemble! (25 June – 28 August). Antwerp, BE: Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst Antwerpen.
Exquisite enclave exquise. In: Methods of investigation. (25 September – 21 October). Almere, NL: Museum De Paviljoens.
Personal Publishing Pandemonium. (10 – 11 May). Maastricht, NL: Jan van Eyck Academie & Marres.
Intermediale reflecties. Over artistieke conceptualiteit en kwaliteit in hedendaagse kunstpraktijken. (30 September). Organized by Dutch Aesthetics Federation. Rotterdam, NL: Museum Boijmans van Beuningen.
The matching link. In: UbiScribe (28 September). With Roland Haring, Gilles Lane, Team Science Fiction & Andrea Zapp. Organized by Jan van Eyck Academie. The Hague, NL: Stroom.