Making Matters Workshop Documenta 15

On the occasion of the book launch of Making Matters. A Vocabulary of Collective Arts Hackers & Designers (Loes Bogers, Anja Groten, Karl Moubarak) together with Elaine W. Ho (Display Distribute) facilitate a 2-day walk-in workshop at Documenta 15 in Kassel by invitation of Jatiwangi art factory. All three collectives have contributed to the book.

The workshop will bring together the experimental publishing practices of H&D and Display Distribute in a hands-on explorative manner and invites passerby's to join in at any moment!

• Date / Time: 27 July 14:00-18:00 + 28 July 10:00-14:00
• Location: Hübner-Areal, Agathofstraße 15, 34123 Kassel
• No prior knowledge/skills required

ID: Book spread of a chapter introduction page of the Making Matters book. The left page shows an ornamental arrow pointing to the right. The left page shows in large letters "Collective"]

In this walk-in workshop participants can explore together with the workshop hosts the experimental and instant publishing tool ChattyPub. ChattyPub allows for the creating small publications collectively and on the spot. Participants can join the platform and work on their own devices (computers/tablets/phones) or use one of the computers that will be available at the location. There will be a thermal print station on which zine output can be printed instantly. The workshop will accommodate different levels of engagement. Participants may get involved in all layers of the publishing workflow (writing content, designing the publication with ChattyPub, coding the css styles that determine the design...) or choose to focus on just one aspect.

Display Distribute

Elaine W. Ho is one of a roving cast of co-conspirators for Display Distribute — a thematic inquiry, distribution service, now and again exhibition space, and sometimes shop founded in Kowloon, 2013. Seeping via the capricious circulation patterns of low-end globalisation into other subaltern networks and grammars, recent activities include the experimental infrastructure LIGHT LOGISTICS, poetic research and archival unit Shanzhai Lyric, the readers’ digest publication 『CATALOGUE』 and a peripatetic radio programme of hidden feminist narratives known as Widow Radio Ching. www.displaydistribute.com

ID: White plastic bag with parcels sitting on a chair, "LIGHT LOGISTICS shipment HQL-364", photo: Florian Cramer.

ChattyPub

ChattyPub workshops, through various iterations and collaborations explore in a practical manner how a decentralized/distributed process of making a publication can unfold, repurposing a chat interface (streams, channels + emoji reactions) as the main design tool. Image: Screenshots taken from "Temporary Riparian Zone" Cristina Cochior, Angeliki Diakrousi, in: 'Network Imaginaries', Hackers & Designers (ed.), 2021.

'ChattyPub' is a platform that evolved from the collective practice of Hackers & Designers, more specifically from the activity of organizing workshops and a shared interest in experimenting with self-publishing.

ChattyPub is difficult to define as either a design tool, a workshop, or a tool for collective organizing, yet it encompasses all of these characteristics. ChattyPub leverages a chat interface to apply styles and formats to the content of a publication. This workshop script proposes to explore, in a practical and playful manner how a process of writing and designing a publication can unfold in a distributed workshops setting, including interferences, contradictions, and inconsistencies.

Different emoji reactions allow you to style the texts and images. But someone else can change their appearance again later! The outcome could be a zine or posters or a webpage.

ID: Screenshots taken from "Temporary Riparian Zone" workshop hosted by Cristina Cochior, Angeliki Diakrousi, in: 'Network Imaginaries', Hackers & Designers (ed.), 2021.