Letter #1
Amsterdam, Saturday 25 January 2020,
Dear Mr Disley,
I will start this discrete task of delivering a short video on how to deal with any form of delivering technology or Delivery of Technology, by writing you a letter.
This will be my way of sharing my thoughts with you, whether doubtful or totally surreal, this blog will hopefully give me an itinerary on how to deal with technological matters and all other matter that comes along. In the end, it will be a video, as a testimony of me reflecting on how to use technology in the broadest sense in my current research. It will also be a video of this very practical aspect of my research, being outside in my town, looking for testimonies of inhabitants in the urban space and how I can capture these testimonials from the urban space, both in the public and in the private realm of my hometown of Amsterdam.
It is so easy to think about how I would like to have my actions, interventions within my practice as research documented or delivered in a technological way. Only in my imagination there is always someone else doing this. The whole point is how am I going to make this happen?
If I will have a 1-2-1 performative meeting, and this meeting is leaning on an intimacy, between me and my guest, interrogating this very guest on their moves inside their private space, it cannot be a simple applying of a blunt technological capturing of the setting. On the contrary.
Every visible attempt of me, being a reporter of this encounter, will disturb the very intimacy of this encounter and will influence this testimony and its capturing.
In my earlier experiments I was not very aware of the impact of my set-up. It turned out to be a moment in a line of thoughts and actions, starting with various kinds of walks, inside people’s house, taking them around their block, ending up in front of their house. Looking at their house. Ha, that is nice. When do you take a close look at your own house? Your home, which you leave and enter almost on a daily basis. And when do you position this house in the block it resides? And consequently, this block, in its neighbourhood, in its town.
In one of the experiments I tried out, I was ending up at a small table with just one guest, who shared this daily passing through her/his private realm set up somewhere in a public space, visible for the by-passers, it had both an intimacy but also a public aspect.
But since the focus was on me following this narrative with a pencil on paper, visualizing this itinerary, the only technology was this drawing, as an outside witness of this performative action. And since this technology was part of the encounter, it was more adding up to the intimacy than disturbing it.
Back to where I am now. I realised after these first experiments that the narrative, as a spoken itinerary was also an interesting dimension to involve in my encounter.
Following remarks:
Yes, and…
Yes, but….
Yours sincerely,
M.O.
Letter #2
Amsterdam, Saturday 1 February 2020 & Tuesday 4 February
Dear Mr Disley,
A week has passed, and a lot has happened.
To start with the end:
I was wondering, if I want to make a technical performative action, like using the black and white pixelated frame work of a QR code, as a way to fill out a blank space with specific dark blocks, thus creating a QR code and at the same time, whilst doing this, start filming this from very close-up, seeing the hand filling the blank surface with dark matter, with dark letters or dark drawings and by slowly zooming out, the image reveals an actual QR code that is appearing through this filling out exercise. And at the end of the zoom the camera will be able to read the QR code and then the code is ‘activated’ revealing the just finished action. And then the whole action is played from the start, looping this, zooming in and out if the action, getting very close by as an intimate gesture and zooming out as a more distant view on what is happening.
Do you get what I mean?
So, how can I have a QR-code in advance before the filming is done, and uploaded and coded with this QR-code?
As I understood you correctly, the QR-code that is connected to a video on Vimeo, can be used for another video, by replacing the one on Vimeo by a newer or later one.
And then what will happen?
I will make the drawing of the code (I will make checked paper to stay between the lines and also have space to fill out the right dark spaces)
The camera (of my phone which will be in 4K mode 24fps, will be in a position, zoomed in to the limit, on a tiny bit of the hand filling the squares.
And in order to have one shot, I thought about having a fixed position for the camera and then the paper(object) will slide through the fame in order to be able to touch upon the whole surface of the appearing code, already at the start of this ultimate zoomed in position.
But, Hm I think the zooming out, as an action, as I try it now, is in itself hard to make smooth with a phone.
And also there needs to be a bigger distance that is crossed in order to have this notion of a real slow zooming out.
But maybe I will need to use the slow motion mode?
And I will need to retrieve the camera from the object on order to take a physical distance as another way of zooming out on the thing.
If I will use another type of camera with a long lens, being able to make a long one shot of zooming out, from macro to total…
In fact, the macro should be really macro-macro because the end position will be the total of the QR code.
And then the zooming will need to be very smooth, maybe with a remote(?) or it will not be zooming out(in fact I never like the zooming within a moving image, then it will need to be a backing off, like taking more distance, very slowly, but then I don’t know whether the macro position will hold, or will keep the sharpness, or maybe it can become blur and only in the end become sharp as an ‘editive’ position for the next part where the QR code will be scanned, and the whole thing starts all over again.
This.
And then…
Yes, but…
Yes, and…
Yours sincerely,
M.O.
Letter #2 –and–a–half
On the train from Amsterdam to Arnhem, Wednesday 5 February 2020
Dear Mr Disley,
As a try out I made a QR code. I must say this one looks pretty nice with sufficient dark tones in the right place. Apparently, there is such a thing as a preferential aesthetic of a QR code §=). Whilst looking at it, it gave me another clue of how to approach it. The code in itself looks as a score. Moreover, it reminds me of a square, in the sense of a city square, where people pass by, encounter each other and move on, the pavement of a square seen from above, the dark spots being the occupied planes, by human and non-human entities, by their shades as well. The whole point with technology and its delivery(delve-ry/rêve-ry) is that there are tantamount possibilities to approach this fascinating medium of capturing the mundane into an algorithmic maze. And when I think about the title of my performance-research, ‘Reading my town by writing her a letter’, I can imagine to write this letter, film this writing, and then give it to the pavement of the city by chalking it on its pavement, open for anyone to scan the pavement and read it.
There is a big ‘Yes, but…’ in this approach. It is not very analogue, as I was planning to be. Still to have a technological delivery in a video format, it is unavoidable to be digital. Dah. Here comes the ‘Yes, and…’in the picture.
PS. It can also be a QR-carpet as a picknick blanket, to meet with my fellow inhabitants.
Yours sincerely,
M.O.
Letter #3
Amsterdam, Sunday 8 March 2020
Dear Mr Disley,
One month later…
A lot has happened. I did some writing about my research on the unnoticed aspects of the daily reality. Mine and that of my fellow inhabitants in my domicile, the city of Amsterdam. I shared my thoughts on my personal daily itinerary, from the moment I get out of my bed, my matineus(?) roaming through my private space at home, to my leaving the house through the front door, entering the street, right into the public space of the city.
I encountered some of these fellow inhabitants at the Public Library of Amsterdam and they shared with me their daily routing or routine inside their homes. Whilst following the voicing of their steps, I made a drawing of this route, as a walk on paper. After leave-taking, I collected the letter, the drawing all together in an envelope. This envelope, which is soon going to be delivered by me personally, being the beareress of this letter, from my house, to the house of this fellow inhabitant. On my way, from here to there, in my passage through the city of Amsterdam, I stumble on all kind of matter, human and non-human animals.
“A new environment allows the word to enter not only into one’s thoughts, but also, in one’s daydreams. Language dreams” (The Poetics of Space.1957/1994. Gaston Bachelard, p.146)
The city unfolds itself as a page. A page written daily by passers-by in the city.
(This reminds me of earlier times when there was a yearly updated delivery at home of the Yellow Pages, containing all kind of addresses and ins and outs, in a way describing the content of the town.)
When walking through the street, starting in my own street, I perceive the space on various scales. In a bigger picture, head up, I move forward to a targeted address somewhere in the city, and I become a body moving through the streets, passing squares, houses as one of the many puppets in the designed constructed urban space. When bending my head down, walking slowly, more dreamlike roaming, drifting, I notice the miniature world here on the pavement, on the brick walls, on the lampposts andsoon. This is how I encountered, for instance the leopard slug, who passed through my street.
Last week when the rain was pouring down on the pavement, I encountered this fellow around the corner. At least ten rainworms were traversing the street at the risk of their own lives. One was trying to climb the vertical wall of the curb, like a cliff.
People, bikes, cars were passing by, heads up. Me passing by with the dog, head down. I stopped, took my camera out and filmed one of these tiny worms. Its attempt to cross the street was touching. I could see through its transparent body, gleaming of wetness, swimming through a large puddle.
This.
To cut a long story short (I presume too late being over half-way the page), this moment is what I would like to share with my fellow inhabitants who live in that very street where this is happening. This worm being a fellow-inhabitant as well, deserves to be noticed. Since the moment of noticing it in real life is way passed, I think about another way of sharing this moment.
My idea is to QR-code the short video I recorded and write a short letter to the people wo live there in that very street. Something like:
Dear fellow-inhabitant,
I stumbled on a rain worm in your street. I realised it is as much a fellow-inhabitant as we are. Because of its unnoticeability, I would like to share its moves in this short video. If you go out in the street near #… you will find a QR–code on the curb that gives access to the video. You do need a device to scan the code. If you do not have access to this, please ask a fellow-inhabitant to share it with you.
Yours sincerely,
M., from around the corner
I have to find a good way to transfer the QR–code to the curb side. It is the vertical side of the curb, that makes an angle with the horizontal surface of the pavement in the street.
_| Like this.
I do not want it to be paper or an adhesive thing. It needs to be drawn by hand, but it needs to stay for a while. So maybe white paint? I bought this liquid chalk marker, but it doesn’t really work on the texture of the curb. I also need to make something like a cut-out template in order to transfer it neatly. Well a bit of a leap compared to the last letter, but it is time to narrow down this ‘Technology of Delivery’ in order to deliver it in time.
(How many of the thing known as technology is slipping into my current life, way over three, I say.)
I wish you a lovely Sunday, hopefully less rainy than here,
Yours sincerely,
M.O.
Letter #3-and-a-half
Amsterdam, Wednesday 18 March 2020
Dear Mr Disley,
Let’s keep it a bit plainer in these crazy corona times.
There are various technologies I deal with for my research.
- I made a stamp.
- I have an audio file that will be(hopefully) printed on a vinyl.
- I will design the sleeve for the vinyl which I was planning to print by hand by using etching with a light sensitive polymer etching ground.
Let’ start with the first one.
- The stamp.
Since this is already dusted and done.
I made several sketches here a few of them:
And I uploaded the design on the postnl website where you can make a personal stamp.https://shop.postnl.nl/webshop/post-en-pakketzegels/persoonlijke-postzegels/persoonlijke-postzegel-nederland
Ha! And then when I wanted to save it as a favourite, I lost my whole set-up.
So, I had to do it again. So, I did.
And it found its spot on the envelope of my guests.
And this is how the stamp found its way to my guest:
Here it is on its way to the letterbox of Guest C.
To be continued.
Yours sincerely,
M.O.
Letter #4
Amsterdam, Friday 27 March 2020
Dear Mr Disley,
The how and why.
How get there: I know that I uploaded the video of the leopardslug on Vimeo.
I must have written it down somewhere.
But which Vimeo account?
Because I had too much material, I created two Vimeo accounts to divide the bits on two online spots. For free is not always a good thing.
Now I need to keep an administration for the passwords the logins etc.
I know I wrote it down somewhere but where??
I have too many not books so I have to browse through all of them.
Wow, this is really time consuming.
That is why I love physical libraries and alphabetical order.
What you see is what you can get.
So that went wrong. A bit.
I also made a QR code for the Leopardslug but I have no idea where it is.
I will have to make a new one.
Step 1: All the passwords logins etc. I gather in a new password booklet.
Step 2: Stay focused on one thing at the time. Do not panic when the WiFi disappears and all connections are lost (I do panic) I hate working online.
Step 3: stay calm
Step 4: Do what you want to do and what you can do now, now.
Step 5: Doing.
Vimeo.com/387661196
The number of the Leopardslug video.
I undid the password, so it is visible for anyone.
I made a new code for the Leopardslug.
I made all versions just to see what the difference is.
Four tastes: Small, Medium High, Best
This one is the Small version:
This one is the Medium version:
This one is the High version:
And this one is the Best version:
Obviously the Best one shows more details but the simple one works as good.
Since I want to make a template in order to transfer it on the curb or on the street lantern pole, I’d better use the simplest version.
It is nice and simple, and it works.
The next step will be to choose a way to transfer it back to the curb where the Leopardslug was passing by.
As a reminder of a moment in the street, that passed by (maybe) unnoticed by passers-by.
The easiest will be to draw it first on paper and then cut out either the white or the black.
Since the lantern pole is dark-blue I’d better use white paint(?) to transfer it.
I have to make sure that the white part is gone in the template and the black pixels are the template.
Only the sides I need to keep as a framework.
Another problem occurs.
Where there is only a black pixel in a white field, how to ‘attach’ it to the whole template?
Maybe I will have to make a linocut template?
But since I do not want it to become too big, it will need some precision work.
Or I make a pile of pixels, just as loose tiles and then I can arrange them anyway I want.
Next step:
- I print the QR code on white heavy paper(220g/m2)
- I cut out the black parts.
- Stop here
This is not going to work. There will be always parts falling out.
And the make a linocut is maybe a good idea but still it is not sure whether it will print ‘right’.
Another thing I did not think about, is after doing a little try-out just now, that the pole is round. Is the QR code still readable.
It is.
I made a low-ink print with the printer on the heavy paper and I coloured it with a 2B pencil.
A bit smudgy but it gives a hand-made reactivation.
I erased some of the smudge and fixated it with Concentrated Fixative nr. 064.
I cut with a bone-paper-cutter into a nice square.
It is rather big (12cmx12cm) but I think that’s suitable for the purpose. To help a bit the notifying of the unnoticed. (Hmm)
After this I wrote some sub-titles to the code, since it is now a drawing on paper, let’s treat it like this.
It looks like this:
It says: The unnoticed daydaily reality, noticed. The Autogeographer(ess) #1-M-O
Here a try-out. I found back the spot where I filmed the Leopardslug.
The position of the QR code is not yet right.
It should be there where the film is starting.
Though I like it that it is so close to the curb, on the level of the slug.
A last thing I tried just for the sake of having the code on spot for the moment: I made a adhesive print. Not really really the thing.
I will take it off. There was already someone in the street getting curious.
This is it for today,
Yours sincerely,
M.O
Letter # 5
Amsterdam, Friday 3 April 2020,
Dear Mr Disley,
This will be the last letter of technology. It was a pleasure to be able to share my technical quest. I must say, it was and still is quite an endeavour.
And I succeeded in the end to do some talking in a video and uploaded it on my YouTube channel.
And here beneath is the Vimeo video link I talk about in the YouTube link.
In the end, I found out, that it is not that bad after all to be able to share these little snippets of my work online.
Even if I decide to put the emphasis on the daily analogue world, in a way it is in need to be noticed somehow.
Like I did with the QR codes. To digitalise an excerpt of an encounter in the street, with funny enough mostly non-human animals, and to capture these moments in many ways.
The fun thing is, it turned out now that I never leave my house without my phone-device-camera to make sure that if I notice something ‘unnoticed’ I am ready to capture it.
HA, to notice the unnoticed is like a catch 22.
I look for the unnoticed to be noticed, and then the noticed is no longer unnoticed.
It is more about walking slowly, standing still and create some time to look, maybe to notice nothing or notice something that does not seems worth notifying till I decide it is.
Are my eyes spying the street for some unnoticed details?
I would say this is a kind of professional deformation.
What you see is what you get.
But also, what I normally do not see, i.e. un-notice, I notice now as a probable unnoticed aspect of daily life.
More about the technology:
It is time consuming. I do like to know how things work and I do want to do it right. The only thing I really do not like about this digital world that it happens behind the computer, sitting and cramping my hand and neck and after some hours I am not capable of reading a normal analogue newspaper because of the ‘squared eyes’. (Must be my age and my generation). I suppose the newer generations will already be customised to the ‘screen-life’. I am not and I sincerely do not want to get too accustomed to this.
Still, to be able to share, in an analogue way, like the hand-made QR codes, posted as a postcard in the physical letterbox of the neighbours, to share my daily wondering/wandering is an interesting binary field.
I have to admit that this Technology of Delivery delivered next to all kind of technological acquaintances, a lower threshold to just do the thing and see where it leads to.
On my way I lost some of the tech-fear-of-failure.
I make sure to double-store important files.
I still need to organise a way to regularly delete unnecessary files.
Because the tantamount of bits and bytes that are generated in this process are virtually there in an endless Babylonian library (like the one of Borges), and without electricity it will all stay hidden in an unnoticed ‘byte-ical” world.
Yours sincerely,
M.
P.S. Yes, but… this morning ended in despair: I worked in my blog, and in between saved every step I made… (and very wisely copy-pasted all the letters) and when I wanted to take a look at the actual site… everything was gone!!
I really do not understand why and how and what. It just disappeared. The blog is empty.
AAAARRRGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!
Yes, and…. whilst finishing this Technology of Delivery module, I stand for another technological task: how to make sure that all that all the F** work in bits and bytes I generated are consolidated on a shelf in the real, physical world.
4 April 2020
Another PS. An unfulfilled promise: “It will also be a video of this very practical aspect of my research, being outside in my town, looking for testimonies of inhabitants in the urban space and how I can capture these testimonials from the urban space, both in the public and in the private realm of my hometown of Amsterdam”. Here I quote from Letter #1, back in January when life was still opening upon towards time and I thought I’ll just do this task. Now catapulted forward to the 4th of April it does not appear to be a video in the end. I was wondering, after all this writing and doing within this technological realm, what this me-talking-in-a-video could contribute to this assignment. As I share now this short You-Tube video where you can just see me doing the thing, as a proof of figuring it out. I must say, this is not what I imagined it to be in the first place. Maybe I am not ready for a more extended video work right now. This ‘simple’ tutorial like excerpt on a Youtube channel is already passing a big boundary for me, from my point of view.
I know nobody but you will watch it, still I feel exposed in a very vulnerable way. To compare, with these letters in which I might appear even more exposed, I do feel that this is more my way of sharing my work, thoughts, attempts of rough sketching. Maybe this is it. I am not born in the selfie-age and I am not used to see myself back on a screen (despite my background as an actress), I think that my work needs another way of being delivered. This is exactly what I am looking at right now. The whole process with the recording of the audio during my performative encounters, the exporting/importing the audio in the right file, as the right file, being frightened to wreck my material, the back and forth emailing with the vinyl presser, all this to arrange it to end up with a vinyl, and even not knowing if this is the right vehicle for my material and this process. Technology is about making clear decisions in order to proceed a certain pathway, no matter if this is the right way. Or, to find out it was the wrong way. Any way is okay. In Dutch we have this expression: Losing an illusion, gaining an experience. (Een illusie armer, een ervaring rijker).
And it might hurt.
MARIKENOVERDIJK 