http://pad.constantvzw.org/p/modifying.workshop
http://pad.constantvzw.org/p/modifying.resources
http://pad.constantvzw.org/p/modifying.feedback
http://pad.constantvzw.org/p/modifying.writing

Modifying the universal: a workshop
We would like to use this afternoon to speculate together on how  compatibility and multiplicity can co-exist. We will collaboratevely  interrogate the customisation mechanisms that are already implemented in  Unicode, seeing how they subvert the universal from the inside. Through  a collective close-reading of documents relevant to the current  proposal that introduces gender variants, hair color variants and  directional variants, we will try to get to grips with the technical and  political structure of Unicode. As an outcome of the workshop we will  formulate a comment to the current proposal for new emoji mechanisms: http://www.unicode.org/review/pri321
Please bring a laptop and many devices: smartphones, tablets of all kinds. 

13:00 Introduction: context, case, procedure
13:30 Split in groups, explore questions. For each question:

• Think through consequences
• Find or make examples (a description, a case study, a sample image)
• Collect examples that express 'public' concerns

14:30 Discuss
14:45 Start formulating feedback
16:30 Discuss
17:00 Send

Some questions to start from:

Should these emojis be rendered differently?
Not representing 'humans', a different resolution, a different relation between subject and representation

Should everything be able to modify everything?
Currently only skin-tone modifiers; proposed: gender, hair, direction, flag. What if smiley face modifies crocodile?
Now: tagging certain emojis available to be modified by certain modifiers

Should we imagine the modifiers away from essentialist values?
Instead of 'gender', 'haircolor' (pregnancy, disabilaty, age, pregnancy), could we think of expanding, speculating on other modifiers: size, mood, alienness, ...

Should the modifiers be infinetely fine-grained?
Ref. FB gender dropdown: Instead of a limited set of 5 Fitzpatrick scales, all colors; no binary gender etc.

What consequences could the implementation of extended modifiers have
Segregation, targeted marketing, privacy

DG comment on territory + codeblocks

text vs. image: e.g. ideograms, logograms, person with ball ?

everything as a modifier option

esperanto utopias, local creoles