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http://pad.constantvzw.org/p/observatory.afterlives
http://pad.constantvzw.org/p/observatory.inventory
http://pad.constantvzw.org/p/observatory.guide
--> 1-2 December
LAST ROUNDS 2 DECEMBER
Planning
Before January 9:
- Finish descriptions of clusters (Martino? + Femke?)
- Finish introduction (Done for now? Maybe another round on Feb. 9?)
- Interview Jean Huens + transcription (Peggy)
- Establish a level of editing that shows a balance between documentation and guidance (all of us try to finish the entries we took on)
- Finish pdf to a point that no content is missing and we can start discussing design (Christoph)
Meet January 9, 20h CET (1.5 hr meeting max)
- See what still needs to be done
- Send out e-mail to TGSO list: deadline 29 January
[Carlin starts editing]
9 February 12h CET: we meet to finish whatever needs to be done
Carlin joins at 16h CET
End February: print
Main pads:
http://pad.constantvzw.org/p/observatory.methods
http://pad.constantvzw.org/p/observatory.guide
---
Carlin's questions
- editing process
-
- different approach for primary materials (taken from workshop) vs framing materials created now
-
- in order to respect the documentation of the primary material (michael)
-
- how can this be a document that oscillates between "look what cool methods we used and "here are some things you could try out yourself"
"If you are writing, you have liberties" - if necessary, ask people who were involved in the thing to
- order of entries
http://pad.constantvzw.org/p/observatory.guide
- incorporation of photographs, diagrams, etc
YES!
- small note (visit computer collections appears twice in the current html)
(probably ok now?)
look for phrases
/ ways
for
introducing the chapters/groupings. Could be just a line? A task for someone?
Test:
http://pad.constantvzw.org/p/observatory.guide.grouping.temporality
Introduction
http://pad.constantvzw.org/p/observatory.guide.introduction
Peggy + FS + Seda first round
Add reference to the walk-in clinic? A description. Unlike normal guides: we have not removed the process. WARNING: there will be a mix of abstractions and concrete experiences.
Carlin works on
3
entries
The interview needs to be done -> Peggy
Hans e-mail -> Martino
Ana + Ricardo -> Femke
For each of the chapter descriptions: quote from the materials/reader? Could be an image. Or a short inspirational phrase? -> Martino tries
http://pad.constantvzw.org/p/observatory.guide
An email to other TGSO participants, call for help/see if further material is available (once the PDF is more stable)
WARNING: pad fatigue
might occur
latex todo:
* be able to force empty new lines (f.ex to put back lines in scrollresistance)
* differentiate code quotes from pad quotes
SAS Survival Handbook: The Ultimate Guide to Surviving Anywhere
https://archive.org/stream/SASSurvivalHandbookTheUltimateGuideToSurvivingAnywhere/AppNee.com.SAS.Survival.Handbook.2nd.Edition#page/n359/mode/2up
The Rudiments Of Wisdom encyclopaedia by Tim Hunkin.
http://www.rudimentsofwisdom.com
issue: different materials. works well to situate the week. fr an interview, a good way to introduce. but with folders, code ... so brought the SAS guide. What is good about that it is very loose ... different layers, zooms ...
flowing things from one into the other .. not too formulaic. find ways to jump different tones.
multiplicity of tones. so ... something in-between the two
template as a way to make the connection back to the original questions ... what are the things to pay attention to, to give space to it.
we did not do any grouping, but maybe that could be interesting to try?
we were testing observatory method, the chronological order to prevent us from paying too much attention to the clinic and would also look at the exercises and thinking from the first days.
could each method then propose its form/content?
even to have chapters that have no entry or only an introduction and no methods, to play the templating without feeling that we have to fulfil that template
http://observatory.constantvzw.org/documents/mia/mia6.gif
noise is back,
test: make a round of groupings / hierarchies affinities
test: make more methods
test: other templates
seda wondering about us defining different types of participants: stationary (that's us), migratory (but some stayed), walk-in (visitors to the clinic), sedentary ... was that a method?
do all the methods need to be related to software? YES but WHAT IS SOFTWARE
sing through and to the hardware and software
what is the 'entrypoint'(element from inventory?)-method relation
methods as a way to label and address things, still keeping open to other materials to enter (ie interview..)
Everything in the guide is a METHOD, but how do we group and groom the methods???
Do we do a publication, an event .. the fact that we have been through an event, and even that we describe it, means we are developing the methods.
<- is this like observation transforms the method!?
So: is this documentation, or will we open it to new input. Ongoing.
Difference between documentation and publication
Exampe: e-mail of jogi.
That report is already published and structured? It is an easier ongoingness -- to accept other contrib
ongoingness? thinking it structured around the week, and its participants. if you have not been involved, it is difficult to understand?
Who is it for? Do we want it to be of use? The difference between documentation and publication is the imagined audience
documentation: audience is the participants, does not have the ambition to be legible to non-participants
publication: a broader audience (with contributions from other participants but not from those who did not participate in the work session) who would be able to pick it up and understand the techno-galactic condition
Can we decide on a few kinds of formats and test them
- one can be a breakdown like on the methods list
- one can be more just description/summary/exericse
we look at the methods
and other forms of documentation
see if the proposed structure works
specifically:
-
test: make a round of groupings /
hierarchies affinities
-
test: make more methods
-
test: other templates
-
7:20 CET back to discuss
Peggy:
For the interview ... something that could be easily done, short bio interview with 2-3 q to the participants. Easy to do, and a bit is already done in the introductions. Would be good to have it in the guide for people that have not been involved. Carlin likes this too!
P. still likes to do long interview with mr. Huens.
Would like to write down the visit to the museum as an
19th century
explorer
.
Martino: groupings can certainly work. It can work, and connections are interesting. Two ways to go through? -- going to the groupings now --
Templates
Groupings
Seda filled her own template ... now on line 116 .. "Testing the testbed"
Anita: liked the grouping. Tension between formal and conceptual groupings.
In case of doubt, turn to the SAS survival handbook.
How will we get this done?
[[WARNING: This is epic and may take the rest of our lives.]]
2 days
*
full on
*
will intensively generate lot of material.
where would we be after?
what do we need before then?
Carlin joins Friday afternoon CET
THE WEEKEND
(DEC 1/2, 2017)
A beginning of an introduction
A certain amount of methods (common and uncommon)
A structure
--
AFTERWARDS
Peggy: the interview
open up to contributions from participants [what space remains?]
facilitate a response
Transcription
QR code in paper publication?
Marking up
Design/production
Editing
paper publication: small but many
pocket guide
let's not worry now about the level of editing/publication ... a publication or documentation?
not sure yet what to do with non-text materials
how to make sure there is also sth accessible on-line
2400
BUDGET UPDATED 14/11/2017
Printing/binding 375 (+ print on demand) [so that's 125 copies or so? depends]
Design 1000 -- Christoph Haag!
Train Christoph -- 200
Transcription interview 200 -- Peggy
Editing 400 -- Carlin
Translation (intro?) -- we do it ourselves
train tickets 150 -- Peggy, Anita
food weekend -- 75
(can Christoph come?) YES
- contact Christoph before 1 december DONE
- peggy records interview before 1 december
start Friday 10h
Concentrate most of the work
Carlin joins 4pm - 6pm
Saturday start 12h stop at 18h
Handover with Carlin at 17h
[FS meeting Christoph in the morning, and evening]
CARLIN's AVAILABILITY
4pm - 6pm CET (7am - 9am PST)
(PST Friday afternoon and evening)
4pm CET onwards on Saturday (7am PST)
<3 <3 <3
Methods for (engaged) observation of software
An inclusive list of methods that appeared during the worksession.
Question: are we validating if they are "interesting or even "engaged"? If the object is produced by the mode of observation. or what if the mode of observation is produced by the object ...
Are we producing a guide that we want to exist or producing a document of what happened
(a bit of both?)
Name the things that we might otherwise take for granted.
How do we name what's different about software and observation across time, without rendering the new or the old into an ideal?
A quite litteral, chronological list: based on the week, based on the observations of/that were experimented with the week
-
we follow the methods of observation day by day, session by session and list them.
-
follow the program, but all the different things that started to happen
.
-
Trying to stay chronological so we force ourselves to consider the different experiments/methods that happened.
[[warning: "our methods for observation, like mapping, come with their luggage." from Thursday afternoon section of
http://observatory.constantvzw.org/etherdump/toc.md.diff.html
]]
[[warning: some of these methods are not suitable for agile software/SaaS observation]]
TEMPLATE FOR DESCRIBING PROPOSED METHODS:
-
By: [who developed, tested, proposed this method]
-
How: [ideas for how the observation method can be applied]
-
Where/when: [in what situation, space, circumstances does the observation take place]
-
What: [what/who gets observed. What software category does it apply to agile/SaaS?]
-
Who: [who/what gets to observe]
-
Why: [what is the engagement, of the observer with the observed and vice versa]
-
Note: [anything that did not fit above.]
-
Mode of engagement:
-
Warning:
##
BEFOREHAND
-
Method: Prepare a reader to think theory with software
-
By: [who developed, tested, proposed this method]
-
How: [ideas for how the observation method can be applied]
-
Where/when: [in what situation, space, circumstances does the observation take place]
-
What: [what/who gets observed. What software category does it apply to agile/SaaS?]
-
Who: [who/what gets to observe]
-
Why: [what is the engagement, of the observer with the observed and vice versa]
-
Note: [anything that did not fit above.]
-
Method: Testing the testbed: testing software with observatory ambitions (SWOA)
-
By
/history/source/origin/process
: the "original testbed" was proposed by researchers/collaborators in Princeton. Testing this testbed at a local Constant workshop led to the meta-project of testing software meant for testing software.
-
How: The interwebs hosts many projects that aim to produce software for observing software, (from now on Software With Observatory Ambitions (SWOA)). A comparative methodology can be produced by using different SWOA to observe software of interest. Example: use different sniffing software to observe wireless networks. Doing so reveals what is seen as worthy of observation (e.g., what protocols, what space, which devices), the granularity of the observation (e.g., how is the observation captured, in what detail), the logo and conceptual framework of choice etc.
-
Where/when
/situation?
: Ideally, SWOA can be used everywhere. In reality, institutions, laws and administrators like to control the use of SWOA on infrastructures not also run by the people running it. Hence, we get distinctions like researchers and pen testers (e.g., they were hired) vs. hackers.
-
What: Deep philosophical moment: most software has a recursive observatory ambition (it wants to be observed in its execution, output etc.). Debuggers, logs, dashboards are all instances of software with observatory ambitions and can not be separated from software itself. So, what separates SWOA from software itself? HELP!
-
Who
/with
: If you can run the SWOA (many of these are promises more than running software/available code), you can do it. The question is: will people like it if you observe their SWOA?
-
Why
/urgency/
[this is maybe related to the engagement question?]
: If critical engagement in software is a thing, it follows that people would develop software to observe.
-
Note: [anything that did not fit above.]
-
WARNING:
-
REMEMBER: Good SWOA software usually uses an animal as a logo.
:D
-
See also: making a bestiary of visual cultures/logos around it
-
Method: Rearranging space as conditioning observations (WTC vs. Museum vs. University vs. Startup Office vs. Shifting Walls that became Water Fountains)
-
By: [who developed, tested, proposed this method]
-
How: [ideas for how the observation method can be applied]
-
Where/when: [in what situation, space, circumstances does the observation take place]
-
What: [what/who gets observed. What software category does it apply to agile/SaaS?]
-
Who: [who/what gets to observe]
-
Why: [what is the engagement, of the observer with the observed and vice versa]
-
Note: [anything that did not fit above.]
##
WEDNESDAY:
-
Method: Visit a computer museum
-
By: [who developed, tested, proposed this method]
-
How: [ideas for how the observation method can be applied]
-
Where/when: [in what situation, space, circumstances does the observation take place]
-
What: [what/who gets observed. What software category does it apply to agile/SaaS?]
-
Who: [who/what gets to observe]
-
Why: [what is the engagement, of the observer with the observed and vice versa]
-
Note: [anything that did not fit above.]
-
Method: tinyPersonalCASES
##
THURSDAY:
-
Method: ask the same question to people from diff
erent
fields (e.g. Jan(above) and Thomas: "Hardware for me is made of silicon, software a sequence of bits in a file . But naturally I am biased: I'm a hardware desginer so I like to consider it as unique and special".)
-
By: [who developed, tested, proposed this method]
-
How: [ideas for how the observation method can be applied]
-
Where/when: [in what situation, space, circumstances does the observation take place]
-
What: [what/who gets observed. What software category does it apply to agile/SaaS?]
-
Who: [who/what gets to observe]
-
Why: [what is the engagement, of the observer with the observed and vice versa]
-
Note: [anything that did not fit above.]
-
Method: making a bestiary of visual cultures/logos around it
-
By: [who developed, tested, proposed this method]
-
How: [ideas for how the observation method can be applied]
-
Where/when: [in what situation, space, circumstances does the observation take place]
-
What: [what/who gets observed. What software category does it apply to agile/SaaS?]
-
Who: [who/what gets to observe]
-
Why: [what is the engagement, of the observer with the observed and vice versa]
-
Note: [anything that did not fit above.]
-
Method: makefile as a method for quick/collective assemblages + observing amalgamates/pipelines
-
By: [who developed, tested, proposed this method]
-
How: [ideas for how the observation method can be applied]
-
Where/when: [in what situation, space, circumstances does the observation take place]
-
What: [what/who gets observed. What software category does it apply to agile/SaaS?]
-
Who: [who/what gets to observe]
-
Why: [what is the engagement, of the observer with the observed and vice versa]
-
Note:
http://observatory.constantvzw.org/etherdump/makefile.raw.html
##FRIDAY:
-
Method: observing how software observes the user
-
By:
-
How:
-
Where:
-
When:
-
What: is it important to take a fundamental piece of software? Could it be the clock? (production of time/production of space as a pair of software applications that explore different constructions and conceptions and practices and techniques of time and space)
-
Why: how are you imagined by the software as a user (pre-consieved image of the user by the software). how is the concept of time is a piece of software anyway?
-
Who: Who is the subject, or is there even a who?\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
-
Note: -> time in software (for full list see:
http://observatory.constantvzw.org/etherdump/friday.md.diff.html
)
-
Method: otspos
-
By: Developed by the software sketching observation group yuppies [ssogy]
-
How: observing the sketching process of software
-
Where:
-
When:
-
What:
-
Why:
-
Who:
-
Note: It seems that they selected an object which then produced a certain kind of observation, is this included in what we mean by methods of engaged observation? OBJECT SELECTION AS METHOD (FOR SELECTING METHOD)
##SATURDAY
-
Method: Comportments of software observation
(or how to observe comportments of software?)
-
By:
-
How:
-
Where:
-
When:
-
What:
Could this be put together with the agile yoga and become something that explores different kinds of injuries, occupational therapy, etc?
-
Why:
-
Who: Users/workers
-
Note: Etherbox observation by Becky (..."A familiar feeling hits me: a resignation to the fact that a lot of computing labor looks the same. People hunched in front of folding objects, boring their eyes into an expanded universe invisible to the observer.")
http://observatory.constantvzw.org/etherdump/cargocultGalore.md.diff.html
##SUNDAY
##MONDAY
-
Persist in calling anyone A Software Curious Person
-
By: [who developed, tested, proposed this method]
-
How: [ideas for how the observation method can be applied]
-
Where/when: at a techno-galactic software clinic
-
What: [what/who gets observed. What software category does it apply to agile/SaaS?]
Persistance in naming is a method for changing a person's relationship to software by (forcibly?) persisting in calling everyone a Software Curious Person.
-
Who: [who/what gets to observe]
-
Why: [what is the engagement, of the observer with the observed and vice versa]
-
Note: [anything that did not fit above.]
-
Method: Engaging with code through collective reading, reading out loud (elevator performance)
-
By: [who developed, tested, proposed this method]
-
How: [ideas for how the observation method can be applied]
-
Where/when: [in what situation, space, circumstances does the observation take place]
-
What: [what/who gets observed. What software category does it apply to agile/SaaS?]
-
Who: [who/what gets to observe]
-
Why: [what is the engagement, of the observer with the observed and vice versa]
-
Note: [anything that did not fit above.]
-
Method: searching "software" through software
-
so software exists only outside your computer? only in general terms? checking for the word software in all man pages:
-
Method: Rsoc - Relational software observatory Consultancy service
-
By: [who developed, tested, proposed this method]
-
How: [ideas for how the observation method can be applied]
-
Where/when: at a techno-galactic software clinic
-
What: [what/who gets observed. What software category does it apply to agile/SaaS?]
-
Who: [who/what gets to observe]
-
Why: [what is the engagement, of the observer with the observed and vice versa]
-
Note: [anything that did not fit above.]
##POST
-
useless scroll against productivity (only if you go to the end of this pad here:
http://observatory.constantvzw.org/etherdump/friday.md.diff.html
)
-
forensics tools for studying software (or what it is?) <--- This seems too general? Agreed
-
`` I am less interested in the critical practice of reflection, of showing once-again that emperor has no clothes, than in finding a way to diffract critical inquiry in order to make difference patterns in a more worldly way. ” p429, Haraway, modest witness, 1996 from:
http://observatory.constantvzw.org/etherdump/friday.md.diff.html
-
Bringing a moral, ethical, or otherwise evaluative/adjectival/validating lens: "This morning, Jan had difficulties to answer the question "what is software", but he said that he could answer the question "what is good software". What is good software? The more adjectives, the easier the answering?
-
A qualifier like "good", "bad", "spy", "queer", "proletarian", "bourgeisoie" can help narrow down definitions."
http://observatory.constantvzw.org/etherdump/multiple-software-axes.html
-
"leakage of boundaries" continuum
http://observatory.constantvzw.org/etherdump/side-channel-analysis.diff.html
+
http://observatory.constantvzw.org/etherdump/multiple-software-axes.md.diff.html
An overview of related software observation experiments with co-presence, experience, movement, performance.
Methods for inadequate observation of software?
I think about methods as ways of knowing. One way to handle the publication/documentation tension would be to structure a publication around a set of ways of knowing/methods and then select and shape documentation from the worksession as samples of these methods or taking moments from the workshop as prompts for reflection on these methods. Some of the play would come in from the mix of recognizable and common methods (visit a museum (ie. Namur and Leuven), conduct interviews (ie. with Jean Heuns but also as Relational software observatory consultancy service), organize and hold a worksession (ie. what we did), listen to an expert (ie. sidechannel)) with the less common ones (ie. create a bestiary of software logos, engaging with code through collective reading/performance, etc).
Chapters/sections
-possible groupings..
FLOWS
flow-regulation, logistics, seamlessness
continuous integration
fountains
(refreshment)
etherpad->md->pdf->anything pipeline
flowcharts excercise
(Flow of the chart - chart of the flow on demand!)
embodied flowchart-elevator
temporality
flux
time-piece
tempo of agile software/SaaS
resistance
useless scroll against productivity
Interface Détournement
languaging
aquine
glossary-excercise?
qualifiers (
secure,
bad, bourgeois, queer..)
healing
relational software observatory consultancy service
retrospection
Agile Sun Salutation
hand reading
when dirty.db gets dirty
close encounters
visiting a museum
interviews
asking the same question
getting down in your computer functioning (files/processes/ram)
relational software observatory consultancy service
with your future?blobservation
embodiment
/body techniques
Agile Sun Salutation: see Healing
COLLECTIVE CHAIR YOGA!!!
fountain
comportment of software (occupational hazards)
collections
bestiary of software logos (we collect)
computer history museum (institutional collection)
jean heuns collection at leuven (personal/institutional)
Testing the testbed: testing software with observatory ambitions
beingontheside/inthemiddle/behind
somethinginthemiddlemaybe
elevator
side channel attacks
Methods for inadequate observation of software [inadequate methods?]
but then the things in these groupings can be arranged/divided by form? like descrptive entries/ exercises/ diagrams/ conversation with/ gloss/
WARNINGS
[[warning: "our methods for observation, like mapping, come with their luggage." from Thursday afternoon section of
http://observatory.constantvzw.org/etherdump/toc.md.diff.html
]]
[[warning: some of these methods are not suitable for agile software/SaaS observation]]