Writing a Book As If Writing a Piece of Software
about writing and coding, books and software
Dr. Winnie Soon (HK/UK)
artist coder and researcher, Creative Computing Institute, UAL / Aarhus University
The term "Computational Publishing"
- dynamic and computational objects
- open to re-versioning
- more than "discrete objects" (Batchen 1998: 47)
- as "a continuous stream of data […] without temporal restriction" (ibid)
Computational book
- ongoing iterative process (Adema 2021)
- produce multiple version through computational techniques and under FLOSS licences
- disrupting "the fixed 'serial' nature of print" (Ludovico 2013: 156)
Writing a Book As If Writing a Piece of Software
production of a book computationally as a form of software art that reflects wider cultural and political parameters
3 projects
aim: articulating the relation between computational publishing and the critique of software culture
Inspirations: techniques + community works
Working approaches
- Determine to use and promote free and open-source software
- Concern collectivity than individuality e.g code of conduct, cc4r license, collaborative tools
- DIY: Writing code and modifying computer scripts forms a large part of the publishing processes -> computational extensibility
Case 1 - Git Repository: Aesthetic Programming
Case 1 - Writing and Coding: Markdown
Markdown is a specific plain text format. By adding computational syntax, which is the markup language, the content can be converted into structured layout for different mediums such as web HTML for web and print presentation. It is made easy to read and write than HTML. Many software applications and platforms, such as Turtl, web to print and Github/Gitlab, take markdown syntax. For example, the markdown “## Heading 2” will be rendered as bold and bigger size, which is like the HTML tag <h2></h2>.
Case 1 - Git
git commit
git commit -m "First commit of the book"
The written text and code are ready to be read in the repository, but also ready to be run and executed by anyone. The book is a piece of software that facilitates and encourages forking and endless reversioning
Case 2: Collaborative publishing software: ETHER2HTML and Octomode
Left: by Open Source Publishing; Right: by Varia
case 2: ETHER2HTML
simply change the Etherpad link in the HTML: http://osp.kitchen/tools/ether2html/tree/master/ether2html.html#project-detail-files
Interface of Octomode
Example of publication with Octomode - ATNOFS-screen: https://systerserver.net/ATNOFS/ATNOFS-screen.pdf
Case 3: DIY book: Unerasable Characters I
Materials:
- 2x book binding wood (24.6x2x0.8 cm), hole's diameter: 0.5 cm
- 2x wing nuts
- 2x flat washers
- 2x long headless screws (35 cm)
- 1x A4 textile cloth for the book cover
Case 3: Working with others
Photos by Kelly Chan, ACCA
thoughts
- temporality of publishing
- update -> changability -> maintenance
- writing & participation
- workflow
- process vs fixed object
- format/translation of publishing (media translation)
- what is gained/lost in translation?
- how does it change reading and writing practice?
- configuration of the "source"
- source & print / pdf
- source & web
- source as code -> performativity of code
- generating and customising the layout computationally (not limit by the tools)
- community-based publishing