2021

Reclaiming Digital Infrastructures

Download the PDF publicatie: http://www.books.constantvzw.org/home/RDI/RDI.pdf

Language: English

What we learn and how we learn are closely related. Now that digital learning seems to have become a new norm, it is important to be able to read and understand the digital tools that we use and allow artistic knowledge to play a role in this.

This collaboration with KASK, School of Arts in Ghent integrates a critical and creative attitude towards the tools used at KASK. This is crucial if we want to be able to respond to initiatives that are closer to the practice of design and art. Claiming the digital space for artistic-educational applications starts with an analysis of its (digital) materiality, daring to play and speculate with it in order to formulate artistic forward-looking proposals.

Reclaiming Digital Infrastructures takes KASKs digital infrastructure as a starting point for close-reading sessions. This infrastructure is both technical and ethical, legal and speculative, economic and political: it consists of cables and servers, social environments, laws and regulations, licenses and relations between human beings and other beings. The sessions make connections between the various infrastructural aspects.

Reclaiming Digital Infrastructures starts from an F/LOSS perspective. (Free Libre Open Source Software) Participants get acquainted with various F/LOSS software and/or methods.

With contributions by: Elodie Mugrefya, Wendy Van Wynsberghe, Jara Rocha, Martino Morandi, Manetta Berends, Femke Snelting, Seda Gürses

Graphic design: Manetta Berends + Cristina Cochior / Varia
Editing: Femke Snelting + Peter Westenberg

Made possible by: KASK School of Arts, Gent

2021

Alchorisma

Read the publication: https://alchorisma.constantvzw.org

Language: English

The Alchorisma worksession took place in December 2018 in Z33, House for Contemporary Art, Design and Architecture in Hasselt, in collaboration with FoAM, RYNB.ORG. In August 2020 a second worksession took place in the beautiful family house of Anne-Laure Buisson, one of the participants, in Beaulieu, Vercors, France.

This publication is the result of a collective process that happened through online reading sessions and meetings.

With the participation of: Adva Zakai, An Mertens, Anne Adé, Anne-Laure Buisson, Annie Abrahams, Arthur Gouillart, Artyom Kolganov, Axel Meunier, Donatella Portoghese, Erik De Wilde, Femke Snelting, Gaspard Bébié-Valérian, Ils Huygens, Ingrid Baisier, Isabella Aurora, Jack Boyer, Karin Ulmer, Karin Van Ginneken, Kevin Bartoli, Linda Verplancke, Maeva Borg, Maja Kuzmanovic, Malgorzata Zurada, Marika Dermineur, Marleen Verschueren, Martina Gylsen, Mauro Ricchiuti, Nele De Man, Nik Gaffney, Peter Westenberg, Roberto Simone, Sumugan Sivanesan, Tiina Prittinen, Vesna Manojlovic, Wendy Van Wynsberghe, Elodie Mugrefya, Rares Craiut.

A big thank you to: Michel and Marie-Andrée Buisson, Toon Van Daele, Jef Van Meulder, Hans Nickmans, Kathy Melcher, Frank Coppieters, Michèle Meesen.

Graphic design: Open Source Publishing
Proofreading: Patrick Lennon

With the support of: Vlaamse Overheid, Vlaamse Gemeenschapscommissie, Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles Arts Numériques, City of Hasselt, City of Genk, Domein Bokrijk & Agentschap voor Natuur & Bos.

2021

DiVersions v2

Download the publication: https://diversions.constantvzw.org/publication/diversions_v2.pdf

Printed copy: 10€ (excl shipping costs)
Order a physical copy by sending an email to info@constantvzw.org

This is the second version of a digital and printed publication with new and reworked contributions by: Rahel Aima, Anaïs Berck, Gert Biesta, Z. Blace, Daniel Blanga Gubbay, Cristina Cochior, Sarah Kaerts, Anne Laforet, Phil Langley, Marie Lécrivain, Nicolas Malevé, Elodie Mugrefya, Zoumana Meïté, Mia Melvær, Martino Morandi, Michael Murtaugh, Colm o’Neill, Hari Prasad Adhikari-Sacré, Kris Rutten, Amir Sarabadani, Femke Snelting, Saskia Willaert.

DiVersions engaged with the potential of on-line cultural heritage for welcoming various forms of collaboration, allowing conflicts to show up, and make space for other narratives. In dialogue with cultural institutions and their collections, the project experimented with digitized and digital heritage to open up databases, metadata, catalogs and digital infrastructures for other imaginations.

DiVersions is initiated by Constant and developed in partnership with: UGent - Department of Educational Studies, Werkplaats immaterieel erfgoed, meemoo - Vlaams Instituut voor het Archief - Expertisecentrum Digitaal Erfgoed, RoSa - Kenniscentrum voor gender en feminisme.

Editorial team: Constant (Elodie Mugrefya, Femke Snelting)
Graphic design: OSP (Gijs de Heij, Sarah Magnan)

2021

vi.zine.air

Download the PDF publicatie: http://www.books.constantvzw.org/home/viZINEair/vizineair_web.pdf

Language: partly English, partly Dutch

This zine collages together fragments of quotes, images, resources that emerged during a collaboration between Maxlab and Constant diffracting their practices in an attempt to open new perspectives and visions that could feed into the work of Maxlab.
The material is grouped around three main axis: Immersion (Immersie), Accessibility (Toegankelijkheid) and Cocreation (Cocreatie). Frictions, dissonances and diffractions are incentives for continuously changing research conditions. The zine proposes dif-fracturation as a method: overlaps, intra-actions, esclamations, divides, slashes, doublings, contradictions, breaches, dissimilarities, inequalities, commas, intervals provocations and unclarities; they can be active invitations for conversation and further research.

Text contributions by: Martino Morandi, Elodie Mugrefya.

Graphic design and editing: Femke Snelting + Peter Westenberg

Made possible by: MAXlab, KASK Antwerpen

2020

Iterations

Download the publication: https://iterations.space/publication/

Printed copy: 10€ (excl shipping costs)
Order a physical copy by sending an email to info@constantvzw.org

Iterations was a series of residencies, exhibitions, research meetings and artistic exchanges committed to investigate the future of artistic collaboration in digitally networked contexts.
Iterations is now also a publication that creates and inspires new concepts and openings for works yet to be developed.

With contributions by: Kym Ward, Behuki, common ground, Rica Rickson, Collective Conditions, spideralex. An insert booklet invites the reader to engage in a practice of ’X-dexing’ to discover and process transversal content.

Editors: Jara Rocha and Manetta Berends
Design: Manetta Berends

Iterations is a project by Constant, Hangar, esc MKL
More info on the project: Iterations.space

copyleft FAL, Constant 2020

2019

Constant_V catalogue

Download the book: https://gitlab.constantvzw.org/design/2018-19/tree/master/04-catalogue-constantvzw/pdf

Printed copy: shipping costs only
Interested to order a copy? Please email info@constantvzw.org

Constant_V is a series of small-scale installations in the window of the Constant office. These installations are sometimes accompanied by a workshop led by the artist(s) in order to focus not only on the finished product, but also on the process of creation. They give the opportunity to discover the motivations, the techniques or other aspects of a work.

Constant_V uses our front window as a membrane; it showcases artists and projects connected to Constant. Constant_V prefers showing works that are in progress, giving visibility to the conceptual, technical and collaborative work that goes into the creation of an artwork. Constant_V shows works that are made with Free Software and / or distributed under open content licenses. This way Constant_V offers passers by insight in the world of F/LOSS arts.

Constant_V presents digital works of various types ranging from video to interactive works, from graphic design to hacked machines and prototypes.

Artists: Alex Leray, Alexia de Visscher, Algolit, André Castro, An Mertens, Anne Laforet, Antje Van Wichelen, Antonio Roberts, Axel Claes, Barbara Janssens, Catherine Lenoble, Claire Williams, Dick Reckard, Dyne.org, Ellef Prestsæter, esc medien kunst labor, Femke Snelting, Gijs de Heij, Hangar, Isabel Burr Raty, James Bryan Graves, Jara Rocha, Jonathan Poliart, Julien Deswaef, Katrien Oosterlinck, LibreObjet, Martin Lévêque, Mathieu Gabiot, Maxime Fuhrer, Michael Murtaugh, Mondotheque, Natacha Roussel, Nicolas Malevé, Ninon Mazeaud, Open Sound Lab, OSP, Pascale Barret, Peter Westenberg, Piero Bisello, Plus-Tôt Te Laat, Possible Bodies, Spec, Rafaella Houlstan-Hasaerts, Raphaël Bastide, Remi Huang, Samedies, Sarah Garcin, SICV, Stéfan Piat, Stéphane Cousot, Stéphanie Vilayphiou, Tim Vets, Wendy Van Wynsberghe.

Design & production: Anna Diop-Dubois

Proofreading & translation: An Mertens, Emma Kraak, Patrick Lennon, Femke Snelting, Donatella Portoghese

Graphic desing: Deal (Quentin Jumelin & Morgane Le Ferec)

Printing: Graphius Bruxelles

2019

Data Workers

Download the publication: https://www.algolit.net/index.php/File:Data-workers.en.publication.pdf

Download the sources: https://git.vvvvvvaria.org/mb/data-workers-publication

Printed copy: 10€ (excl shipping costs)
Order a physical copy by sending an email to info@constantvzw.org

Companies create artificial intelligence (AI) systems to serve, entertain, record and learn about humans. The work of these machinic entities is usually hidden behind interfaces and patents. In the exhibition, algorithmic storytellers left their invisible underworld to become interlocutors.

The data workers operate in different collectives. Each collective represents a stage in the design process of a machine learning model: there are the Writers, the Cleaners, the Informants, the Readers, the Learners and the Oracles. The boundaries between these collectives are not fixed; they are porous and permeable. At times, Oracles are also Writers. At other times Readers are also Oracles. Robots voice experimental literature, while algorithmic models read data, turn words into numbers, make calculations that define patterns and are able to endlessly process new texts ever after.

The exhibition foregrounded data workers who impact our daily lives, but are either hard to grasp and imagine or removed from the imagination altogether. It connected stories about algorithms in mainstream media to the storytelling that is found in technical manuals and academic papers. Robots were invited to engage in dialogue with human visitors and vice versa. In this way we might understand our respective reasonings, demystify each other’s behaviour, encounter multiple personalities, and value our collective labour.

It was also a tribute to the many machines that Paul Otlet and Henri La Fontaine imagined for their Mundaneum, showing their potential but also their limits.

Texts: Cristina Cochior, Sarah Garcin, Gijs de Heij, An Mertens, François Zajéga, Louise Dekeuleneer, Florian Van de Weyer, Laetitia Trozzi, Rémi Forte, Guillaume Slizewicz.

Translations & proofreading: deepl.com, Michel Cleempoel, Elodie Mugrefya, Emma Kraak, Patrick Lennon.

Lay-out & cover: Manetta Berends

2019

DiVersions

Download the publication: https://diversions.constantvzw.org/publication/diversions_v1.pdf

Printed copy: 3€ (excl shipping costs)
Order a physical copy by sending an email to info@constantvzw.org

DiVersions took place in the Royal Museum of Art and History in Brussels from 4 to 11 December 2016 and was inspired by the way versions are inscribed in daily software-practice. With 35 participants we explored how parallel to their conventional narrative of collaboration and consensus, we could produce divergent histories through supporting difference.

The worksession was followed by an exhibition in De Pianofabriek and this publication in 2019. A second version of this publication and of the exhibition will be hosted by De Krook (Ghent) in June 2020.

With contributions from: Rahel Aima, Anaïs Berck, Ž. Blaće, Cristina Cochior, Sarah Kaerts, Phil Langley, Marie Lécrivain, Nicolas Malevé, Elodie Mugrefya, Zoumana Meïté, Mia Melvær, Martino Morandi, Michael Murtaugh, Colm o’Neill, Kris Rutten, Amir Sarabadani, Femke Snelting, Saskia Willaert.

Editorial team: Constant (Elodie Mugrefya, Femke Snelting)
Scenography: Mia Melvær, Cristina Cochior
Graphic design: OSP (Gijs de Heij, Sarah Magnan)

DiVersions is an initiative of Constant and developed in partnership with: UGent - Department of Educational Studies, Werkplaats immaterieel erfgoed, PACKED - Expertisecentrum Digitaal Erfgoed, RoSa - Kenniscentrum voor gender en feminisme. With the support of: Vlaamse Overheid, Vlaamse Gemeenschapscommissie, Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles Arts Numériques.

2018

Networks of Ones Own #1 : Etherbox

Create your own Etherbox: https://networksofonesown.constantvzw.org/etherbox/manual.html#inside-the-box
Share your experience or set-up: please email info@constantvzw.org

This first episode in the series Networks Of One’s Own includes a software release, manuals, documentation and essays of Etherbox, a constellation of practices and tools developed in and around Constant. Etherbox responds to practical issues when collaborating in physical spaces with digital tools. In parallel, it became a platform to reflect on network technologies, on how to document artistic processes and on processes of collaboration.

On a practical level, Etherbox was a response to several frustrations: the fragility of online resources, the fact that the labour necessary to maintain resources online after a collective session was often overlooked or simply assumed to continue indefinitely, the limitations of Internet bandwidth when working with many people using etherpad-lite. The goal of the project was thus to present an infrastructure that is both visible and situated. Since it’s early beginnings in 2013, many groups have enjoyed the pleasure of writing and documenting together, questioning infrastructure set-ups or simply sharing files effortlessly. Through these multiple experiences, Etherbox has grown up to facilitate discussions and collaborative practices independent from Constant collaborators. Now it is ready to transmutate into other networked imaginations.

Networks Of One’s Own is a para-nodal1 periodic publication that is itself collectively written in a network. Each of the episodes is thought of as the ‘release’ of a specific software stack, contextualised in its specific practice. The series aims to document a set of tools, experiences, ways of working that are diverse in terms of their temporality, granularity and persistence.

2018

The Techno-Galactic Guide to Software Observation

Download pdf: http://observatory.constantvzw.org/tgsoguide_1806051351.pdf + http://observatory.constantvzw.org/tgsoguide-COVER_1806051351.pdf
Sources: https://gitlab.constantvzw.org/ch/observatory.guide
Printed copy: 5€ (excl delivery)
Interested to order your copy? Please email info@constantvzw.org

The Techno-Galactic Guide to Software Observation gathers methods from the Techno-Galactic Software Observatory, a worksession that took place in June 2017.

“The Techno-Galactic Guide to Software Observation is the obsessive fantasy of optimization turned on its head and stuck to the ceiling of a self-reflecting elevator. It is the ultimate book, with almost 300 pages of dos and don’ts, of forgotten histories and un-inevitable futures, of mindful agile actions and improvisational service architectures, of any and all things that you can and cannot imagine needing in a techno-galaxy.”
☆☆☆☆☆☆

Compiled by: Peggy Pierrot, Martino Morandi, Anita Burato, Christoph Haag, Michael Murtaugh, Femke Snelting, Seda Gürses
Contributors: Manetta Berends, Željko Blace, Larisa Blazic, Freyja van den Boom, Anna Carvalho, Loup Cellard, Joana Chicau, Cristina Cochior, Pieter Heremans, Joak aka Joseph Knierzinger, Jogi Hofmüller, Becky Kazansky, Anne Laforet, Ricardo Lafuente, Michaela Lakova, Hans Lammerant, Silvio Lorusso, Mia Melvaer, An Mertens, Lidia Pereira, Donatella Portoghese, Luis Rodil-Fernandez, Natacha Roussel, Andrea di Serego Alighieri, Lonneke van der Velden, Ruben van de Ven, Kym Ward, Wendy Van Wynsberghe and Peter Westenberg.

ISBN: 978-9-0811-4596-1

2018

Xavan + Jaluka

Download the book:
FR: http://www.books.constantvzw.org/home/xavan_jaluka/Xavan_JalukaFR.pdf
NL: http://www.books.constantvzw.org/home/xavan_jaluka/Xavan_JalukaNL.pdf
Printed copy: 5€ (excl shipping costs)
Interested to order a copy? Please email info@constantvzw.org

Friday 17 Frifek of the year Zek, a neutrondemolisher reduces the Grand Zone of Zendium to little more then a pudding shake, with dramatic consequences for lovers Xavan and Jaluka.

This comic by Peter Westenberg remixes the work of Belgian painter Léon Spilliaert.

Seventy years after the death of an author or artist, copyrights do no longer apply to his / her work. Public Domain Day celebrates yearly the fact that new works are entering the Public Domain. On this occasion Constant presents every year a public domain remix in the series Death of the authors.

Léon Spilliaert lived and worked in Oostende in the beginning of the 20th century. His symbolist work is lyrical, sombre and poetic. He passed away in 1946. His work is no longer protected by copyright and can be re-apropriated, modified and published.

The strip is a love story in a science-fiction set in the region of Zendium which is in a short but intense conflict with neighboring region Qualaria. Spilliaert wakes up in a fictive future.

French and Dutch versions available. No English (yet)

2017

Cyberfeminisme / Cyberféminisme

Download facsimile [51MB]: http://video.constantvzw.org/Cyberfeminisme/cyberfeminisme.pdf
Download materials: http://video.constantvzw.org/Cyberfeminisme/

“This is a book of translations - because translation permits dissemination - of certain selected texts which seem to us to pose important questions, and which enable us to conceptualise our actions and our position in the future, in technology, in society, and in the network. Questions such as: what is feminism in the age of technology? How do we position ourselves in relation to biotechnology? What action can we take against globalisation? How do we gauge the impact of our creative work - of our images, liberated from the nostalgic baggage of the words “auteur” and “oeuvre”, etc.” (introduction, 2001)

At the occasion of Donna Haraway visiting Brussels in March 2017, Constant made a facsimile edition of the bilingual (NL/FR) publication that was launched in 2001.

2017

Machine Research

Download the newspaper: https://transmediale.de/sites/default/files/public/node/publication/field_pubpdf/fid/58150/machine_research.pdf

This publication is about Machine Research – research on machines, research with machines, and research as a machine. It thus explores machinic perspectives to suggest a situation where the humanities are put into a critical perspective by machine driven ecologies, ontologies and epistemologies of thinking and acting. It aims to engage research and artistic practice that takes into account the new materialist conditions implied by nonhuman techno-ecologies.

These include new ontologies and intelligence such as machine learning, machine reading and listening (Geoff Cox, Sam Skinner & Nathan Jones, Brian House), systems-oriented perspectives to broadcast communication and conflict (John Hill, Dave Young), the ethics and aesthetics of autonomous systems (Maya Indira Ganesh, Maja Bak Herrie), and other post-anthropocentric reconsiderations of materiality and infrastructure (Abelardo Gil-Fournier, Etherbox interview).

Contributors: Christian Ulrik Andersen, Geoff Cox, Maya Indira Ganesh, Abelardo Gil-Fournier, Maja Bak Herrie, John Hill, Brian House, Nathan Jones, Nicolas Malevé, Rosa Menkman, An Mertens, Martino Morandi, Michael Murtaugh, Søren Pold, Søren Rasmussen, Renée Ridgway, Jara Rocha, Roel Roscam Abbing, Sam Skinner, Femke Snelting.
Newspaper edited by all authors.
Published by Digital Aesthetics Research Centre, Aarhus University, transmediale, and Constant Association for Art and Media.
Design by Sarah Garcin and Angeline Ostinelli

2016

Cqrrelations

This website collects all kinds of traces and materials produced before, during and after the Cqrrelations worksession, organized by Constant in 2015 in Bruxelles.
Cqrrelations invited data travellers, writers, numbergeeks, programmers, artists, mathematicians, storytellers, and other tech creative souls to explore the world of digital non-relations, desanalysis, blurry categorisations and crummylations in the Big Data that shapes our daily reality and language.

This notebook is an aggregation of different types of content from the server(s) running during the worksession: the content of the file server where files were shared in-between participants, re-ordered by project; the “dump” of the Etherpad installation used to take notes during the worksession; the sound recordings of different presentations that happened during the two weeks; and the video recording of ‘Big Data & Discrimination’, the public event organised in collaboration with Vlaams Nederlands Huis deBuren and CPDP.

This publication is an attempt to collect the different stages of the experiments and the encounters that happen at a collective residency, in a way that stays consistent with the techniques and the approaches involved in the event itself. For this reason the website is mainly consisting of the autoindex function of the Apache webserver, which by default lists all the files inside a web folder.

2016

Frankenstein Revisited

Download the book:
http://www.algolit.net/frankenstein/ressources/publication/entire-frankie.pdf
Download the material: http://www.algolit.net/frankenstein/ressources/frankie_the_publication_sources.zip
Download the scripts of the bots: http://www.algolit.net/frankenstein/ressources/frankensteinbots.zip
Create your own PJ-machine: https://github.com/sarahgarcin/pj-machine

Artificial intelligence can be as complex as it can be simple. Exactly 200 years after Mary Shelly’s publication of ’Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus’, on the invitation of Roland Fischer, curator of Mad Scientist, a yearly festival in Bern, a small group of Python lovers started working on literary chatbots based on or inspired by this gothic novel.
They engaged in the conversation around artificial intelligence by sharing ideas, works and reflections about the topic reframed in the dispositive of the novel: they talked about Frankenstein the text, the inventor and the monster. Using one of the oldest chat protocols (IRC) they created bots and went into dialogue with them, discovered their reactions, scrutinized their feelings during the interaction.
During the Mad Scientist Festival in Bern, they organised a workspace amongst the stuffed animals inside the Natural History Museum for a booksprint of 3 days. They produced a new Frankenstein, a publication in which the interaction between text, humans and machines is not fictional content but the result of a collective process executed using the PJ Machine, a ’publishing jockey machine’ with arcade buttons.

With contributions by: Piero Bisello (art historian & writer), Sarah Garcin (graphic designer and programmer), James Bryan Graves (computer scientist), Anne Laforet (artist & critic), Catherine Lenoble (writer) and An Mertens (artist & writer).

2016

Mondotheque::a radiating book

Download pdf: https://www.mondotheque.be/wiki/index.php?title=File:Book.pdf
Printed copy: 20€ (excl delivery)
Interested to order your copy? Please email info@constantvzw.org

In 1919 the Mundaneum occupied half of the majestic Cinquantenaire building in Brussels. The ambitious project was imagined by Paul Otlet and Henri Lafontaine as a mix between documentation center, conference venue and educational display. “The Mundaneum is an Idea, an Institution, a Method, a Body of workmaterials and collections, a Building, a Network.” (Paul Otlet, Monde)
In 2013 a band of artists, archivists and activists set out to unravel the many implications of a statement that routinely compared the Mundaneum to “Google on paper”. Under the moniker Mondotheque they organised discussions, reflections and workshops in various locations. A Semantic MediaWiki functioned as a platform for writing, editing and bookdesign.
The publication of Mondotheque::a radiating book creates a moment, an incision into this collaborative process. It is an invitation into the entanglements of knowledge infrastructures, geo-politics and local histories.

ISBN: 978-9-0811-4595-4

With contributions by: Nicolas Malevé, Michael Murtaugh, Dick Reckard, Natacha Roussel, Alexia de Visscher, Sînziana Păltineanu, Femke Snelting, Robert M. Ochshorn, Dusan Barok, Marcell Mars and many others.
With the support of: Vlaamse GemeenschapsCommissie

2016

Peggy: An Object in Common

Download the publication: http://constantvzw.org/documents/oic/Peggy.publication.pdf

Printed copy: 5€ (excl shipping costs)
Order a riso-printed physical copy by sending an email to info@constantvzw.org

From October 2015 until December 2016 a worksession, an exhibition and lots more ran under the header of Objects in Common. The fablab and maker culture, conversion of digital objects to the physical realm, and the issues that come along - from geopolitical to licensing to infrastructure - were part of this research thread.
All of this was condensed into a publication.

2016

Promiscuous Pipelines

In computation, a ’pipe’ is a method that enables various software modules to connect to each other, where the output of one program is treated as the input for the next program. At the Promiscuous Pipelines worksession that Constant organised with FoAM in 2015 we used the principle of ’pipes’ to inspire uncommon junctions and perhaps achieve the opposite of a productivity-oriented systems.
The publication of reflections, experiments and other outcomes of this session was of course done in the same spirit. This publication is a hybrid between a formatted, laid-out publication and a folder of ’stuff’, an untidy experiment linking up bespoke software, live notes, raw materials and collaborative editing.

With contributions by:Active Archives, Agustina Andreoletti, An Mertens, Anne Laforet, Bash, bolwerK, Christoph Haag, Dymaxion, Eleanor Saitta, Etherpash, Etherpad, Femke Snelting, Flickr, ffmpeg, Foam, Gijs de Heij, Gottfried Haider, ImageMagick, Marthe Van Dessel, Martino Morandi, Michael Murtaugh, Microraptor/GEGL, Nik Gaffney, OpenCV, Øyvind Kolås, Pandoc, Pierre Marchand, Python, QueerOS, Simon Yuill, Sophie Toupin, Sophie Toupin, Unitary Networking, Wænd, Wendy Van Wijnsberghe, YouTube, Zeljko Blace and many more people, tools and resources.
With the support of: FoAM

2015

Are You Being Served?

Printed copy: 15€ (excl shipping costs)
Interested to order a copy? Please email info@constantvzw.org

During the last edition of the meetingdays Verbindingen/Jonctions in December 2013 we invited a team of ’dedicated notetakers’ to document the workshops and lectures using the collective platform Etherpad.
The 14th edition of Verbindingen/Jonctions was dedicated to a feminist review of mesh- cloud- autonomous- and D.I.Y. servers during four intense meetingdays mixing lectures, screenings, performances, discussions and workshops.

Program: http://vj14.constantvzw.org/r/about

This collective publication ’Are You Being Served’ was realised by the team of dedicated notetakers: Marloes De Valk, Madeleine Aktipy, Anne Laforet, An Mertens; with the joyful support of Michaela Lakova, Reni Hofmüller and Femke Snelting. The design and the collective tool Ethertoff were provided by Open Source Publishing: Stephanie Vilayphiou and Eric Schrijver.
The perfect work environment for this was offered by De Pianofabriek KWP.

2015

Conversations

Download the book: http://conversations.tools
Printed copy: 15€ (excl shipping costs)
Interested to order a copy? Please email info@constantvzw.org

Publication of an extensive collection of conversations between developers and designers involved in the wider ecosystem of Libre Graphics. Speaking to each other about tools for typography, lay-out and image processing they render a portrait of a community gradually understanding the interdependencies between Free Software and design. Conversations was edited by Femke Snelting in collaboration with Christoph Haag.

With: Agnes Bewer, Alexandre Leray, An Mertens, Andreas Vox, Asheesh Laroia, Carla Boserman, Christina Clar, Chris Lilley, Christoph Haag, Claire Williams, Cornelia Sollfrank, Dave Crossland, Denis Jacquery, Dmytri Kleiner, Eleanor Greenhalgh, Eric Schrijver, Evan Roth, Femke Snelting, Franziska Kleiner, George Williams, Gijs de Heij, Harrisson, Ivan Monroy Lopez, John Haltiwanger, John Colenbrander, Juliane De Moerlooze, Julien Deswaef, Larisa Blazic, Ludivine Loiseau, Manuel Schmalstieg, Matthew Fuller, Michael Murtaugh, Michael Terry, Michele Walther, Miguel Arana Catania, momo3010, Nicolas Malevé, Pedro Amado, Peter Westenberg, Pierre Huyghebaert, Pierre Marchand, Sarah Magnan, Stéphanie Vilayphiou, Tom Lechner, Urantsetseg Ulziikhuu, Xavier Klein.

ISBN: 978-9-0811-4593-0

2015

Spreekt U Sint-Gillis? Parlez-vous Saint-Gillois?

Download the book: http://parlezvous1060.be/media/publication.pdf
Printed copy: 10€ (excl shipping costs)
Interested to order a copy? Please email info@constantvzw.org

Parlez-vous Saint-Gillois? collected the words, real or invented, that were captured in the neighbourhood Bosnia in Saint-Gilles. The EXTRA-ORDINARY words are overlapping in French and Dutch, words we merge, hybridize, invent, “acronymise”.
The audio recordings remain online in a sound database. The collection provides a sound portrait of this multicultural neighbourhood as it existed from September 2013 till September 2015.

The publication Parlez-vous Saint-Gillois? is a dictionary with words from the database, as well as a space for experimentations based on the spoken language of the Bosnia neighbourhood, and the different creations, activities and encounters that took place during the project.

Project coordinator Clémentine Delahaut and graphic designer Alexia De Visscher realised a cartographical diagramme that illustrates the relationships between the words, people and places nearby. In the introduction Peter Westenberg extends on the questiosn of multiculturality and plurilinguism in Brussels and how they have been appraoched in the project of Parlez-vous Saint-Gillois. Several artists and writers contributed to the publication, such as Jara Rocha, Madeleine Aktypi, Rafaella Houlstan-Hasaert, Dr Lichic, Mathieu Berger.

ISBN: 978-9-0811-4594-7

With the support of: La Région de Bruxelles-Capitale and la Commune de Saint-Gilles

2013

The Death of the Authors, 1941

Download the books: http://publicdomainday.constantvzw.org/#1941
Printed copies (set of 3): 15€ (excl shipping costs)
Interested to order a copy? Please email info@constantvzw.org

The Death of the Authors, 1941 is a generative novel made with Python and nltk, based on texts by Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, Rabindranath Tagore, Elizabeth Von Arnim, Sherwood Anderson and Henri Bergson, some of the authors we welcomed in the public domain on 1-1-12.
Every time you launch the script on http://publicdomainday.constantvzw.org/#1941, a different novel is created. As a hommage to the life and demise of authors whose bodies merged with earth in 1941, each version takes you through four seasons that are composed of thematically selected sentences from their liberated texts.
The selection of the texts used for this publication is very much influenced by the availability of works online. Famous authors are easy to find, English works and translations are often available as free e-books, thanks to an initiative such as The Gutenberg Project.

The Death of the Authors is a series of generative narratives based on work by authors in the public domain. Each year in January, when Constant celebrates Public Domain Day in collaboration with Cinema Nova, CRIDS and The Royal Library of Belgium, we present a new derivative work, as a way to inspire you to make public works electronically available and rediscover them.
Every year on New Year’s Day, due to the expiration of copyright protection terms on works produced by authors who died seven decades earlier, thousands of works enter the public domain - that is, their content is no longer owned or controlled by anyone, but it rather becomes a common treasure, available for anyone to freely use for any purpose.

2012

Woorden uit de Berenkuil / Mots de la Cage aux Ours

Download the book: http://deschaarbeeksetaal.be/media/livre_boek.pdf
English version of the texts: http://deschaarbeeksetaal.be/media/translation.pdf

Printed copy: 12€ (excl shipping costs)
Interested to order a copy? Please email info@constantvzw.org

Mots de la Cage aux Ours/Woorden uit de Berenkuil is a collection of spoken words used by different groups around the Place Verboekhoven, aka La Cage aux Ours. The words are also part of the online sound dictionary of La Langue Schaerbeekoise / De Schaerbeekse Taal, a project that took place under the Contrat de Quartier Durable Navez-Portaels between 2009 and 2012. The project aimed to promote social cohesion between different communities while reflecting the linguistic wealth around the Cage aux Ours.

Arabic, Turkish, Berber, Dutch, Brussels, Swahili, Spanish, Polish are just a selection of the variety of languages that season the French, the current language of the neighborhood. The Dictionary of Language Schaerbeekoise fed on these influences, it is open, flexible and organic. The selection of words was based on the intuition of the three artists coordinators of the project: Clémentine Delahaut, Peter Westenberg and An Mertens.

With contributions by: Isabelle Doucet (urbanist), Fatima Zibouh (politologue), Myriam Stoffen (Zinneke Parade), Judith Van Istendael (comic artist), In Koli Jean Bofane (writer), Jérémie Piolat (philosopher), Milady Renoir (writer, performer), Jamal Youssfi (Compagnie des Nouveaux Disparus & festival Mimouna).
Lay-out: OSP, Ludivine Loiseau, Alexandre Leray
Images: Peter Westenberg, Pablo Castilla, Clémentine Delahaut
Maps: Pierre Marchand

ISBN: 978-9-0811-4590-9

With the support of: La Région de Bruxelles-Capitale and la Commune de Schaerbeek

2011

By Data We Mean

By Data We Mean is an online publication following Verbindingen/Jonctions 12. A creation by Donatella Portoghese, Nicolas Malevé, Stephanie Villayphiou, Alex Leray and Gijs de Heij.

This publication collects the different texts that were produced for the lectures and presentation of VJ12. It also constitutes a platform for experiments. What becomes possible when texts are released under a free license? What happens when two texts apparently very different from each other, but with many points of contact at a second reading, are brought together, mixed, smashed, and suddenly acquire a completely different form and meaning? Isn’t every text ambiguous and open to different interpretations? And how can the grey literature surrounding textual production influence the process of reading and decoding it?

2011

CIAO/Tot Later

Download the book: http://www.constantvzw.org/verlag/spip.php?article114
Surf the story: http://www.adashboard.org/ciaocu/

Printed copy: 10€ (excl shipping costs)
Interested to order a copy? Please email info@constantvzw.org

CIAO/Tot Later - the author’s cut is a novel written by An Mertens, typeset by Open Source Publishing, accompanied by a digital story narrated through webpages.

With the support of: Vlaamse Gemeenschapscommissie

2011

Openbaar Schrijver

Download the stories: http://www.adashboard.org/openbaarschrijver/cataloog2.pdf
Download the catalogue: http://ospublish.constantvzw.org/works/valentine-scripting

Printed copy: 5€ (excl shipping costs)
Interested to order a copy? Please email info@constantvzw.org

In February 2010 one could pay a visit to the writer’s office of Ana Foor in Bibliotheek Sans Souci and confess a story. Ana Foor would transform the words in a story, poem or letter to a loved one.

From the catalogue one could choose the style for the content. The catalogue is an exhaustive collection of all possibilities one can think of using six font styles (whiskeyjazz, libertinage, cimatics…), three types of content (letter, poem, story) and nine ‘flavours’ or decorations (champagne, coral, pink…). For each of the 162 combinaties you could also choose the support (small book, loose pages, digital message with code).

The catalogue is the result of an experiment with Open Office, a daily digital writing tool. With the help of a series of computerscripts, the graphical designers of the designer collective Open Source Publishing created the different style combinations. All used fonts are developed by the designers, which turns the catalogue also in a letter proof.

With the support of: Bibliotheek Sans Souci & Gemeente Elsene

2011

Puerto Cookbook

Puerto is a hospitable place in the centre of Brussels where homeless people can find help if they want to live independently. Every Monday they are welcome to come and eat a three course meal, prepared by a volunteer, at an affordable price.

Together with these volunteers and Puerto guests, Open Source Publishing wrote, designed, translated and illustrated a precious cookbook with more than 70 easy, delicious and cheap recipes.
All benefits went to Puerto.

2009

Tracks in electr(on)ic fields · Empreintes dans les champs électr(on)iques · Sporen in het elektr(on)ische veld

Printed copy: 10€ (excl shipping costs)
Interested to order a copy? Please email info@constantvzw.org

This publication with texts and images documents the 10th Verbindingen/Jonctions festival. It contains contributions in English, French and Dutch and was edited by Constant featuring Clementine Delahaut, Laurence Rassel and Emma Sidgwick.
The design of this book was realized by Open Source Publishing and won a 2009 Fernand Baudin prize.

Tracks in electr(on)ic fields was a four day festival in La Bellone about gestures transformed into data, codes that set bodies in motion, prescriptions that ask to be interpreted. Pretended or real identities spread like viruses as they are carried across networks by (un)controlable, commercialised and personalised information services, inhabiting borders and embodying rumours.

Program: http://vj10.constantvzw.org/-About-VJ10-.html