Where we are today, in the wretched digital, it seems hopeless more than ever to navigate or exist in between huge platforms, and attempts of decentralization have already been claimed by the proponents of cryptocurrencies. We, as Well Gedacht Publishing, want to explore today’s methods of “publishing” in the digital: at this workshop, we will look at the limits of different social media and online “publishing” platforms such as Discord, podcasts, Patreon, Twitch, etc. and analyze their failures and shortcomings; and speculate on how the current and future ways of online publishing and distribution of artistic and intellectual content could look like, as well as how to form communities and online spaces outside the platform-bound practices.
Where we are today, in the wretched digital, it seems hopeless more than ever to navigate or exist in between huge platforms, and attempts of decentralization have already been claimed by the proponents of cryptocurrencies. We, as Well Gedacht Publishing, want to explore today’s methods of “publishing” in the digital: at this workshop, we will look at the limits of different social media and online “publishing” platforms such as Discord, podcasts, Patreon, Twitch, etc. and analyze their failures and shortcomings; and speculate on how the current and future ways of online publishing and distribution of artistic and intellectual content could look like, as well as how to form communities and online spaces outside the platform-bound practices.
At Well Gedacht Publishing, we see both print and online DIY self-publishing and book/zine making as crucial tools for alternative community making in contemporary art. At this workshop we would like to concentrate on the tools people currently and could potentially use to form communities around the work they create and publish. Together with the participants, we would like to sketch alternative forms of community building through publishing in a broader sense. After a short introduction, we will go for online excursions to pursue on various platforms, tools and protocols; in small groups.
During these exchanges in small groups we will collect chat logs, screenshots, notes, thoughts on imaginary systems and drawings related to online community building in, outside and beyond the mainstream platforms. At the end of the workshop we will have an unedited (e-)pamphlet that contains these sketches, as well as found materials from the excursions made on specific platforms, tools and protocols. This (e-)reader/pamphlet would work as a manual or an inspiration for future attempts of self-publishing.