01 Thinking Through Making (Known)
Print & Publishing Studio
Thinking Through Making Known
– Zenobia Ahmed & Michael Bojkowski
Studio InqiuryTo publish is to make known; to make aware; to make public. It is to form ‘publics’ too, as Michael Warner (via Paul Soulellis) notes. To publish is to wake the world up to something—it’s to distribute; to disperse; to share, as Tereza Bettinardi noted in a recent presentation, “Publishing is a form of Shared Enthusiasm”.
This makes publishing and Communication Design obvious allies. But how does this symbiotic relationship manifest? This studio aims to find out by combining messy and surprising reading, writing, research techniques with publishable outcomes produced session-by-session.
EngamentThis studio engages with expected and unexpected (experimental) forms of researching and responding (through types of reading and writing) to theoretical, practice-centred forms of knowledge sharing.
You will develop a variety of ways of thinking about what archiving and making ‘public/s’ means by affecting existing material and utilising ‘gestures of publishing’ such as posting, performing, swarming, recording, editing, bootlegging, dreaming, copy-pasting, sabotaging and more…
ActivitiesEach week you will explore a diverse range of texts, books, producers, projects, emergent formats and concepts in order to produce a publishable piece of material based on explorations per session—rapidly building a portfolio over the course of the programme. You will engage with publishing by sifting through independent libraries and visits to archives as well as creating libraries and archives of your own. Sleeping archives—Awake!
Assesments
Brief 1 Archival Exchange The first brief focuses on archives and encourages students to—first research—then intervene/respond to an identified archive or collection.
Brief 2 Talking About The second brief is a group task focusing on interview & conversation as research tools as well as providing insight into the collaborative nature of publishing houses.
Brief 3SKOThe third brief asks students to create a publishable collection (or archive) out of the various works made over the course of the studio, framed as a personal reflection on Publishing as Practice.
ReadingsOn practice: Designer as Author by Michael Rock
On Publishing: UrgentCraft 1.0 by Paul Soulellis
On Archives: Tasks of the Contingent Librarian by Simon Browne
Explore Past student work via Are.Na