• format: we liked the idea of having something square (e.g. 210mm by 210mm); are there other square-ish standards?
• the word estimate is around 70.000; combined with images, sketches, diagrams, and other non-wordy matter, the estimate for number of pages would be smth around 200.
• we have an immense amount of images, diagrams, sketches, etc and would love to get as many as possible in - full colour. This will help us with selecting.
• 2 Kibla publications i own were bound by glue; does this effect the spread of non-textual material?
• there will be a DVD as well accomapnying the book,

Some words to spice yr appetite: So there was talk about the publication being loosely structered as a cook book…and so it will be! We like the process of cooking because it is basically about selected things coming together, preparation, care and combination under certain conditions (heat, cooking utsensils, the slicing, spicing, choice of cooking method)…ideally this leads to a wonderful dish. The raw ingredients somehow evolve or grow into a dish by performing a whole array of actions. Now this is very much conform to what txOom does as a project, but also how it came about: it is very much about getting the ingredients, mixing of flavours, blending of different disciplines and skills, and accomodating tastes, competences, creativity in this large pot. txOom as an environment, but also the working process, is very much about active participation…the same is true for cooking. This sounds as a tasty idyllic story, BUT as all the different dependency charts, workshop notes, email excerpts show, cooking up a project like this is also fragile and extremely complex. In other words; if you if you leave your cake too long in the oven it'll burn, und so weiter. So far for allegories.

The chapers will be organised in cooking actions, which as you proceed through the book will take you from initial ingredients to the preeparation of the dish, and the dish as such. In other words, as you proceed the matter solidifies (or becomes more tangible/concrete), or the ingredients, if you will, change consistency. The more you proceed in the book the more solid, concrete, a whole it becomes. A gradual morphing from ideas to project, to put it in a mundane way. e.g. the first chapters may show very sketchy designs of the costumes/spaces, and as you proceed these designs literally start to take more form and more colour.

max. of 7 chapters (?) drawing on cooking methodology, loosely conveying the following

• hunger hypothesis: short descriptions/polemics of (sub)projects
• collecting/selecting of ingredients
• treatment/processing of ingredients (actual slice, dice, design)
• cooking (or simmering, bringing it together)
• spicing
• serving
• leftovers/waste/doggy bags (what is discarded, not consumed yet, etc…) – recycling?

So eventually everything comes full circle.

subchapters should be identified by icons symbolising the public event/project activity at the beginning or end of the text.

txOom is a project that had a lot of public events and development workshops. although we don't want to organise the book chronologically, or by event, it should be clear which text belongs to which event/project activity. therefore, the chapters are further divided in texts describing (sub)projects (txOom Torino, Gt Yarmouth, Maribor, workshops…) )

there are a lot of different disciplines involved in txOom - every discipline has their own language, their own writing style. if we want this book to appeal to different audiences, we should design it so that the different types of texts (say poetic stories or technical descriptions) can be clearly distinguished throughout the book - think of maybe using different font, spacing, text formatting… for different threads. the 4 threads that we found in the existing material are: )

• writing about (critical writing, reflection, reports)
• writing around (stories, workshop notes)
• writing how to (recipes, programs, tech and design specs, diagrams, dependency charts)
• writing at/why (manifestos, project descriptions)

the variety of material for the book demands a layered design, showing the 'thickness' of the project. the layout might need a lot of puzzling to make the following types of material into a pleasent and consistent whole: )

• text in 4 different threads, app. 10 different events/activities
• photographic material (meetings, events)
• sketches of space/machine/costume/media design
• system and collaboration diagrams
• illustrations will be made by Lina Kusaite - an example:

• illustrations of the evolution process (drawings becoming thicker, having more colour as the book progresses from chapter 1→7) )

more images on Plot Illustrations

The material has been grouped per project for practical reasons, but this is NOT how we want to structure the book.

Txoom Torino

• (and Gt Yarmouth): tech specs + diagrams document: 3000 words
• tech drawings/space plans for Torino space
• design brief Torino with images: 1000 words
• story of Torino: 500 words (Maja)
• dependency charts Torino
• Recipes Bxl dinner before heading to Torino
• Georgio’s recipe for singles

P~lot )

• Maja Kuzmanovic: plot manifesto 500 (received!)
• Erik Fusco: critical essay: max. 1500 words (received!)
• Marinka Copier and Hanne: critical essay, max.1500 words (received! 2050 words)
• Maja Kuzmanovic: Story of p~lot: max.2000 words (received!)
• Maja Kuzmanovic: character’s tale: max. 1000 words (not yet received)
• Rob Wilto: character's tale max 1000 words (received!)
• Nat Muller: Unruly Temptress tale: max.2000 words (received!)
• Recipes p~lot: Error! Bookmark not defined.(not yet received) with master story, charcters, etc
• Charts, diagrams of game and playspace
• Rob Wilton: game space: max. 1500 words accompanying images game space (received!)
• Julian Oliver game space max 2000 words (received, needs editing)
• Recipes martin??? (will never be received)
• Maja’s mum recipes to be translated/fonetiks)
• Images game space / play space

workshop Norwich

• Project description / manifesto: 250 max to be received
• Student reports (200 max) to be received
• Images
• Recipe Tuna dinner

GLUE

• Guy Van Belle: short essay: max. 1500 words (not yet received)
• Amanda Steggell: short essay, max. 1500 words (not yet received!)
• Michelle Teran: manifesto, max. 750 words (due March 1st), critical pieces as recipe max. 1500 words (received, needs a lot of reworking or rewriting!)
• Nat Muller: GLUE manifesto (500), essay based on introduction for glue (max. 1500 words, received, needs editing)
• Maja Kuzmanovic: essay based on presentation GLUE, max. 2000 words, GLUE manifesto (received)
• Sharon Daniel: short essay and images (received, needs reworking)
• Food for panel (still have the receipts)
• GLUE lunch at nat’s: recipes (received)

Txoom -Great Yarmouth

• Dependency charts EU (Nik)
• Sketches Lina
• Sketches cocky
• Excerpts txoom gen en dev. Lists max. 1500 words (hmmm?)
• System notes plus images: 1000 words
• Design of the sensor system + Analysis of the data (Sensordata stuff + graphs + recordings) (few thousand words)
• Design brief GT. Yarmouth with images: 1500 words
• User Research
• Critical piece; intro and others: Nat, max 2000 words (end of March/canada paper)
• Critical piece, Pam, due (march 10), max. 2000 words ??
• Interview excerpts (1000 max)
• Research methodology: 2000 words (nat)
• Story of txOom (Maja): 500 words max.= oh those gelatinous seeds
• Sponge story 1800 words
• Stories of Sia’s dress
• Paper Yon: 2000 words

• Txoom gt Yarmouth recipes: maja, nat, martin, nik, lina
  • Opening: Maja, Nat, Georgie
  • Recipes Maja, nat
  • Nik: lasagna, wraps, ..
  • Lina: fishy
  • Martin: pasta, curry, etc

Maribor

• Project description
• Tech specs/tech docs
• Paper Yon/Tim
• Images
• Recipes?

Info-ecologies

• Project description
• Abstracts or papers participants

In Betweenz - closed development workshops

Coordination meeting bxl

• workshop notes
• dependency charts

Visby:

• workshop notes: 1000 words max
• Images
• Recipes: BBQ (marinades), pix beet root salad, maja and martin recipes 1500 max

• Workshop notes max 1000 words
• images
• Recipes andy (Time's up)

Bxl hardware integration workshop

• Images
• Sketches and drawings from Rachel, Cocky and Lina

Other

• System evolution (siggraph – Gt Yarmouth)

• Xin Wei Sha: critical piece resp. environments (due end March)
• Tight rope story (maja) 1000 words?
• Guy Van Belle critical piece
• Time's up part 6-2-2003 as preparation for Maribor
• Nik’s guide to modular cooking
• Pix randomsandwich spread algorithm
• Recipes: sketches, graphs, etc…
• Project evaluation with dev. Q summaries included
• Intro, acknowledgements, listing of cooks, index

Estimate word count: 70.000

re: book

• structure;:
  • nat would like to find an overall organisation principle
  • cookbook as organising/binding thing. .
  • cookbook, either
    • structred by courses
    • by ingredients
    • by methodology (simmering/roasting/etc)
    • cultural artifacts / memory / geography
    • often begin with tools + ingredients
    • some sort of combination of 'methodology' + 'culural' cookbooks
    • sort chapters by relating cooking methods
    • literal recepies, as well as more metaphorical
• connecting chapters
  • small introduction per chapter
• ¹⁾
• layers / levels
  • critical writing (writing about)
  • stories / character tales (writing around)
  • receipes (writing how-to)
  • manifestos (writing at / about why)

• where does the design spec fit in?

• icons to link projects, subprojects etc+
  • not overly visible, but aparent (cooking hints)

• illustrations
  • plot like characters. ..
  • sketches can get more developed as receipes develop/ cook more /etc+

• stages of preperation could be evident in design/ layout,.

• req: more stuff for gamespace/p~lot