Cobbled Paths at OSP

For this first Plotter Station workshop, OSP invites you on a griddy and tortuous adventure of making collective pen-plotted poster using their DIY tool named Cobbled Paths.

Cobbled Paths is a web interface that brings multiple tools together to allow experimental and direct collaboration on pen-plotted drawings through the making of Ascii art on etherpads.

The first step is in Ascii art fashion, to draw shapes and lines using Ascii characters such as ( ) / \ | ' - . _ = + on etherpads. An SVG vector interpretation of the shapes and lines is rendered in a side view, that can later be translated to HPGL to draw them with a pen plotter using normal pens.

It makes a way from the blocky discontinuity of Ascii drawings, to the smoothness of bezier curves, to an anologic pen-plotter interpretation.

Like cobbled paths, none of these technologies are new, and we've been walking on them for years. Like cobbled paths, it is a reminder of the permeability between the discrete and the continuous; how regular stones can form tortuous paths.

Practical

The workshop is hosted at Meyboom, 34 Pachecolaan in OSP's studio.

In the morning we will introduce our Ascii 2 Vector 2 Plotter pipeline. By making a first collaborative poster we'll explore the materiality of Ascii art, its grid and translation to SVG. This is a playground: copy and paste found Ascii art, start drawing letters, explore patterns and diagrams and remix each others drawings.

In the afternoon we will split into smaller groups, depending the shared interest of the participants, we'll pick a theme for all posters. Each group will work on their own poster, this time participants will be invited to:

• use FIGlet fonts to collaboratively compose a typographic poster on a two dimensional grid
• switch pens colors or pen brushes by dividing the poster in different layers
• experiment with smaller and bigger shapes as a way to control the relative thickness of the pen

Reservation

We look for a diversity of practice, background, level of amateurism, gender and age. No knowledge (other than a desire to draw with Ascii characters) is required to participate. As one of the ideas behind the plotter-station is to make available our machines and create knowledge sharing opportunities everybody is more than welcome.

In order to participate please send us an email with a short sentence for each of the following:

• a bit on yourself (if you are students or not, where are you coming from, ...)
• your intersest in this workshop
• how it could relate to your (other) practices (doesn't have to be graphic design!)

Deadline is the 30th of May. The selection will be published on the 31st.

Note that the selection process is there to ensure equal opportunity in the case the workshop is overbooked.

Documentation

First experiments. There was a desire and temptative to decompose an image with an JPG2ASCII tool using different characters to create colored halftone with different pens.

Participants group pictures!

Card for the birth of Lena, from a improvised collaboration, using the lyrics of the song