Cobbled Paths

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

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

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

It is devided in two parts.

In the morning we will introduce our Ascii 2 SVG 2 Plotter pipeline, and make a first collaborative poster on an etherpad. this first poster is a playground, to copy paste Ascii art, remix each others drawings, and to explore patterns.

In the afternoon we will split in 4 smaller groups, to allow a collaboration on the level of more intimate discussions, and do another poster per group. this time participants will be invited to

• use FIGlet fonts to create typographic composition in the poster,
• switch pen colors by dividing the poster in different layers through inkscape,
• experiment with plotting smaller and bigger shapes as a way to control the relative thickness of the pen.

Participate

We look for diversity of practices, ages, background & gender in the participants of the workshop. Therefor we ask you to send in one short sentence for each

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

Deadline for appliction is the 30th of May. The selection will be published on the 31st, note that selection process is only there to give more opportunity to certain people in order to form a diverse group rather than an homogenous one if the workshop if full and we have to refuse people. Otherwise everybody is welcome.