“A promiscuous publication is NOT like parallel, hybrid, or cross-media publishing. It is a multi-headed and polycentric form of making public. It enjoys its various forms, and embraces their idiosyncracies. As a multi-headed publication it is NOT obsessed with providing uniform outcomes across diverse media. Having many centers, it can produce new focal points and obfuscate its origins. It explores playfully a spectral diversity with sibling out-comes and bastard children that operate out of sync or tune.” (Christoph Haag, make make do in: The Techno-Galactic Guide to Software Observation, 2016)
This weft documents some of Constant’s multi-headed experiments that move between web, print and other media. All publications were developed with Free Software and released under Open Content licenses. See also: Books With An Attitude.
Multiple approaches for publishing on the web as well as printed objects; inspiring and inspired by OSP’s research on html2print.
Mediawiki-to-print
Year: 2021
Tools: MediaWiki, HTML, CSS, paged.js, Firefox, Gimp, Ghostscript, MuPDF, PDFtk
Design/development: OSP (Sarah Magnan & Gijs de Heij)
On-line: https://diversions.constantvzw.org/
Download/order: https://www.books.constantvzw.org/home/diversions + https://www.books.constantvzw.org/home/diversions-v2
Launch: https://constantvzw.org/site/DiVersions-v2-workshop-guided-tour-publication.html
Etherpad-to-print
Year: 2020
Tools: Reportlab, Etherpad, Libre Writer
Design/development: Manetta Berends, Jara Rocha
On-line: https://iterations.space
Download/order: https://www.books.constantvzw.org/home/iterations
Launch: https://constantvzw.org/site/Iterations-publication.html
Mediawiki-to-print
Year: 2016
Tools: Semantic Mediawiki, etherpad, Weasyprint, html5lib, mwclient, phantomjs, gnu make
Design/development: Alexia de Visscher, André Castro
Download/order: https://www.books.constantvzw.org/home/mondotheque
On-line: https://www.mondotheque.be
Launch: https://constantvzw.org/site/Mondotheque-a-radiated-booklaunch.html + https://constantvzw.org/site/Paul-Otlet-An-Omissum.html
Ethertoff-to-print
Year: 2014
Tools: HTML, (less)CSS, Javascript + Ethertoff
Design/development: OSP (Stéphanie Vilayphiou, Eric Schrijver)
On-line: http://areyoubeingserved.constantvzw.org
Download/order: https://www.books.constantvzw.org/home/are_you_being_served
Booksprint: https://constantvzw.org/site/Booksprint-Are-you-being-served.html
Etherpad-to-print
Year: 2016
Tools: Various bashscripts, etherpad, etherdump
Design/development: Cristoph Haag
Download/order: https://www.books.constantvzw.org/home/tgso
Launch: https://constantvzw.org/site/The-Techno-Galactic-Guide-to-Software-Observation-A-streaming-book-launch.html
Etherpad-to-print
Year: 2015
Tools: basename, bash, bibtex, cat, Chromium, cp, curl, dpkg, egrep, Etherpad, exit, ftp, gedit, GIMP, ghostscript, Git, GNU coreutils, grep, ImageMagick, Inkscape, Kate, man, makeindex, meld, ne, pandoc, pdflatex, pdftk, Processing, python, read, rev, Scribus, sed, vim, wget. Chapter opener: Built with petter by Benjamin Stephan.
Design/development: Cristoph Haag
On-line: https://freeze.sh/_/2015/conversations
Launch: https://constantvzw.org/site/Conversations.html
Download/order: https://www.books.constantvzw.org/home/conversations
Various experiments with digital publishing.
Many media publication
Year: 2021
Design/development: Manufactura Independente
Launch: https://constantvzw.org/site/Bureaucracktic-Bedtime-Stories,3474.html
Online platform
https://alchorisma.constantvzw.org
Year: 2021
Design/development: OSP (Dorian and Gijs)
Launch: https://constantvzw.org/site/Publication-launch.html
On-line exhibition
https://di.versions.space
Year: 2020
Design/development: Cristina Cochior, Mia Melvaer
Launch: https://constantvzw.org/site/DiVersions-v2-workshop-guided-tour-publication.html
Para-nodal periodic publication collectively written in a network
https://networksofonesown.constantvzw.org
Year: 2018
Design/development: Michael Murtaugh, Roel Roscam Abbing
Launch: https://constantvzw.org/site/Networks-of-Ones-Own-episode-1-Etherbox.html
Etherpad-to-html
https://constantvzw.org/wefts/sponge.en.html
Year: 2018 and ongoing
Tools: make and many others
Design/development: Michael Murtaugh, Martino Morandi
make-to-*
https://gitlab.constantvzw.org/promiscuouspipelines/pppp
Year: 2016
Tools: make and many others
Design/development: Michael Murtaugh, Cristoph Haag
An overview of archived versions of past Constant projects. Each project is available in downloadable, self-contained “portable HTML” form. Archiving dynamic websites as ‘static html’ is a way to reduce server-resources, and increases the longevity of webprojects that are no longer actively updated.
Installation at Passaporta during BRXLBRAVO with texts of Paul Van Ostaijen and Suzanne Lilar.
Year: 2007
Archive: https://constantvzw.org/archives/brxlbravo
Description: https://constantvzw.org/site/Transcommunautaire-Karaoke-Transcommunautaire,415.html
An audio database composed of particular words hear in the neighbourhood Bosnie in Saint-Gilles, Brussels.
Year: 2013-2016
Archive: https://www.parlezvous1060.be + https://spreektu1060.be
Description: https://constantvzw.org/site/-Parlez-vous-Saint-Gillois,187-.html
Words collected by different groups around the Place Verboekhoven, aka La Cage aux Ours.
Year: 2010-2013
Archive: https://lalangueschaerbeekoise.be + https://deschaarbeeksetaal.be
Description: https://constantvzw.org/site/-Langue-Schaerbeekoise-Schaarbeekse-Taal-.html