Data Ecologies, Day 1

Andreas, Marta, and Simone working out the structure of the first section ‘What is Notation?’.

Times Up (Linz, Austria) are beginning day one of the Data Ecologies Book Sprint today. A group of artists, game developers, and theorists are designing the Table of Contents for a book about the role of notation systems.

The group comprises of 6 contributors from a wide variety of backgrounds. The group had a wide range of rich experience related to the intended topic (notation systems). We first introduced ourselves and then discussed the Book Sprint process and expectations.

The group then discussed what the book was to be about and wrote as many post-it notes as possible about issues that should be addressed, points that should be made, approaches, and questions that needed to be asked by the book. These were stuck to windows and then ordered. From this it became obvious there was a structure but it was too large. So we identified the two main sections and worked out who would like to be involved in which section. This divided neatly into 2 groups of three.

Each team then broke away and detailed the structure of the chapters for their section and made as many notes as possible for each chapter. The notes were then synthesised and put into order. Each team member chose a chapter they would like to get started on, read the notes, and then had 10-15 minutes each to ask clarifying questions to the rest of the group.

It is looking to be a very theoretical book with connections to practice based examples of notation from the recent Data Ecologies symposium. We will see how the symposium works its way into the book as we proceed.