A personal even already collective contribution to an attempt at PPPresentation. Multi-directional and whacky, just like we are. Resolute and enthusiastic, arrhythmic and naive, just like I am.

Foundational model

We take a resolutely political approach to the use of digital technologies. We recognize the toxicity of most of their ecosystems. We understand the mechanics of oppression that underlie them and that they perpetuate. We are aware of the extractivist and colonialist processes on which they thrive, and we oppose them.

We share some common values rooted in anti-capitalism, trans✳feminism, ecological issues, anti-fascism, and the hope that we can help address these issues together, PrePostPrint humbly taking part in an array of underground, alternative and divergent movements that we hope revitalizing.

As designers, publishers and artists daily involved in digital tools, we are aware that these technologies maintain a perspective of growth and profit for the sole benefit of the most fortunate and the best born. We refuse to see this as inevitable and have the strong desire to put our knowledge and findings at the service of something better.

Post digital printed matter

We’re no more neo-Luddites than we are technophiles, recognizing the singular beauties of matter and light alike. We’re at the heart of the processes by which print and digital meet and interpenetrate. From fanzines to samizdats, autonomous websites to collective wikis, we like to explore ways of sharing ideas and feelings.

Printed objects can be forgotten on a bench, pinned to a wall, hung in the street. We can share them without electricity, caress their pages, scribble in the margins, cross out words, highlight sentences, watch them age without disappearing. Digital signals move and reconfigure, fluid and dynamic, abolishing distances and crossing borders. They open up spaces for interaction, exchange and collaboration. They allow for motion, ephemerality and mutation. We can make paper planes fly.

We believe that digital tools, whether networks or devices, are still capable of empowering people and strengthening the interest of their exchanges, despite their too frequent misuse, exactly like print did and still do. We like to publish, print and put online ideas and images that spark imaginaries, shed light in the dark and generate joy.

Opensource and beyond

We are deeply rooted in the free software movement and want to build on its foundations. We’ve embraced open-source tools and practices because of their ability to be studied, hijacked, reappropriated and shared, and beyond that, because of their their emancipatory power, their ability to challenge oppressive powers and deleterious infrastructures.

However, we believe that free software as defined by current licences is not enough. We pay attention to the legal and conceptual explorations involved in opening perspectives that go beyond the free/non-free binarity and seek to be part of a positively emancipatory struggle. We are aware that this is a place of dialectic and divergence within the libre world as it is, but we consider that the stakes are too high to be ignored or to be given answers that are forty years old. Perhaps we need to look for even older answers, as well as invent new ones.

We are developing technicalities and practices that are part of the history of user-friendly tools, des outils conviviaux : “at the service of all the members of a community, and not at the service of a group of specialists”, that “engender neither slave nor master”. Ivan Illich with Femke Snelting, Aaron Swartz and Olia Lialina.

Experimental approaches

We’re looking for both new and old ways of doing things. We enjoy developing and using tools that are inefficient, bizarre or incongruous. We believe in serendipity and failure, in amusement and pleasure. While we enjoy digital tools that automate processes, we seek to put them at the service of invention, imagination and the happy surprise.

We love weird typefaces and beautiful paragraphs, hurting colors and smooth papers. Am stram gram, roff troff groff. We wire up LaTeX, Python and PHP. We edit PDF uncompiled source code and draw SVG by hand. We love CSS, HTML – and JavaScript just slightly less.

We play with tools and languages, hack around, tinker and explore. We love printers and plotters, E ink and thermal prints. Serendipity as dynamite opens up new paths away from the information superhighway.

Sharing is caring

As teachers, students, researchers, perpetual learners, we know the power of sharing knowledge, tools and experiences. We firmly believe that exchanging point of views, experiences and questions improve individual and collective thoughts and production. We like to see our tools and ideas used, hacked and hijacked. We believe that reciprocity in sharing is positive regardless of the technical skills, the specificity of the culture or the seniority in the field. We came here thanks to our predecessors, so we’re happy to welcome newcomers.

We form a community of practices, eager to play together and experiment with new horizons. Happy to discover projects, tools or publications, we navigate the intricacies of these weird times, together or connected, in search of crossroads and encounters, in order to compose shared worlds.

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Why here and not on a shared pad? Because it seems already too much, too writen. Sorry for that. But please remix and copy-paste, hack and destroy. Why in English? Because I lack confidence in a mixed-language approach, that was my first attempt, but didn’t make it.