1. Find out why you have been asked to have an open atelier. I was asked to have an open atelier during four days at Digitales 2004 to work with the archives from previous Digitales.
2. Find out what tools you have to work with. I was given the resource centre to work in at Interface 3 ( Middaglijnstraat 26, 1210 Brussels) which I shared with Anja Westerfrölke, and Virginie Jortay who also was having an open atelier. This room was equipped with four PC’s with internet connections, a large round table and chairs, a white board and markers, a monitor and VCR, and a mini DV camera for playing mini DV’s.
3. Find an idea that you want to work with. I was interested in the possibility of archiving in a MOO. MOO stands for multi-user domain object oriented. A MOO is an online space that multiple users can access simultaneously. MOO’s usually work from an architectural metaphor, so that users can meet in ‘rooms’ to communicate with each other. However, unlike a chat that is temporary, MOO users can create things and leave them in the MOO. MOO’s have their beginnings in online gaming. To find out more about MOO’s, please see http://lingua.utdallas.edu/encore/guide.html
4. Find someone with whom you would like to collaborate. I became interested in MOO’s because of the work that Anja Westerfrölke is doing in one, which she spoke about at VJ7.
5. Decide how you collectively want to work with the idea. Anja and I sent each other emails before Digitales to figure out exactly what we wanted to do there. We decided that we would work together to develop a mini-project about archiving and would use the moo as a test place.
6. Work in the open atelier during four days. We worked together to develop and idea, which became what we called digA_p. We tested this idea using the archive material from the previous Digitales. We were open to participation by anyone who wanted to join in and left the archive material on the round table for people to browse.
6. To finish, make a short presentation of the work that you did. We met with Constant and gave them a short presentation about digA_p.