EXCHANGE OF SKILLS:
SHOW WHAT YOU CAN DO!
author: Olivera Batajić
July 2005

translation into English: Vesna Jevtić
April 2006

On Saturday, June 11th, 2005, in the Culture Centre Rex Belgrade, from 12 to 16 hrs, a programme was held under the title of: Exchange of Skills: Show What You Can Do! Actually, it is a weekly programme that takes place in Zagreb net.culture club mama, and it was exactly that community from Zagreb which presented the concept to us, with the idea to keep up with similar gatherings here. The key point of the entire concept is a generous exchange of a widest range of knowledge, from that concerned with software, via hardware, to the method of fixing a bicycle wheel or unfastening a lock.

The evening before, that is to say, on Friday, on the same premises, Marcell Mars, the creative leader of the exchange troupe, gave a very interesting lecture, through the presentation of the entire idea of the Exchange of Skills. What particularly drew my attention during the lecture, was the very presentation visually supporting Marcells narrative. I used my flyer informing me of the tomorrows event (in which, besides the necessary info, there was a step-by-step drawing of how to make a paper airplane the item making an integral part of our childhood, which as one of our first skills we used to share generously with the others), and copied Marcells peoples. Peoples in all sorts of actions were made of types. The ASCII art! Above the heads of the peoples there was a text that told the story. The text although, frankly speaking, almost illegible also drew my attention, as each of the characters was again made of types. Since I naturally did not manage to take down everything I found interesting there, while also trying to follow the equally interesting lecture, I decided to e-mail the author of the visual attraction and ask him kindly for some material. Thats how I found out many more interesting things and got more interesting drawings that Ill share with you now.

The illustration 2 shows the peoples.

Those peoples, says Marcell, I made myself in ASCII. I havent had any model whatsoever, but I get it is possible to find some of them somewhere else, as ASCII isnt that unlimited as a source of creation.

To my question about the interesting characters, he replies: The character font is actually a program named Figlet (www.figlet.org), that can use any monospace font for display, while the combination of types is managed by the rules of the so-called Figlet fonts. Almost all Figlet fonts were created between 1993 and 1995. Id very much like to see a revival of a kind. There is a handy web tool at www.network-science.de/ascii/ where you can see what kind of Figlet fonts there are and play with your texts in them.

Yet, to my remark of their illegibility and, their appeal aside, of their ugliness of a sort, Marcell replies: Things like Figlet cannot be ugly ;). For most, Geek culture is the peak of bad taste, however, the same as with all aesthetic notions, the final opinion is biased by a wide range of complex factors that constitute the overall context. Figlet is the ultimate beauty ;)

And then besides the peoples, the story also involved the cybermythical animals. And here is their picture (3, 4, 5).

So the exchange of skills has continued even beyond the limits of the Culture Centre Rex and Belgrade. Many thanks to Marcell for inspiration and very useful advice, suggestions and links.

And now, get started and create a new ASCII world and the Figlet revival, because the exchange takes place every day!. Share your worlds with us, and well put them on our site. Send your suggestions to tema@tipometar.org

More on the Exchange of Skills on www.razmjenavjestina.org

The work of Marcell Mars has been published under the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike license under the same conditions. To see the copy of the license, visit creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/ or send a letter to
Creative Commons
559 Nathan Abbott Way
StanfordCalifornia 94305, USA

Theme: EMOTICONS
Japanesse emoticons
Emoticons