Open Source Arts Contributors Conference 2024
Opening
Organized by the Clinic for Open Source Arts (COSA), the second Open Source Arts Contributor’s Conference (OSACC) was held April 11–13 2024, bringing together 60 open source software contributors to the University of Denver. Open Source Software Tools for the Arts (OSSTA) projects such as p5.js, Processing, Hydra, Fragment, three.js, ml5.js, InteractML, and coilCAM came together to have robust discussions on open-source culture and provide inter-project support.
With over 140 applicants to this year’s conference, the selection processes centered on gathering new contributors into the space and diversifying represented software tools. With attendees ranging from student to educator and open-source newcomers to veterans, an exchange of knowledge and inspiration filled the floor. As most OSSTA contributions occur remotely, the in-person convening was a humanizing and celebratory moment. Small interactions like sharing meals, car-pooling and sticker exchanging has allowed attendees to build closer connections.
“Someone who I really look up to bought me a latte and gave me some very helpful and sincere tips and pointers. It was very humanizing to meet these people whose work I’ve pored over in GitHub and to be able to eat with them, and ask them questions about technology that have been on my mind. It was advice along with a context that could only exist because of OSACC” — Samir Ghosh
This year’s conference structure was modified based on the previous year’s feedback. To better onboard attendee’s, the conference kicked off with “First Steps” workshops and over the course of three-days, the schedule had a mix of Guided Discussions, Working Groups and Skill-sharing sessions. A crowd favorite was the 5-minute lightning talks, where attendees had an opportunity to share a presentation on anything of their choice, some presented on their creative practice while others shared their aspirations. Spontaneous activities also took place such as an arts and crafts table and collaborative live-coding.
FIRST STEPS
Following the opening lunch and introduction slides, 4 sessions of the “First Steps” workshops were launched on the first day of the conference. The sessions were community-led, with facilitator and volunteer guides who are knowledgeable about the topic. The four sessions were on GitHub, Governance, Documentation and Community. The topics were designed to equip attendees with the foundational skills and knowledge needed to make the OSSTA contributions for the next two days.
The GitHub First Steps session, led by Kate Hollenbach and Maryam Habibi walked through participants on the anatomy of Github and tasked participants to make a pull request on a shared repository. This workshop allowed many to make their first ever pull request and had them well-prepared for more GitHub contributions in the days following.
Led by Chris Coleman and Pixel Oliver, the Education First Steps session served as a common space for contributors to co-create a list of education resources, tutorials and syllabi while sharing their experiences in the education field including teachers, tutorial builders and curriculum developers. Contributors discussed the value of transparency– showing students that it is okay to make mistakes, and methods like incremental learning which bring greater accessibility to the learning environment.
As documentation is one of the pillars of open-source culture, Nick McIntyre and Greg Stanton led the Documentation First Steps session to onboard contributors to the culture of documentation writing and useful tools. This session helped build a common understanding of the importance of documentation and ensuring documentation is “accessible to people with varying levels of expertise or disabilities.”
Raphaël de Courville took lead in the Community First Step session to onboard contributors to the community-centered ethos of the open-source community. The sharing of experiences helped the group ideate on three foundational elements of community building: creating welcoming environments, assisting first contributions and building engagement.
WORKING GROUPS
The working group sessions were designed to provide opportunities for various OSSTA projects to open the floor for contributions to their projects. Contributions came in the form of discussions, road-map making, coding, and documentation writing.
p5.js led multiple working group sessions including: technical support for p5.js Web Editor, roadmap building for their 2.0 release, discussions on direction of p5.js Translation and curation of p5.js education resources. With the software’s 2.0 release and renewed p5.js website coming up, the sessions allowed long-time contributors and other project creators to exchange dialog on the direction of p5.js as well as to discuss the intricacies of centralized versus decentralized translation efforts.
Processing utilized the working group sessions to discuss and celebrate “new beginnings.” The session opened with a sticky note exercise where participants shared their relationship and hopes for Processing. Discussions topics included Processing’s upcoming directions with governance and leadership as well as a Code of Conduct writing session led by Roopa Vasudevan. Vasudevan reflects on this experience, “I am really grateful for the opportunity to become more deeply involved with Processing and its development. The tool holds a very special place in my heart and it was an honor to work with the team on issues of community building and inclusion.”
Olivia Jack and Florencia Alonso hosted a documentation writing working group for browser-based live coding video synth, Hydra. Contributors were onboarded to Hydra’s intentional documentation style and they supported by writing examples and proofreading. In this session one participant recalls, “One touching moment was working with a high-school aged contributor in learning how to contribute to Hydra. It definitely re-lit my passion for open source development and I feel like that enthusiasm from him was so contagious, I brought it back with me when I left” — Ghosh.
Raphaël Améaume presented their project Fragment, “an open-source web development environment for creative coding.” Améaume shared their goals of making their project more compatible with other software tools and building a community of users. Experienced software contributors shared their technical and organizational experience to support Améaume in bringing their direction to life.
A “Material Manufacturing’’ working group formed for contributors involved in the textile and computational crafts space. Representatives from Craftwork Collective, ATLAS Institute at CU Boulder and PhD researchers who shared their work in digital fabrication, bio materials and 3D printing. Participants who were “textile curious” also gathered and contributed to coilCAM a “visual scripting plug-in… for generation of parametric forms and surface textures for 3D-printing ceramics.”
Working group hours also allowed spontaneous discussions for contributors with shared interest. Topics include: community organizing, speculative web, and zine building. Others gathered to explore tools for XR drawing, Unreal machine learning plugins and p5.js teaching widgets. Through this designated working time, many projects were able to go home from the conference with a new set of technical contributions and input towards a new direction.
SKILL SHARING
The Skill Sharing Workshops provided sessions to shift the conference energy from contribution to exploration. The workshop opened the floor for creativity to flow and get participants’ hands moving in the creative coding, open source fabrication, and educational initiative realm. Breaking out to different parts of the room, attendees hosted demos or tutorials for tools including: Lightning Artist Toolkit (Latk), Sketchingpy, Fragment, Hydra, and p5.js WebGL. This session served as mutual benefit as participants were able to explore new software while creators had an opportunity to collect user feedback.
One highlight from this year’s skill sharing session was the collaborative live coding room hosted by Florencia Alonso from Hydra and Viola He from LiveCode.NYC. The leads walked through a tutorial on the use of Hydra– code-able video synth, and auditory live-coding tools such as Strudel and Mercury. Projecting the visuals onto the classroom walls, the group collaboratively coded through flok, a “Web-based P2P collaborative editor for live coding music and graphics.” This session was a crowd favorite and more contributors were drawn to the lively room environment.
Skill sharing sessions also spontaneously took place during lunch where Jordanne Chen led a tutorial on how to craft a light-up horse drawing utilizing a mini LED light, copper tape and a coin battery. Contributors drew “Blucifer” or the “Blue Mustang” statue as seen at the Denver Airport, and a red lamp was installed as the eyes to resemble the sculpture. The table filled with laughter and some contributors submitted their horse drawing to Dave Pargurek’s “Can you draw a horse without a reference?” repo.
Light-up horse crafts served as a souvenir for many contributors commemorating this year’s conference.
GUIDED DISCUSSIONS
“Discussion groups helped me talk about an important topics that are often pushed to the back burner in day-to-day life; As an educator myself, it was also really nice to have other folks often take the lead in discussion facilitation” — Victoria Manganiello
Across the three days, three in-depth guided discussions took place embracing the following topics: Governance, Access and Future-Thinking. These discussions took an un-conference format where leads facilitated an introduction, collective question brainstorming and breakout group discussions. Below describes the variety of questions that were tackled in each session:
GOVERNANCE
Raphaël de Courville — Processing Community Lead and co-host of Creative Code Berlin, opened up the guided discussion with a reading from “An Introduction to Governance” by Shauna Gordon-McKeon to onboard participants with the definition of governance as “collective decision making.”
What methods does your project use to ensure all community members, especially quieter voices, can participate in decision making?
From making decisions on pull-requests to larger team decisions on project direction, open-source communities are constantly faced with decision making moments. In the Inclusive Decision-Making breakout group, participants looked into existing forms of decision making models in the open-source community. The team found that Wikimedia’s participatory workflow and Blender’s interest based public meetings were effective ways in ensuring inclusivity. Both examples allowed the community to provide input virtually and in-person as a way to accommodate a variety of communication styles. Additionally, the group identified the importance of diversity and representation in these communities to ensure OSSTA decisions are made to benefit a variety of demographics.
As participants shared their experience navigating misunderstanding and miscommunication in the Dealing with Conflict group, participants highlighted the importance of a written code of conduct. The group noted that having a shared code of conduct paired with a grievance policy as well as an enforcement policy is most effective to ensure community safety and help communities prepare for conflict. Ultimately, the group came to understand that “having conflict doesn’t mean that the collaboration is broken.”
How do you discuss labor & economy with your community?
As many OSSTA projects are grant funded and contributions are made on a volunteer basis, the community’s relationship to funding is integral for project sustainability. Through discussion, participants shared the frequent question of “how to equitably balance paid and unpaid labor or contribution.” A member from Live Code NYC shared their practices in a leaderless collective style and methods of sharing event profits. Additionally, the Radical and Alternative Models of Governance group explored methodologies for healthy leadership styles such as rotating leadership models and the importance of a written code of conduct that outlines the community’s approach with labor and economic distribution. Ultimately, across the various discussion groups, it was found that care and people are the center of many of these projects.
“We decided to make Hydra microgrants ‘no strings attached’ because we wanted to invest in people, not in specific work outputs.” — Olivia Jack
ACCESS
Opened by media artists Nat Decker and Jules Kris, the access guided discussion centered on the intersection of access in event organizing, education, data sovereignty and software.
How can we prioritize disability-led design principles in open-source software development to enhance accessibility?
While ideating ways to further center access in software development, the Web Accessibility group shared helpful resources that could be utilized such as JAWS — paid screen reader, and Sim Daltonism — colorblind simulator. p5.js shared their experience of hiring “accessibility consultants” for user-testing and feedback for recent projects. For those involved in the XR (mixed realities) space, the group expressed the challenges in balancing accessibility and interactivity. They explored existing resources such as New Art City’s methodologies of providing alt text for 3D models and questioned possible ways to structure accessibility standards for non-WCAG-3.
The Creative Open Source Software group addressed the importance of bridging disability justice and care principles into open source software development. In the data visualization space, a participant shared their strategies of producing “non-visual data science” to ensure blind users can also interact with data visualization software. The group found that “intentionality” is key during software development and to “not just accept what comes naturally.”
How can we foster collaboration and community building in open-source software development while ensuring inclusivity and accessibility for all contributors?
As disability justice are tenants of anti-capitalism, participants highlighted the importance of centering disability justice in community building. In the Data Sovereignty & Community Access discussion, the group expressed concern for energy consumption and barriers to tech access as a result of the control of big tech. As capitalism driven companies often do not prioritize marginalized communities, the group shared their enthusiasm for supporting smaller softwares or tools as a form of resistance. The group listed industry alternatives such as Mastodon, Fediverse, and Etherpad, which embrace a more open-source and decentralized practice. The group also shared the importance of community operated mesh networks — like CowMesh, NYC Mesh and Philly Community Mesh — as a step for community autonomy over local communications, increased tech literacy and expanded internet access to neighbors.
As long-term investment in the community, the group found that participation and active efforts in socio-emotional diversity is key when developing new tools. In addition, “empowering people to create their own technology” is a crucial form of resistance as the agency is taken away from big tech and placed in the hands of underrepresented communities. The seedling of empowering people often starts in the education spaces. As discussed in the Access & Education group, educators strategized methods of “meet[ing] students where they are at” with their coding strengths. By increasing access in education, we can further encourage more people to be involved in the tech space and empower them to create the tech they want to see.
FUTURE THINKING
Introduced as “Katie Squared,” Katie Liu and Katie Luo led the future-thinking session by facilitating discussion on AI use and long-term plans for the coexistence of “future technologies.”
What are methods for AI Degrowth?
Understanding AI’s negative environmental impacts, labor ethics and data usage, participants shared enthusiasm to discuss methods for AI de-growth. The group recognized that modern capitalism bases growth on number and speed. Meanwhile, growth within OSSTA tools comes from intimacy within a smaller community and having space for mistakes, which can be a cursor for growth. The group ideated on ways to stop AI accelerationism and shared their love for the “cozy web” or smaller organic communities. The collective shared their hopes for more spaces that center on degrowth values.
How can we embrace future technologies in our creative and community practice?
As many participants have individual creative practices, the AI & Art group gathered to explore ways to better engage with AI as a creative tool. Firstly, the group determined the importance of understanding the mechanics and languages around ML and AI. Looking at existing big tech AI models, the group came to question the need of a large dataset and the possibility of “humanizing” the AI processes by intentionally designing biased small datasets. This is with the idea that “to human is to bias.” The team referred to existing tools such as historymakers.org and called for the use of one’s own “clean” dataset to train models. These methodologies aim to empower individuals to create their own tools instead of automatically turning to what is mass produced by the industry.
The Future Tech group started discussion based on identifying helpful uses of AI and spaces where AI can help bring access. Looking at educational examples such as Khan Academy or Google’s ShiffBot, the team found that AI and education is complex as AI can possibly support at-home learning, but can also eliminate human elements in the learning sphere, further aggravating teen loneliness. When considering ways to determine if new tech would benefit a community, the group centered on the importance of considering the emotional and environmental costs associated with new tech introduction. The decision to integrate new technology closely relates to the communities ability for inclusive decision making.
THANK YOU FOR CONTRIBUTING
Throughout this year’s Open Source Arts Contributors Conference, we witnessed the rich tapestry of contributions that highlights the spirit of the open-source community. The event affirmed the power of in-person interactions and how it can amplify collaboration and community building. We hope the inspirations shared in the space will propel our community forward, foster new opportunities and advance our community in access and creativity.
A special thanks to the organizing committee: Chris Coleman, Laleh Mehran, Raphaël de Courville, Tsige Tafesse, Karen Abe, and Aarón Montoya Moraga. Additional thanks to Kate Hollenbach for the multi-level support. Thanks also to Leo Sailas, Alisha Harris, and Robb Corker for logistical support. Last, thank you to the Emergent Digital Practices Program and faculty for the support and use of facilities for the conference.
Written by Karen Abe
OSACC 2023 report
p5.js report // Spreadsheet
Sponsors:
This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts. To find out more about how National Endowment for the Arts grants impact individuals and communities, visit www.arts.gov
