This proposal was written in the beginning of march. We would like to offer up a continued proposal for the development of this framework.
In December 2010, in an editable document, the open school collectively stated:

“Glasgow Open School is not a group; it is an accumulated set of conditions. It consists in lists of strategies for improvised research practice. Wary / hopeful for the past, wary / hopeful for and orientated towards the future. It is a dissemination / amalgamation of ideas that amount to an active narrative of context, critical positions, struggle and ways of being together. Through performance and other techniques, ideas are presented and developed… This research is a practice without end.” (From Google Doc: GOS Editing Project: A complicated being together 18 December 2010)

Glasgow Open School acts as an amorphous process, ready to fall in and out of the lives of the people who engage with it as a shared learning and a complicated process of togetherness. In this instance, four people are making this proposal on behalf of the Glasgow Open School. In doing so we are co-opting the open school, an attempt to seize control in the hope that in the future such action will no longer be possible.

OUR PROPOSAL

Up to this point we have been using the WordPress platform for our online interactions, however we have come to realise that it’s inherent conditions/constraints are now partly determining/inhibiting open school’s interactions. Therefore, we would like to develop in collaboration with someone, a website platform that more directly enacts the processes of Open School.

Our website should emerge out of our praxis:

Our educational processes lead to a pedagogy. We want to construct the website as a material manifestation of this pedagogy. A visible system of conditions on which to act.

Like a musical score it will provide a framework through which to improvise together.

Like a musical score it will provide an artwork through which to improvise together.

As our current blog becomes a futile vessel, out of sync with our practice, we try to understand why it is that we need an internet skeleton to mirror our physical bodies. Our new website will not only act as framework for our praxis but it will become the actual physical object that we name ‘open school.’

Our new website will not only act as artwork for our praxis but it will become the actual physical object that we name ‘open school.’

Note: This proposal is, in effect, an invitation for ongoing engagement with Open School.

Note: Specific content has been highlighted as little possible within this proposal to minimize heirarchies of practice and because our proposal concerns the specific framework of the project, not the content of the project which is potentially limitless.

SPECIFICS/PRACTICALITIES/POSSIBILITIES

Some specifics have been considered, all of which are to be developed, altered, or rejected through this collective process:

GOS has no set membership: like open-source, it is to be used by all. Therefore, there will be no members and no sign-ins for the website. All content will be editable by all. The authorship/ownership of the project is a risk we are interested in.

The website will be a skeleton for content. The only thing unchangeable will be the framework. The only thing unchangeable will be the artwork.

Five parts of the website (editable content, PLEASE SEE WEBSITE FOR EXAMPLES):

*Definition of GOS

* Current/FutureProposals

Proposed situations occuring in a particular time/place.

(eg. classes, performances, events, etc.)

* Archive

Semi-static objects whose status as archive can be contested at any point.

(eg. images, documentation of enacted proposals).

* Workspaces

Embedded ‘live’ spaces in which we can work collectively

(eg. transcending googledocs)

* Email/RSS Updates

People can sign up for website-generated weekly emails or updates for specific proposals

SUPPORTING/EXAMPLE DOCUMENTS

1. EXISTING WORDPRESS

www.glasgowopenschool.com

please see for examples of framework, content, and user interaction

2. DIAGRAMS HIGHLIGHTING PRACTICE

From the GoogleDoc “post-Instal WPS rejectable timetable” Distributed November 2010 at Instal Music Festival,

enacted November 2010

3. EXAMPLE PROPOSAL FORM

make an offering from this moment to the next

Learning and improvising together : there are no experts, there are no teachers

Exploring modes of investigation within and outside of polite verbal communication

Questioning existing structures

Sharing across differences, disciplines, digressions

What would you like to share? What would you be interested in exploring collectively? Which structures would you like to challenge?

What would you like to celebrate? What questions are not present?

Propose a class, a subject of investigation, a method of movement -

Used at the Glasgow Open School Opening Out Event November 2010

4. EXAMPLE WEEKLY EMAIL

October 2010