GitPub

In this workshop, we will explore how we write and are written by software through the example of collaborative version control software as a publishing protocol.
Together we will try out GitPub, a tool that renders a git repository into a printed or web-based publication, including repository metadata. The workshop will consist of two parts: starting with a collaborative writing exercise in a shared git repository, we will later transform the written text and writing process into a publication.
GitPub builds upon the git software, whose means of collaboration and version control produce a vast amount of metadata to the code or text that is written inside a repository.
While today, metadata is usually processed by and for experts or machines, GitPub renders metadata, including commit messages, user names, branches, and the amount of changes, into text readable by anyone. Shifting legibility for computers to humans makes coordination between collaborators readable and by doing so, opens this process to discussion and change.
Throughout both parts of the workshop, I would like to discuss the hidden layers of coordination and task division within asynchronous writing processes and the (social) protocols they involve. Using GitPub renders hidden layers readable and allows us to question together: readable to whom, with what intention, and at what cost?

Participants should bring:
- Laptop with git software

- Basic knowledge of git is required