In the early 2010’s, author, artist and designer Eric Schrijver edited the weblog I like tight pants and mathematics. It probed the cultural clashes between the subcultures of software development and those of art and design. The title is a juxtaposition: there is no inherent opposition between tight pants and mathematics. The opposition is evoked through being part of two semantic fields, one of which, mathematics, being linked to the cultural figure of the nerd that continues to shape thinking around technological competency.
This March we relaunch the blog at le29, with a focus on a new experiment that asks: is an alternative aesthetic for consumer electronics feasible? Could we conceive of technological objects that aren’t afraid to take up space, to wear colour, to be hacked—that are not smooth, clean, and straight? And could such an aesthetic help accept the more bulky, modular, wired objects that would tax our environment less?
The design of everyday electronics is never neutral. Devices such as smartphones, laptops, and headphones are deliberately shaped around minimalist aesthetics that hide vast infrastructures of extraction and exploitation. The cultural codes of technology also reinforce social hierarchies with regressive design. The nerd, who is linked to masculinity and whiteness, functions not as an underdog, but rather as complicit in hegemonic (straight) masculinity. The cultural figure acts as a gatekeeper around technology, convincing the larger public they are not apt to repair or manipulate their devices themselves, and letting the industry get away with producing irreparable locked down devices.
The blog is structured around six authors: glit the glamorous, bnf the technical, habitus the critical, tellyou the didactical, baseline the graphical, jenseits the mystical. They write the articles and respond to each other in the comment sections. This form allows for multi-voiced narration faithful to the medium of the web. The comments are open to the public, who regularly slip into the conversations between characters—and vice versa.
The design is by Roxanne Maillet. Interested in lesbian semiotics and language strategies of resistance developed from the margins, her work takes the form of collective readings, publications, and typographic experiments across multiple media. Her style is particularly bold and colourful and resists existing notions of good taste.
At le29, researcher Julie Blanc, whose Phd deals with graphic designers using web technologies for print, will interview the authors about their collaboration, allowing those present a first peak at the project. Roxanne makes cheeky cocktails. A custom red button is wired up to launch the site to the public.
I like tight Pants and Mathematics was redeveloped with support of the FNRS/FRArt, as an artistic research, facilitated by art/recherche and in collaboration with the Higher school of art le75 (Brussels).
