summary: In 2021, Ania Molenda and Andrea Prins contacted us about a project they are doing called Beyond The Essay, where they are researching forms of online reading and writing with a specific focus on the essay in the field of architecture critique. In Varia's practice of collective infrastructure making, we often consider the sociality that is inherent within tool making and tool using. Open ended systems and extensible structures allow us to weave processes with each other and with others by adapting, extending, and transforming them. Within the Beyond the Essay meetings, we proposed three methods to engage with text in collective situations that respond to existing computational artefacts, namely tags (`__MAGICWORDS__`), indexing formats (`x-dexing`) and word2vec (`word2complex`).
## Context
<small>In 2021, Ania Molenda and Andrea Prins contacted us about a project they are doing called Beyond The Essay, where they are researching forms of online reading and writing with a specific focus on the essay in the field of architecture critique. After they conducted a range of interviews with publishers in the field, such as Valiz, Archis, Archinet, Torque, BPR Barcelona, Institute of Network Cultures and Framer Framed, we started a conversation on publishing tools and methods. Within our meetings we narrowed the scope down to the research question: how can publishing tools and methods be a support system for critical reflection and engagement?</small>
In 2021, Ania Molenda and Andrea Prins contacted us about a project they are doing called Beyond The Essay, where they are researching forms of online reading and writing with a specific focus on the essay in the field of architecture critique. After they conducted a range of interviews with publishers in the field, such as Valiz, Archis, Archinet, Torque, BPR Barcelona, Institute of Network Cultures and Framer Framed, we started a conversation on publishing tools and methods. Within our meetings we narrowed the scope down to the research question: how can publishing tools and methods be a support system for critical reflection and engagement?
## Introduction
In Varia's practice of collective infrastructure making, we often consider the sociality that is inherent within tool making and tool using. Open ended systems and extensible structures allow us to weave processes with each other and with others by adapting, extending, and transforming them. Within the Beyond the Essay meetings, we proposed three methods to engage with text in collective situations that respond to existing computational artefacts, namely tags (`__MAGICWORDS__`), indexing formats (`x-dexing`) and word2vec (`word2complex`). All of which end up structuring the circulation and writing and reading experience of readers, writers and publishers alike. How do we process essays differently from these perspectives? How can other forms of computing make space for a reconsideration of textual engagements?
## Methods
__`__MAGICWORDS__`__
`__MAGICWORDS__` is an open ended system for collective annotation of a text, using small instructions that can be activated during a collective reading experience. In the field of software, and specifically in the MediaWiki software, magic words appear as words with special programmatic functions, connecting a specific cue to a programmatic action, such as adding the current time on a page. Within the context of Varia's research, the `__MAGICWORDS__` are used to manually perform programmatic gestures with the text.
