[[TheBetween/the lights in the tunnel|the lights in the tunnel]] ## books and tools, hubs and connections The activities of **the between** are designed to surface and amplify the ways craft and code are complementary, not contradictory. Our two core themes, books and tools, and our two hubs in NYC and Shikoku, reflect this orientation. Our long-term strategy is to open growth and impact, far beyond the small scale typical of craft, through partnerships and the unique thinktank and agency—--like work our members and hubs are ideally placed to do. ### books Revised narratives and sense-making are the foundations of sustained action. “Books” here encompasses media that curates and translates across disciplines what is already understood but stuck in small niches. Our potential audience is large and currently confined to accidental discoveries. To start with, we’ll host people in a variety of formats (resident faculty, visitors, gatherings, workshops) and produce print media such as a quarterly magazine and books. We’ll pair each issue/launch with pop ups and hands-on unlearning and making that bring thinkers, practitioners, and the public into conversation. There’s clear precedent for cohering emerging communities through values-centered media along with live events. <span style="text-align: right; color: #648767;">→ [[xxx]]</span> Why print? Because we believe in embodied practice, and because this is an ideal opportunity for play and experimentation. More to the point, the distinction between a book and a tool is not obvious and may dissolve altogether on closer examination, so we’ll riff and remix the book format, depending on the theme. Naturally, to build the conversations, we’ll make some of the material available online and some of our participants, contributors, and residents available for suitable podcasts. ### tools There is no craftsman without her tools. We’re most interested in tools for thinking—what do you use to write? to remember? to do these things well? By paying close attention to the right tool for the job, we often reveal what the job actually is. Reconsidering and refashioning our tools offers us a way to better understand our relationship to technology and to ourselves. After all, our tools define us, shaping us as much as we’ve shaped them. Why outsource this process to massive corporations with aims that don’t always support, and often directly contradict, who we are and what we need? As with our books, this is an exploding area but in niche spaces of makers and hackers (and a few inadequate commercial offerings). For most people, who have the need but not the skills and confidence to dive into the maker communities, these options are inaccessible. We’ll offer a range of alternatives, from ready-made modifications and add-ons to guides and workshops, to ease people into the practice of recognizing and enabling the craft in their life and work. ### hubs It’s essential that we have physical spaces to get together and work, exchange, and build on unlearnings/learnings. These hubs will house maker spaces, our tools and books, and a café, and host people in many formats, from residencies to workshops, and events to casual drop-ins. Over time, our books and tools will form a repository of essential knowledge, grounded in specific places, rich with history and their own contradictions. We see these as “islands of coherence” and safe harbors, places to re-center and regenerate, but also to invert and play with our view of the world. The café, staffed by the faculty and visitors, is our open door to the world where our customers might talk to the barista about black holes or join an impromptu jam. By erasing the distinction between resident and barista, researcher and staff, we’re also more likely to find ways to be a useful part of our local communities. The first two hubs are literally harbors: Red Hook in Brooklyn, NYC, and Mitsu in Matsuyama, Shikoku. We see the bi-location strategy as essential for our project. Code/craft contains within it a great deal of history and cultural evolution; each place has experienced a distinct process of industrialization, with its own priorities in technology adoption and social adaptation. NYC is an obvious choice since it is our current base and offers an extraordinary diversity of people. Japan is also an obvious choice, both because practices of craft are present and embedded in society, and because of its process-oriented organization of social, labor, and industrial relationships. ### connections We see a multitude of relationships and partnerships that **the between** can unlock, starting with our physical locations. Red Hook is central and quiet at the same time, and its still—working old port and the new fulfillment centers belong to the real economy. We’ll collaborate with Pioneer Works and several other workshops all located within a small radius. Mitsu is the old port of Matsuyama, the largest city in the province of Shikoku. It also has a real economy (both agricultural and industrial) and very easy access to nature and Tokyo. Both locations offer government regeneration support and a complementary circle of people and institutions. Looking ahead, the natural route for **the between** to grow and spread is by being useful in the real world. The hubs are places for people and organizations to wire into, making **the between** an ideal vehicle to match people and organizations to develop and apply the new worldview in the real world. **The between** can easily bring together flexible assemblies of exactly the right members for each organization to collaborate with, akin to the work of an agency. Undoubtedly, people wired into our hubs will launch their own initiatives too, in this case making **the between** also work as a thinktank.[^6] [[TheBetween/people|people]]