We had the first meeting of a potential online chapter of Processing Community Day. This report is my impressions and does not represent Processing Foundation or Processing Community Day Tokyo.
This was an important meeting for me since I am the one proposed to organize an online version of Processing Community Day to the members of Processing Foundation and people from Processing communities from different parts of the world. Due to coronavirus, some of the physical Processing Community Days are cancelled, and it is a time for us to plan an online version.
Since there is Eulerroom, a 4-day non-stop live-streaming event about live-coding, I thought this is also an interesting format for us. The idea is that people from different communities can reserve a slot (30 minutes in case of Eulerroom) and give a talk, a performance or anything that they propose. This format reduces the problem of time zones as the live stream goes on for many hours, and the organizers do not have to curate all the presentations. However, this format requires knowledge to live stream screen to the streaming server, and it would be a barrier for those who want to present but cannot set up livestreaming. I was aware of this problem but underestimated it - to be honest, I was rushing too much to reach a conclusion to run an event and forgetting about inclusion, which I noticed when Dorothy from Processing Foundation pointed out the problem. This is a shame because when I organize Processing Community Day Tokyo, I am very careful about wording and I try to reach wider audience.
The conclusion of the meeting was to bring this back to other community members and talk about potential formats; for example, not only lectures and open offices, but we can also organize a slot for a few community members to talk about their ideas and to stream the content, or live-stream a process of fabrication such as weaving. I am writing this article to reach a wider audience (and soon translating in Japanese, to discuss with Japanese community members).
Since the first meeting, I have been watching a few live-stream performances and conferences, and also I joined an online coding jam of Creative Code Berlin, which lasted for almost 7 hours. For the jam, we used jitsi platform, and most of the time we were working on our projects and we were quiet. When someone wanted to make a subgroup to discuss a certain programming language, they opened another channel and those who are interested joined that channel. We were still experimenting - and I personally think what is needed for Processing community is also to experiment with different formats, potentially holding events regularly, while keeping the door open to people with different backgrounds and skills.
So, if you are interested in brainstorming and organizing Processing Community Day, you are more than welcome! Please send me a message by email or on Twitter.