Since years, we have been following the inspiring activity of FLOSS Manuals, a project headed by artist Adam Hyde, dedicated to the production of free manuals for free software, through the disruptive methodology of book sprints (intensive five-day writing sessions).
Finally, Greyscale Press editor-in-chief Manuel Schmalstieg had the chance to take part in one of those sprints: between May 14-18 (in the frame of Geneva’s Mapping Festival), he teamed up with six other writers to produce a book dedicated to VJing/Audio-Visual Performance with open source tools.
The resulting book – in French: “Performance audiovisuelle et pratique du VJing” – covers software such as Veejay, pd/gem, gemQ, LiVES, P4live, but talks also extensively about control interfaces, networked interaction, generative mashups, and much more exciting stuff. The team of writers includes Benjamin Cadon, Laurent Carlier, Olivier Heinry, Manuel Schmalstieg, Yacine Sebti, Carole Thibaud, Emilie Villemagne. The action was coordinated by Elisa de Castro Guerra (founder of the french FLOSS Manuals chapter), and funded by the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie.
The finished book (in French) can be seen (and downloaded, printed, edited, forked…) here.
Below are some images from the sprint:
