In the early 2010s, author, artist and designer Eric Schrijver edited the blog I like tight pants and mathematics. The title is a juxtaposition: there is no inherent opposition between tight pants and mathematics. However, it evokes two distinct semantic fields, one of which is associated with the figure of the nerd.
This March, we relaunch the blog
@le29.paris , with a focus on a new experiment: 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?
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 through regressive design. Technological competence is rarified, linked to whiteness and masculinity: the nerd is a gatekeeper.
The blog has six authors: glit the glamorous, bnf the technical, habitus the critical, tellyou the didactical, baseline the graphical, jenseits the mystical. 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
@roxannemaillet . Interested in lesbian semiotics and language strategies of resistance, her work takes the form of collective readings, publications, and typographic experiments. Her style is particularly bold and colourful and resists existing notions of good taste.
At le29, researcher
@julieblancfr , whose PhD deals with graphic designers using web technologies for print, will interview the authors, allowing those present a first peek at the project. Roxanne makes cheeky cocktails. A custom red button is wired to launch the site to the public.
I like Tight Pants and Mathematics was redeveloped with support from the Art Research Fund (FRArt) (
@art_research_asbl ), in collaboration with art school
@esa_le75_ 
