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Wikihow 'how to write a spec' https://www.wikihow.com/Write-a-Technical-Specification
A Technical Specification (TS) is a normative document, the development of which can be envisaged when various alternatives that would not gather enough as to allow agreement on a European Standard (EN), need to coexist in anticipation of future harmonization, or for providing specifications in experimental circumstances and/or evolving technologies.

Minutes of the specification committee
⚠ Warning: the committee wants to be taken seriously. static

The committee should be able to share: if our only point of reference is our own body, how do we share experience of the pam. 

B eginning:
    0:00

WHERE WE CROSSED
The desire to talk about flows of migration in relationship to maps.
The fact that media, in different form, take advantage of the staticness of maps, accentuating the depiction of flows of immigration as a problem. See for example here:
http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/03/15/how-many-asylum-seekers-refugees-are-in-the-world-interactive-map-infographic-global-migration-immigration/
At the same time, we found ourselves in having a desire to document, archive, provide space for the practices of people on the move. 
This raised issues of exposure and exoticism, especially when those flows are deemed undesirable. Why do we want to map what and why?
So, what kind of map would provide the basis upon which we could graps en embodies these movements in space without them being snapped to the stable grid of a top-down global map.

The attraction of flows:
The river preexists capitalism
but its acceleration attracts capitalism
Calais as a point of attractino, even for Turner
Turner experimented with moving perspectives early on. Legend has it that he had himself tied to the mast of a ship crossing from Dover to Calais, explicitly to watch the horizon change. In 1843 or 1844, he stuck his head out of the window of a moving train for exactly 9 minutes, the result of which was a painting called Rain, Steam, and Speed—The Great Western Railway (1844). In it, linear perspective dissolves into the background. There is no resolution, no vanishing point, and no clear view to any past or future. Again, more interesting is the perspective of the spectator himself, who seems to be dangling in the air on the outer side of the rails of a railroad bridge. There is no clear ground under his assumed position. He might be suspended in the mist, floating over an absent ground.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Slave_Ship


The idea to show the flows was because we wanted to block it.
To see the flows, as things we can jam, to stretch things...
Flaw: when there is a mistake
Flaw and flow being similar (especially for french speakers)
The idea where you can bug this thing.
Cause there is repetition in the flow.
If it is a map that has flows, it is a map where you can decide which flow to ride.

Flows and what we can do with flows shape our orientations or set the conditions upon which we can co-determine our orientations.


Flows can show what is missing to embrace our desired orientations by describing actions that can direct the flows.

Stillness or slowness is needed to observe flow. To move beyond linear time and to recognize the patterns of flow.
If you flow with the flow, the flow looks still.


This idea of orientation, with its queerness and feminism. When you separate yourself from the rest, this is somehow us, You follow the line and you curve it. You don't let the line continue straight.
You start with a straight line and put these control points, you need to converge these things. Connect flows together. 

The routes of migration and the routes of colonialism are somehow the same roads.
This is how colonialism is starting to decompose. Europe is getting what it had already started.


Capitalism and flows
The aim of capitalism is big static things: accumulation


WHAT IT IS NOT
W e are specifying a pam that does not start with the assumptions that :

WHAT IT COULD BE
W e are specifying a new pam of :

WHY
D o we need to rethink maps?
G lobal GIS-based cartography universalizes the worldmap, what is left out? For whom do we rethink maps?
M ultiple dimensions of experience: temporal qualities like velocity, flows (actions & attractions), scales that would help in inscribing and empowering individual trajectories and navigation .
W e live in a 'pam' world, but have global/digital representational structures that perpetuate a certain limited idea of the world driven by specific interests (e.g. military, logistic) .
Example: movement of migrations (e.g. through Calais to the UK), important to be recorded, but perhaps reveals people who do not want to be revealed. also,their speed makes them visible. 
also: dominant discourse is that migrants are in movement, but the perspective of movement is also strategic - movement is understood in relation to something still, that is a tactical imaginary
we are doing this because it may help us to


HOW
F ocus on cartography as a process, do we call it a map?
A map that is constantly rewritten .
As a spec, what are the dimensions of the pam?
A map that integrates the individual


how can we represent velocity? how can we represent 'attraction'? as 'attraction' or 'elevation'?
    
we are specifying a new pam of:
    flows
    co-constituted space and action
    acts / actions / activities /tactics
    velocity/multiple speeds/velocity by attraction
    approaching
    degrees of stillness
    plural in the reference point: not one vanishing point, but having multiple vanishing points, there is no horizon and no more perspective possible
    multidimensionality (multiple 'gazes' / 'perspectives')
    the 'moire effect' of multiple perspectives colliding
    multi-scale, also in perceptions of life

(Peggy's consulting)
Circularity | Orientation
Inclination | slope

Gaze:
    the association or site 
    scale would be part of it
    a feeling, an imagination
    a reaction to the phenomenon
    how you position yourself in a distributed network of actions, velocities
    
What is resolution?
Maybe we need to accept that the higher the velocity, the harder it is to identify where we are

which enables the description of new actions:
    stop flow: example: stop train that should be moving
    
Goals
we are doing this because it may help us to

the committee still needs to decide on whether there will be 
challenges:

Geography and cartography
It feels that we focused a lot on a possible geography. What has benn emphasized by Jean-Luc (IGN) is that a map is made to be read rather than seen, it's composed of signs. And it could be that building a symbology to represent those flows, actions, feelings, etc. is of first interest to help us better understand what we are building as a geography.
Notation?


instructions for escaping the pam:


...

the flow of stillness

r: how can you perceive flow when you are in it?

j: i think you can

p: yesterday, i was thinking of creating a map, look at the map, and as much as you zoom it, you see it flow by the natural rotation of the earth
you see the globe still from above, and the more you zoom, you look at the moon with binoculars, you zoom to something, you are zooming too much, in fact it is moving
to be able to have the same impression in a map to be naturally stable

p: a component of the gaze would be the feeling of its motion

s: is it a parameter

p: it would be the result of it

j: it is what it is made off, the feeling of this motion

s: with flow, counter flow

p: the feeling of motion is a property of the descriptions of the objects we can have in this system/world/spec


we are making a decision to align with capitalist ideas of 'flows', things have to keep moving to maintain value
capital flows are 1 type of flow, to be accelerated however possible.. 
http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/03/15/how-many-asylum-seekers-refugees-are-in-the-world-interactive-map-infographic-global-migration-immigration/

p: we started with a strong point about stillness
perhaps there is a power in stillness because it disrupts flows and logistics?

flows in rivers pre-exist capital, but attract capital because of their accelerative possibilities

the whole focus on flows is to be able to block them? ... or to jam, stretch, and find where it bucks ... 'flow' sounds, from a distance, resembles 'flaw'
we talk about flows, but also we can map points of entry and actions upon them, to liberate or *not* act on flows? what is missing in terms of relationships that would enable more active orientations and potential to act with these flows
example: to stop the train, to be able to ride this flow... an action might modify the flow.. 

what kind of pam would allow flows to be taken, also diverted, connected.. 

s: the colonial infrastructures created/emphasized specific flows, or Roman city - road building, that enabled Rome to be counterconquered

r: looking at how objects arrived in museums in France from Lebanon, different routes that were taken



WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO LOOK AT A PAM:

Hito Steyerl in Free Fall:
"many of the aerial views, 3D nose-dives, Google Maps, and surveillance panoramas do not actually portray a stable ground. Instead, they create a supposition that it exists in the first place. Retroactively, this virtual ground creates a perspective of overview and surveillance for a distanced, superior spectator safely floating up in the air. Just as linear perspective established an imaginary stable observer and horizon, so does the perspective from above establish an imaginary floating observer and an imaginary stable ground."

Pam does not start from a stable ground, it captures flows. But flows are relative to position: if you are on the train everything else is flowing but the train is with you. 

what does it mean to look at a pam. One of our group says:
    "It feels that we focused a lot on a possible geography. What has benn emphasized by Jean-Luc (IGN) is that a map is made to be read rather than seen, it's composed of signs"

in pam, we want to see the starting point of the world as flows, rather than land, sea, air
are flows and non-flows signs to be read?
or is it that what can be read changes to things like     

GIS representations today:
point
line
polygon
collection of points

We started building operators to construct manipulate objects in disoriented geography.

Chapter 8: PAM Reference

flow(s): flow takes as an argument s

dsubject(s): referring to disoriented subjects, takes as an argument s
s could be in/dividual

PAM Constructors:

action(s): examples are stop, curve, ride, hijack, 
tactic(s): ...
toPerspective(gaze, subject(s))
toGaze(perspective, subject(s))


PAM Accessors:

velocity(flow(s), subject(s))
orientation(flow(s), subject(s))
scale(flow(s),subject(s)){
    return [texture, emotions, physicalPerceptions]
    }
field_of_attraction(flow(s),dsubject(s))
   
PAM Editors: <- this is where actions come into play
act_on_flow(action(s), subject(s))
dream_on_flow(action(s),subject(s)) <- branching the PAM to a possible other dimension based on the dreams of subjects





the flow returns velocity, field of attraction, 
are we flowing or not when we are looking at flows?

vertical_gaze
in_relation_gaze

flow_gaze

wave_gaze

n_gaze


gaze: vertical, wave, peripheral, sailor gaze

gaze you have on a boat, the horizon is not important but the sides



Example pams

Amélie

New York Times, ice flow antarctica
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/05/18/climate/antarctica-ice-melt-climate-change.html

Flows of Refugees
http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/03/15/how-many-asylum-seekers-refugees-are-in-the-world-interactive-map-infographic-global-migration-immigration/
https://www.lucify.com/the-flow-towards-europe/
http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/03/15/how-many-asylum-seekers-refugees-are-in-the-world-interactive-map-infographic-global-migration-immigration/


Velocities collisions
http://blockbuilder.org/Fil/00d403d517671491f9082758d8a234fc
How can you show specific places in detail on a map? Traditionally this is made by choosing the appropriate scale, say, for example 1 kilometer = 1 centimeter. Local maps will use a small scale to show a city, or a neighborhood. Global maps that show the whole world will use a large scale.
This map uses a varying scale, that allows you to focus on one local feature (here a GPS trace of a walk made in Calais by artist Rajwa Thomé). But to keep in your eye the notion that this place belongs in and is connected to the whole world. It uses a cartographic projection designed by the radical cartographer and antiwar activist William Bunge. I implemented this projection in Javascript so that it could run live in a web browser.
Keywords for this map: projection, deformation, local, global, scale, un-scale

Scale / point of view
http://blockbuilder.org/Fil/a05776724be813503defaa2f23672ecd
This PAM is also based on some of the GPS traces by Rajwa Thomé. I made while listening to the group's discussion about ways to break out the map paradigm. The display tries to put in parallel the rhythm and velocities of different movements that cross paths in Calais. The movement of the artist walking around. The movement is blurred, fuzzy, amplifying the random noise that the GPS tracker always adds to the military-precision GPS signal. Some other lines show the driving speed of cars. The scale is different, so you cannot compare the place, but only the rhythms of the movements. The yellow line tracks the Eurostar train, connecting France to England and entering the channel tunnel in Calais. The waiting of migrants (picture of François Zajega's installation feedback screen). Lastly, the flows of financial information that uses microwave antennas to transmit "high frequency trading" orders between the financial places in Frankfurt and London, which, as demonstrated by ethnographer Alexandre Laumonier, also cross the channel in Calais.
Keywords for this map: networks, flows, un-center, un-scale, velocity, fuzziness, stillness.

Outer (externalized) borders of Europe
https://visionscarto.net/mourir-aux-portes-de-l-europe


ideas:
    flows/patterns/something so strong that can drag you along, taking you back to the straight line
    forward and behind
    straight and curve
    compass/GPX data with some data on orientation
    top and bottom
    we can express orientation with a (hue) color
    clouds/meteo: a way to change the orientation/dissolve/contrast
    pause/stop/rest
    blockage
    lines that have direction but surfaces that don't

H ito:
This disorientation is partly due to the loss of a stable horizon. And with the loss of horizon also comes the departure of a stable paradigm of orientation, which has situated concepts of subject and object, of time and space, throughout modernity. In falling, the lines of the horizon shatter, twirl around, and superimpose.
...
This transition was already apparent in the nineteenth century in the field of painting. One work in particular expresses the circumstances of this transformation: The Slave Ship (1840), by J. M. W. Turner. The scene in the painting represents a real incident: when the captain of a slave ship discovered that his insurance only covered slaves lost at sea, and not those dying or ill on board, he ordered all dying and sick slaves to be thrown overboard. Turner’s painting captures the moment where the slaves are beginning to go under.
In this painting, the horizon line, if distinguishable at all, is tilted, curved, and troubled. The observer has lost his stable position. There are no parallels that could converge at a single vanishing point. The sun, which is at the center of the composition, is multiplied in reflections. The observer is upset, displaced, beside himself at the sight of the slaves, who are not only sinking but have also had their bodies reduced to fragments—their limbs devoured by sharks, mere shapes below the water surface. At the sight of the effects of colonialism and slavery, linear perspective—the central viewpoint, the position of mastery, control, and subjecthood—is abandoned and starts tumbling and tilting, taking with it the idea of space and time as systematic constructions. The idea of a calculable and predictable future shows a murderous side through an insurance that prevents economic loss by inspiring cold-blooded murder. Space dissolves into mayhem on the unstable and treacherous surface of an unpredictable sea.
Turner experimented with moving perspectives early on. Legend has it that he had himself tied to the mast of a ship crossing from Dover to Calais, explicitly to watch the horizon change. In 1843 or 1844, he stuck his head out of the window of a moving train for exactly 9 minutes, the result of which was a painting called Rain, Steam, and Speed—The Great Western Railway (1844). In it, linear perspective dissolves into the background. There is no resolution, no vanishing point, and no clear view to any past or future. Again, more interesting is the perspective of the spectator himself, who seems to be dangling in the air on the outer side of the rails of a railroad bridge. There is no clear ground under his assumed position. He might be suspended in the mist, floating over an absent ground.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Slave_Ship

what is it mean to see from above and how do you flip?
there is no risk of visualizing that
there are examples

a way to turn is to do the specification
in the 


face/surface/sill
mathematics needs to know am i inside or outside of it
you are blindfolded, you land on the right of a fence
of a huge ranch in the US
and you don't know if you are in or outside
there are canyons
the only way to identify is to put a flag on one side and make a tour
and see if the flag is on the same side
always direction is indicated
cause we need to put islands on it
to make a whole
reverse fill
you reverse the direction

there is direction is not sara ahmed direction
but maybe yes

google maps: the map is from above
but if you go to google street view you can look at the sky fro the ground
to look at the clouds

can elevation be our direction
the orientation
what if we can go up
there is something about elevation being the direction

we were talking about the compass
wanting to fuck around with it

instead of the arrow going vertically, instead of horizontally

how do we change the orientation
orientation is placing yourself in relationship to other things

flatland:
    when you are born you are a point
    as a child you are a line
    if you are girl, you become a triangle
    if you are a boy, you are a square
    if you are a priest, you are pentagon