![Multi-coloured abstraction resembling topographic map with cirecles suggesting localized activities - design by Josie Spalla][1] **This is a preservation repository for the audio visual files, images, texts and recordings produced as part of a Speaker Series hosted by the [AGYU][2] in coordination with [Artexte][3] and [Spoken Web][4] February through May, 2021** **All content on this site is licenced under Creative Commons-Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC) we encourage community and cultural organizations, and individuals, to download the files, reuse, and share the content as they wish, as long as all parties are properly attributed. You may not use the content for commercial purposes, in this case you must negotate copyright fees with the authors.** The trajectory of arts magazine publishing in Toronto from the 1970s onward has always been a space criss-crossed by lines of desire. This speaker series takes [an algorithmically produced network diagram of publishing metadata][5] as a jumping off point for story-telling around personal memories. Can the metadata describing the people and organizations producing magazine issues work as a narrative prompt to uncover hidden connections? What stories can we tell by reading the nodes (the dots representing either people or single magazine issues) as nouns, and edges (the links between these nodes; the desire lines proper) as verbs? The Desire Lines series of talks was premised on the belief that what is important is not singular figures, but the network produced through a cumulative collectivity. It is the magazines as physical traces of this network that allows us to see that the scene was (and continues to emerge as) a network, not simply through the creative production of individuals. Over the course of the sessions, the series placed emphasis upon the practice of publishing as a networked structure, a nexus of social relations and artist organizing that continues into today. This reframing comes with an awareness of the algorythmic power dynamics at play in networks at the same time that we hold out a speculative promise to build the tools to access our histories of collectivities, conflicts, and connections in a different way. The Desire Lines vizualization source code has been published on [GitHub][6] by Tomasz Neugebauer. The [README][7] #ArtexteXMLtoDynamicGML explains, e-Artexte metadata was converted into a dynamic co-contributor graph using PigLatin/Python scripting before producing the visualization in Gephi. @[osf](sp5dc) [1]: https://files.osf.io/v1/resources/5jqc6/providers/osfstorage/613f62f33d2d6a04fe9fde8c?mode=render [2]: https://agyu.art/project/desire-lines/ [3]: https://artexte.ca/en/ [4]: https://spokenweb.ca/ [5]: http://photomedia.ca/visualizations/artexte/sigma/agyu/ [6]: https://github.com/photomedia/DesireLinesMetadataVisualization [7]: https://github.com/photomedia/ArtexteXMLtoDynamicGML