Tools

Creativity through assembly: combining tools to enable what wouldn’t exist. Each does one thing well; together they make it possible.

Creativity Through Assembly

I don’t believe in waiting for the perfect tool or the complete skill set before making something. I believe in using whatever works to get the idea out of your head and into the world.

This project exists because I combined tools I already knew with tools I’m learning, frameworks I understand with frameworks I’m figuring out, established platforms with experimental approaches. Poetry written in code editors. Cultural theory formatted as technical documentation. Observations logged like bug reports.

The creative process isn’t about mastering one tool perfectly - it’s about knowing enough tools to solve the specific problem in front of you right now. Can’t write traditional poetry? Format it as Python. Don’t know how to structure observations? Borrow from software documentation. Need a publishing platform? Find one that handles technical formatting.

Each tool does one thing well. Together, they enable something that wouldn’t exist otherwise.

Here’s what I used to build OS:B:

Platform

Mintlify is a documentation platform designed primarily for developer-facing technical documentation. It converts Markdown and MDX files into modern, searchable documentation websites with minimal configuration.

Developers typically use Mintlify for API documentation, SDK guides, and technical reference materials because it offers built-in features like code syntax highlighting, OpenAPI integration, contextual navigation, and version control through Git.

The platform emphasises speed and developer experience - changes pushed to a repository automatically deploy, and the documentation inherits a consistent, professional design system without requiring front-end development work. Mintlify’s architecture is optimised for technical content: it handles code snippets elegantly, supports multiple programming languages, integrates with developer tools (like Claude, Cursor, VS Code), and provides search functionality that understands technical terminology.

For OS:B:

Using Mintlify subverts its intended purpose - applying technical documentation infrastructure to poetry and cultural observation - which reinforces the project’s core metaphor of treating lived experience as a system that can be logged, debugged, and documented using developer tools.

Code

Python is a high-level, readable programming language widely used for data analysis, automation, scientific computing, and system scripting. It’s characterised by clean syntax that emphasises readability through indentation and clear structure - code is meant to be understood by humans, not just machines.

Developers choose Python for its accessibility (often described as “executable pseudocode”), extensive documentation capabilities through docstrings, and its use in observational/analytical contexts like data science and machine learning.

**For OS:B: **

Python serves as the ideal structural framework for several reasons: its class-based architecture naturally models “observation objects” with metadata attributes (location, timestamp, coordinates), its def observe(): methods create clear containers for poetic content, and its emphasis on human readability means the code doesn’t obscure the poetry - it contextualizes it.

Python’s association with data logging, scientific observation, and system analysis makes it conceptually appropriate for treating cultural experience as data to be documented and processed.

The choice subverts Python’s typical use (processing information) by using it to present information - the poems aren’t being analyzed by the code, they’re being structured by it.

This mirrors the project’s core approach: applying systematic, technical frameworks to subjective, emotional experience, making the unfamiliar (poetry) approachable through familiar tools (code).

UI / UX Design

Figma is a cloud-based vector design and prototyping platform primarily used for UI/UX design, product design, and design systems. It operates entirely in the browser, enabling real-time collaboration, version history, and component-based design workflows.

Designers choose Figma for its systematic approach to visual design: reusable components, design tokens, auto-layout systems, and the ability to create coherent design languages that scale across multiple deliverables.

For OS:B:

Figma is conceptually aligned with the project’s technical framework - it treats design as a system rather than isolated artifacts. The arrow patterns, dash gradients, and typographic treatments are built as reusable components that can be instantiated across both digital (Mintlify) and physical (print publication) outputs.

Figma’s version control mirrors Git workflows, allowing iterative design development that parallels code versioning. Its collaborative nature supports the “build in public” methodology, and its component libraries ensure visual consistency across the documentation site, mockups, and final publication designs.

Using Figma reinforces OS:B’s approach: design isn’t decoration - it’s infrastructure. The visual identity operates like code: modular, systematic, and designed to scale as the collection grows.

Audio Recordings

Field recordings are unprocessed audio captures of environmental sounds, ambient noise, and acoustic phenomena in specific locations. They’re employed in sound art, documentary work, acoustic ecology, and experimental music composition as a method of preserving sonic environments and creating location-based audio archives.

Field recordists capture raw audio data - street noise, conversations, weather, mechanical sounds, natural ambience - treating sound as documentary evidence of a place and time. The practice emphasises authenticity over production: recordings are minimally edited, preserving the unfiltered sonic reality of an environment.

For OS:B:

Field recordings function as audio observation logs - the sonic equivalent of the written poems. Just as the poems document visual and emotional data points (rain on New Pendeli, the maintenance worker’s voice, tram incidents), field recordings capture Belgrade’s ambient soundscape: tram rattles, Cyrillic announcements, market noise, construction, river sounds, footsteps on concrete.

They operate as Background Processes in audio form - the city’s continuous sonic operations running independently of direct observation. Using field recordings reinforces the project’s systematic approach: Belgrade isn’t just seen and felt, it’s heard and archived. The recordings provide unmediated environmental data that complements the mediated observations of the poems, creating a multi-sensory documentation system.

They’re raw input before processing - the audio equivalent of raw notes before drafting.

Hardware

Hardware Used represents a deliberate ecosystem of portable, systematic creative tools designed for field documentation and on-location production. The equipment choices prioritise mobility, workflow efficiency, and creative constraint - reflecting OS:B’s methodology of real-time observation and systematic documentation.

Teenage Engineering suite (TP-7, TX-6, CM-15, OP-1 Field) forms the core audio infrastructure. The TP-7 is a portable field recorder with built-in editing capabilities, designed for capturing and organizing environmental audio - ideal for logging Belgrade’s sonic landscape on the move. Paired with the Zoom binaural microphone, which captures spatial audio mimicking human hearing through dual-microphone positioning, recordings preserve the immersive three-dimensional soundscape of Belgrade’s streets - tram approaches, crowd movement, architectural acoustics - exactly as experienced in the field. The TX-6 portable mixer enables real-time audio routing and processing in the field, while the CM-15 contact/field microphone captures tactile sounds (tram vibrations, concrete textures, rainfall). The OP-1 Field synthesiser/sampler workstation allows immediate audio manipulation and composition - turning field recordings into musical material without returning to a studio.

Teenage Engineering’s design philosophy emphasizes creative constraint through simplified interfaces and portable form factors, aligning with OS:B’s “work with what you have” approach.

Elektron Digitone 2 is an FM synthesiser with deep sequencing capabilities, used for generating synthetic soundscapes that parallel Belgrade’s mechanical/industrial ambience.

Dirtywave M8 is a tracker-based portable groovebox - a systematic, grid-based composition tool that mirrors the code structure of the poems.

Polyend Synth adds analog/digital hybrid synthesis for more subtle, melodic textural layers.

Together, this hardware enables field composition - creating sonic documentation in situ rather than post-production, maintaining immediacy.

Sony A6400 with 14mm lens provides visual documentation. The 14mm wide-angle captures environmental context - architecture, streets, urban sprawl - emphasising space and perspective over isolated subjects. The A6400’s compact APS-C form factor maintains portability while delivering professional image quality. This setup prioritises observational photography: documenting scenes as encountered rather than staged compositions, matching the poems’ observational methodology.

For OS:B:

The entire hardware ecosystem operates as a portable documentation system - every tool is field-capable, battery-powered, and designed for systematic creative workflow. This mirrors the project’s structure: observations aren’t processed later in controlled environments; they’re captured, edited, and structured in real-time as Belgrade is experienced.