xp

Forever shitting and crying about the loss of the XP office. I don't think that the people who haven't experienced it know what kind of mind-boggling experience it was for those 1,5 years and how much it capsulated the core vibe of XP.

The momentum, the construction, and every bit of love that went into it made it truly a unique experience for everyone who was there from the start.

As a little bit of backstory: Very early on during the conceptualisation of the association, we got in contact with the office manager of WARP Technopolis, a breeding ground for underground artists that housed many studios and spaces including Spacebar. They were super stoked about our association.

So stoked, in fact, that when we were visiting the building, they basically told us:

"Here's some empty space. Build a wall, and the room you create will be yours."

So, we got to work.

Over the next few months, we slowly built up a space where we handcrafted the vision of what XP should be. Long meetings were had in scuffed makeshift rooms about the foundation of the association, its structure, and planning out its first events.

It was wild to see the association we were creating truly manifest in real-time. Every addition to the space was a sign of XP growing and it was beautiful.

Photography: Jeff Jefferson

So much love for the community was expressed in these spaces. Everything we worked on here was all done with passion and love for our peers, and for the future students, we'd provide for.

We used it professionally, we used it recreationally, we let other students host their private events, we let people rest during busy nights, we let people party during boring nights, we let people live and exist in this room that became the central spirit of XP.

And when the big nights came—large events where people stayed until late—we laughed and cried, experienced new things, and met new people. We wouldn't shut up about it for weeks afterwards.

Things went by so fast. Every day was an adventure to be had. It felt like laughter and joy was amplified in the office. People felt at ease, they felt seen. It was their space.

Photography: Marlene Mahn

The last XP game night at the office was hard to swallow. It was one of the busiest we've ever had. New freshmen, alumni, and friends of friends came to experience everything we had built there one last time. The office was at its peak in terms of looks and equipment, and we couldn't have hoped for a better end of an era.

That question took you off guard.

A groggy mind slowly turning its gears again muffles the question. Sleep deprived, no thoughts. Head empty.

You hadn’t even thought about the concept of explaining to your coworkers what could’ve possibly taken up a seemingly random weekend. Much less about how you’d be utterly useless for the day. And even less about why you would even bother to show up.

Forty-eight hours of chaotic planning, development, ideas, failures, hijinks, etc. Starting with an evening of high-energy grindsets strong enough to convince the most mythical of engineers to leave their castles and bless us with the riches of their fast prototyping. Their high-end mechanical keyboards controlling the push and pull of our hopes and dreams with a simple pull review.

Of course, we would treat them with a fine glass of designer tears farmed from the realisation that they might actually have to touch a Unity UI, served together with a fine plate of lovely looking high poly dishes (which would’ve been perfect were it not for the artist that forgot about the exporting guidelines).

As a side dish, we’ll air-fry the abandoned concepts on the floor where the theme was announced. Its withered flowers tasting of sour regret mixed with sweet daydreams, freshly plucked from the train ride to here. Goes well with a glass of anticipation (locally sourced, definitely sweat).

Of course, to top it off, we would have some of the sauciest sauce. Richly flavoured with the media literacy of a well-read shut-in and stocked with the fruits of the labour of a well-disciplined hard worker. And spiced with the zesty sparks of a debatably well-rested loose cannon of a nerd.

None of it will be finished. Perhaps not even halfway. But an over-scoped project is a dinner meant to be shared. And who’s better to share it with than the people crazy enough to cook it with you?

When the sleep deprivation hits and the lingering smell of gamers slowly wears off, you might think about other weekends. Ones where you’d have stayed home, binge-watching your blorbos. Ones where the word code wouldn’t even dare show up on your phone.

I hope that, when you consider the seemingly meaningless suffering you’ve gone through, you remember the just-as-stinky peer sitting next to you, using 4 hours of Eurobeat to crunch through nights of bug hunting, ngon culling, and entry-level scripting. So, when people ask, you look at your well-filled stomach of experience and answer them truthfully, with all your heart: