User:Kiara/Research/project proposal

Research Contents
General page
— Notes ——— Prototypes ——— Try Out Nights
— Project Proposal ——— Drafts ——— Final
— Thesis Outline ——— Drafts ——— Final
— (more or less) Rapid Prototypes ——— WebSpell Prototypes ——— Workshops

What do you want to make?

Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) models and fascism - ideologies that often (if not constantly) go hand in hand - are overly present in the (online) landscape nowadays.
I would thus like to create a toolkit for resistance, that merges web practices, magic and connection to the body. I am not yet entirely sure how to involve the physical body into it, but I get some inspiration from Luna Maurer's work and from the way the act of coding relates to body gestures.
The toolkit is meant for everyone who feels connected to the topic. It should reach both experienced practitioners and amateurs seeking how to enter the web without using big-tech platforms; and should invite for it to be shared, widespread.

Mastodon post by Miriam Suzanne mentioning CSS rituals

I understand magic as intuition, connection to our own feelings and emotions and intention. It has an impact on us and we can also influence it (e.g through intention).
The investigation I am leading on how web languages connect to rituals and spell writing helps me define a relationship between magic and the web.

Form-wise, I instinctively imagine a website, a zine, stickers,... to showcase tools, ideas, tips and examples on how to use the web as a magical means of resistance, and how we can (re)connect our bodies to web crafting.
After attending the Internet Crash Course, where Luna Maurer mentioned Designing Friction, I am wondering:

• Can I shift my own practice of CSS-print towards making something that would encourage togetherness?
• How to encourage people to create, collaborate and interact with themselves, each other, the code, the computer?

Questions that also relate to magic: magic circles and collective rituals. I would also like to allow for intuition, interpretation, subjectivity, searching and finding, wandering,... I have to corner the materiality and shape of the project a bit better.

How do you plan to make it?

So far I have been reading and web-browsing, gathering material. I also started some conversations with people leading committed web practices:
☼ Doriane Timmermans, artist and researcher, started the declarations research project about the poetic materiality of CSS and "its visual-political-cultural echoes on design-artistic practices and our daily lives";
☼ Raphaël Bastide, multidisciplinary artist, works at making the web a more open and accessible place. His work involves web crafting, writing, music and performance;
☼ Miriam Suzanne, web developer and member of the W3C CSS working group, writes articles and code to promote the values of indie web and human collaboration, while making standards for building websites;
☼ Roos Groothuizen, digital artist part of the Telemagic collective, recently started hosting neocities code-a-thons at .zip in Rotterdam and initiated a Rotterdam-based webring from it.

What is your time table?

September-November

Gathering hunches, observing, framing the subject

Collecting and investigating

First workshop

December

01 December: Try Out #1 - still in investigation phase

Sort out the references from my cross-ref index (in obsidian) to order sources and quotes

Start writing the thesis

January-Feb 13th

Polish the writing

Conduct more conversations (eg: Kendal Beynon) to focus on practices and frame the project

Second workshop

March-April

Finish writing and wrap it up

17 April: Final thesis deadline

Produce a working project prototype

16 March: Try Out #2 - test the prototype

April-June

Enter production for final project based on feedback from Try Out #2 and follow up discussions

Work on Grad Show scenography

22-23 June - Final Assessment

July - Grad Show

Why do you want to make it?

Control/Oppression -> Resistance/Collaboration/Counter-culture (magic) -> Appropriation -> Mainstream/Capitalisation -> Repeat

The current stage of ultra-capitalism we witness is promoting and making all the space necessary for the rise of fascism and "fake positivity"; by feeding us on extracted and appropriated content, seamlessness and smoothness.
Paraphrasing historian and cultural theorist Johan Huizinga, one of the first signs of rising fascism is the switch from playfulness to seriousness. In answer to that, I'll refer to melonking, a web crafter advocating for silliness in creation.
> Objective n.1: for the sake of the messy, the chaotic, the playful we bear in ourselves as humans.

Secondly, GenAI is called "the new magic", is dressed up as if and deceiving people into this idea with no effort. I strongly disagree with that, one reason being the paradox and the problems it bears: western history hints that magic is largely tied to oppression, tagged as harmful, negative, unacceptable or foolish (stage magicians, illusionists, etc.); some even might call it a counter-culture. I'd like to dig into that: if magic is to be punished for, how come using GenAI is not? Ultra-capitalists glamorised GenAI through appropriation of a magic jargon for their own interests, that have actually nothing to do with magic. It is therefore important to act: magic relies on observation but demands action.
> Objective n.2: taking a strong step into the resistance, reclaiming.

Who can help you and how?

☼ Lídia Pereira & Manetta Berends: guidance through research and prototyping
☼ Miriam Suzanne: CSS wizard, had a chat with her regarding her relationship and views towards (CSS)web and magic
☼ Raphaël Bastide: his practice of code is quite atypical and creative, it seems very sketchy yet assertive. His projects often end up quite magical and very avant-garde in a way.
☼ Noémie A., my best friend, for the existential crisis times when I question the whole project
☼ Roos Groothuizen with the neocities code-a-thon and her input in conversations
☼ Kendal Beynon, doing a PhD on internet history and particularly DIY communities and digital folklore
☼ Charlie Muniken with the massive amount of references they share with me

Relation to previous practice

☼ Interest for the unseen and the various manifestations and forms magic can take
☼ Website crafting and CSS-print practice, specifically:

☼ an idea I have to create: an Alice in Wonderland themed website - showcasing mazy/non-linear navigation, peculiar interactions and/or apparitions, etc.;

☼ Babel, a website based on Borges' short-story, enacting the intertwining and layering of the library into a "Terms of Use" mock-up (french only);

☼ Rêves Party, a playful hybrid publication. A collection of texts taken from French literature inviting to dream and wander; the texts are chosen for their relation to time, dreaming, travelling, wandering, escaping. The narration is non-linear: the texts are not sorted by their publication date but by a logical way in which they respond to one another. It lives both as a web interface and a printed booklet;

☼ Tumblr page building when I was a teenager
☼ Participation to the Indie Web Guide built by Wing Pang in 2024
☼ Lost in Narration, a collective participatory installation built for Special Issue 25: Sounds of Making
☼ The Supervisual Hyperzine, an extensive image-only zine gathering visual experiments made with CSS during Special Issue 26: Display & Position

Relation to a larger context

As all those practices - resisting systemic oppression, aforementioned web practices, magic - are highly political as for instance they relate to everything that is at the heart of systemic oppression nowadays: sexuality, gender, ethnics, ethics, left-wing movements, etc.
In addition, for years, since the beginning of what is called "web3.0", many web crafters have been stating their belief that the web was dying and needed to be saved (e.g. Pain, T. (2025) The Modern Web Sucks). More and more, we can read articles and essays about "indie web", "small web", "rebuilding the web" and other related topics. They more or less all prone a return to personal websites and a drift away from corporate-owned media. In this panel of actions, we also find projects tagged as "cyber witchraft" or such.
In 2025, after the COVID pandemic and the rising of extremes as country-leaders, these practices are getting more and more numerous. I feel strongly connected to those beliefs and practices, this is my contribution to that virtuous circle.

References

☼ Bastide, R. (2025) being a script
☼ Berners-Lee, T. (2025) This is for everyone, London Macmillan
☼ Breeze, M. (2001) Datableed
☼ Cardon, D. (2019) Culture Numérique, Paris Presses de Sciences-Po (Les petites humanités)
☼ Dukes, R. (2000) SSOTBME Revised: An Essay on Magic, Great-Britain El-Cheapo Books
☼ Gryllaki, A. (2020) Syster Papyri Magicae, Rotterdam Piet Zwart Institute
☼ Haute, L. O. (2016) Cyberwitches manifesto
☼ Maudet, N.; Beignon, A. and Thibault, T. (2025) Imposing AI: Deceptive design patterns against sustainability
☼ Maurer, L. (2024) Luna not Luna
☼ Sutcliffe, J. (2021) MAGIC, London Whitechapel Gallery
☼ Timmermans, D. (since 2023) declarations
☼ Tisselli, E. (2005) De-generative
☼ van Gemert, V. (2025) The web you want
☼ White, M. (2024) Fighting for our web (talk)

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