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Results that help to start writing. So I still (on 17-01-26) don't have a main question, but I do have direction, that's the thing I always had. <br> | Results that help to start writing. So I still (on 17-01-26) don't have a main question, but I do have direction, that's the thing I always had. <br> | ||
Realising that both writing and prototyping were blocked by methods seems ironic. But I need to let things flow. So that is what I am doing, and through this start of writing, that will go on and on, the question will arise from the shadow, for I will have been writing the answer to it. I am confident. <br> | Realising that both writing and prototyping were blocked by methods seems ironic. But I need to let things flow. So that is what I am doing, and through this start of writing, that will go on and on, the question will arise from the shadow, for I will have been writing the answer to it. I am confident. <br> | ||
[[File:Brainstorming-january-2026.png|frameless|center| | [[File:Brainstorming-january-2026.png|frameless|center|851x851px]] | ||
Looking into my personal practice, I come up with recurring themes: dreaming; playfulness; experimentation; language(s). <br> | |||
They also have been present from the beginning of my research. Obviously. <br> | |||
They are my direction and made me realise how important the political aspect is, as it is underlying, hiding in plain sight, connecting those themes together. <span style="opacity: 0.6; font-size: 13px;">(to dev ++)</span> <br> | |||
Later on this page are the thesis outline and project proposal I wrote in light of the assessment resubmission. They are not final, in fact they are still very flawed and, as for the project proposal, mostly unfit. I will however leave them here, as their method is unfit for me. Some updated document might surface, later on. <br> | |||
===== '''State of <s>HTML</s> my progress''' ===== | |||
<span style="opacity: 0.6; font-size: 13px; font-style: italic;">Last edited: 23-01-2026, 15:04</span><br> | |||
As of today (17-01-2026), I have (finally) started laying down some writing. I will paste it below and try to add time stamps as I go (ah...versioning would work as charm here... hey [[User:Kim|Kim]] ;) <br> | |||
The plan is ultimately to obtain an article (better word than thesis imho) | |||
<div style="margin: 50px; font-family: monospace; font-size: 16px; width: 60%;"> | |||
Words have meaning, and paying attention to these meanings is in my opinion key to a good communication. With oneself as much as with others. <br> | |||
In that sense, I can expand towards language. Language and words have always fascinated me. Most of my work deals with that, from my first bachelor’s graduation project in 2021 to this day. So very naturally, when I got introduced to web programming languages – HTML and CSS – I fell in love. I view them not as mathematical/logical programming but as actual languages with their own grammar and syntax. Parallel to this passion for languages, I also enjoy games of all kind, so they also made their place in my practice: I mess around, break rules and conventions, intentionally play with the viewer/reader/…’s capacity to get lost or confused, and so on. <br> | |||
Language and games are both playing big parts in politics and in magic. Language is one of the pillars of politics: how do you address people, diction and tone, choice of words and topics… and convincing, gaining voters. Games share the spotlight, but more insidiously: looking at Johan Huizinga’s ''Homo Ludens'', he draws a tight connection between the mechanics of playing and those of contesting: “The agon in Greek life, or the contest anywhere else in the world, bears all the formal characteristics of play, and as to its function belongs almost wholly to the sphere of the festival, which is the playsphere. It is quite impossible to separate the contest as a cultural function from the complex "play-festival-rite".” (Huizinga, J. (1964) Homo Ludens: A study of the play element in culture. Boston, USA: The Beacon Press. p. 31). The political sphere has rules, contestants (players), winners, losers, just like a typical card game. <br> | |||
Looking at magic, what we call traditional magic (spells, potions and big books) lives on through time thanks to language. As for more spiritual, metaphysical kinds of magic (caring, being connected to one’s inner self, etc.), they also involve a great deal of language: we put words on feelings, bear intentions that might be voiced out, it can even involve some kind of prayer. Relating magic to games is a bit trickier (pun intended), but it is easier to connect it to playfulness. Magic has this mystery, this way of appealing to our curiosity that makes us want to play, to experiment with it. We might call them enchantment, amazement, mesmerising. Referring again to Huizinga, “just as there is no formal difference between play and ritual, so the ‘consecrated spot’ cannot be formally distinguished from the play-ground. The arena, the card-table, the magic circle, the temple, the stage, the screen, the tennis court, the court of justice, etc., are all in form and function play-grounds, i.e. forbidden spots, isolated, hedged round, hallowed, within which special rules obtain.” (Huizinga, J. (1964) Homo Ludens: A study of the play element in culture. Boston, USA: The Beacon Press. p. 10). Here he uses something interesting, connecting magic circles, stages and screens as play-grounds. With such a connection, we end up with an allegory for every theme covered here: magic circles represent magic and physical gatherings; stages are where action takes place, and simultaneously the illusion served by seamlessness; screens represent the web, the digital. <br> | |||
And the snake is back to eating its own tail. The Ouroboros has been invoked. We are now back to the web and the curiosity triggered by magic leads us into its craftiness, through experimentation. | |||
<span style="border: 1px solid rebeccapurple; padding: 2px 4px; font-size: 13px;">17-01-2026 word count: 550</span> | |||
— CHAPTER ABOUT WEB CRAFT — <br> | |||
From the beginning of the web, Tim Berners-Lee, its inventor, viewed it as a way of connecting all the people of the world together and a great opportunity to expand creativity and imagination (Berners-Lee, T. (2025) This is for everyone. Macmillan, London. p. 3). This idea took on quite rapidly, with the first net.artists rising as early as 1994 (the web itself was created in 1989 and open to the public in 1993!) <br> | |||
Net.artists saw the potential of hyperlinks and inter-connectivity to create, the most active practitioner being Olia Lialina. <del>still acting nowadays on the preservation of early web through the One Terabyte of Kilobyte Age<ref>https://blog.geocities.institute/</ref> project she leads with Dragan Espenschied, documenting the GeoCities archive. A lot of her work showcase the many possibilities of hyperlinks, notably</del> On [https://artsy.net artsy.net] we can read: “In 1996, her browser-based piece My Boyfriend Came Back From The War<ref>http://www.teleportacia.org/war/</ref> made her a notable pioneer of internet art. Her click-to-reveal storyline about reunited lovers was built on HTML frames, a newly-released feature that let developers put multiple pages in one browser. She wasn’t just translating a story onto the internet, she was telling a story in the language of the web browser”<ref>https://www.artsy.net/artwork/olia-lialina-summer-1</ref>. ''Telling a story with the language of the web'' – this is beautiful and very à propos as web poetry might/will be mentioned. Later, in 2013, Lialina built ''Summer'', a webring working across 26 websites, based on an animated GIF of a woman on a swing. The GIF was split in still images and the webring connects every image to the following by having every website included hosting one image. This ring is particularly interesting for the fact that it plays by itself, it doesn’t need a single click to operate, only network connection and maintenance from the web makers. In 2011, when HTML5 eliminated frame elements, Lialina told Creators’ Kathleen Flood that “Many of my works were based on features that browser developers considered being bugs and were removing those bugs in newer versions, so, I have to find new tricks to keep them alive.” I believe this is a perfect definition of crafting; inflating life into ideas with the means at our disposal, adapt to change to maintain the unexpected, hack – in the sense of using inappropriate or unexpected means to create or perform an action. <br> | |||
This notion of ‘unexpected’ is also ___________________ | |||
The aesthetics of the early web result from a combination of experimentation, freedom and self-expression. The early web was in motion, full of textures, expanding the crafty practices we knew. <span style="opacity: 0.6; font-size: 13px;">look for something in Kendal Beynon’s work to quote as example</span> | |||
Crafting makes a lot of sense when speaking of website making for it is a form of expression, and as explained above, an art form. In her book ''Reading Writing Interfaces: From the Digital to the Bookbound'' (University of Minnesota Press 2014), Lori Emerson refers to crafting as experimentation: “Learning through doing, tinkering, experimentation, trial-and-error is, then, how one comes to have a genuine computer literacy.” This can make one reach the following conclusion: even the most stereotypical developer, having done their curriculum in programming, maths and engineering is making art, in the sense that they are writing, and the trial-and-error, drafting process is very similar. | |||
<span style="opacity: 0.6; font-size: 13px;">The following needs some smooth connection to the part about crafting, a nice little transition: </span> <br> | |||
Here again, the floor is shared: magic is also full of crafting. From the most obvious love potion to the most mystical meditation, every practice involves the body (often this of a channelling person, usually the “magic” person (e.g. fortune teller)) and sometimes even some specific gestures to reproduce to reinforce the power of intention. <br> | |||
Now that this has been laid down, we can dive deeper. Magic and the web share quite some characteristics and practices. As they are both relying on language and craft, the third shared pillar is intention. As stated in the beginning of this article, words bear meaning, making the process of choosing words an ongoing display of intention. What do I want to say, convey, share? The answer to those questions is the resulting intention. That very same intention then gets put into action; this is where we reconnect to crafting, and the web. <br> | |||
<span style="opacity: 0.6; font-size: 13px;"> | |||
>> IMG: The process is the following: thought >> intention >> verbalising intention >> action <br> | |||
''+ somewhere, later:'' <br> | |||
>> IMG: The process is the following: thought >> intention >> verbalising intention >> action > protest > counter-culture > crafting > community | |||
</span> | |||
<span style="border: 1px solid rebeccapurple; padding: 2px 4px; font-size: 13px;">17-01-2026 word count: 667</span> <br> | |||
<span style="border: 1px solid rebeccapurple; padding: 2px 4px; font-size: 13px;">17-01-2026 total word count: 1217</span> | |||
We’re always compelled and pushed to find purpose, to have a reason, a use for everything we say and make. That’s the principle of design, art with an applied function. That’s terribly sad. It always made me feel like an outcast, because sometimes it is very nice to do things because we appreciate them or because they ‘feel right’. So let’s embrace the useless, for the sake of fun. | |||
====== THESIS OUTLINE – FINAL ====== | |||
In a hyper-marketable world, ruled by seamlessness, polished Instagram feeds and machine-generated content, how can we, by embracing the useless, reconnecting to the fun and reclaiming our singularity, fight the rising technofascism and (re)shape the web? | |||
* The web, a craft directed to self expression | |||
** net.art (Olia Lialina) | |||
** Building, sharing, caring | |||
** Webrings and digital gardens: where the web becomes *magical* | |||
: ''should include: analogies with the physical body/gesture; references to Raphaël and Doriane + Daniel Murray + TimBL …'' | |||
* The ghost in the shell, a tale about efficiency | |||
** Templates and polishing: performance, technicality and productivity | |||
** Losing our identity: between fading in the mass and wanting to stand out | |||
: ''should include: rant about GenAI; references to Cyberpunk book + Nolwenn Maudet + Miriam Suzanne …'' | |||
* Reclaiming: a fight for our future | |||
** Fun against totalitarianism | |||
** Cyberpunk: aesthetics vs ideology | |||
** Initiatives like wobble, omg.lol. neocities, etc. | |||
: ''should include: references to Huizinga + Cyberpunk book + Laurel Schwulst + Doriane's web exstension and Hyperzine; …'' | |||
<span style="border: 1px solid rebeccapurple; padding: 2px 4px; font-size: 13px;">23-01-2026 word count: 237</span><br> | |||
<span style="border: 1px solid rebeccapurple; padding: 2px 4px; font-size: 13px;">23-01-2026 total word count: 1444</span> | |||
<small><references></references></small> | |||
</div> | |||
= <body> = | |||
<span style="opacity: 0.6; font-size: 13px; font-style: italic;">Last edited: 20-01-2026, 11:12</span><br> | |||
As of today (17-01-2026), I have been prototyping various webpages and digging into W and Eleventy (both CMS). I might leave the CMS experimentation aside and focus on making more pages with prompts – in a true Oulipian fashion. I will keep uploading them inside the master webring I started building on neocities and logging the progress [[User:Kiara/Research/WebSpell/Prototypes|here]]. <br> | |||
My idea so far is a playground website, showcasing experimentations and tips(?) <span style="opacity: 0.6; font-size: 13px;">this will definitely be refined and detailed very soon, but here are some random thoughts about it: <br> | |||
Dear users, <br> | |||
--- a website that offers a journey through handmade web: <br> | |||
- CSS playing around <br> | |||
- navigation maze <br> | |||
- hyperlinks <br> | |||
- webring <br> | |||
- visualzzz <br> | |||
- error <br> | |||
- CSS print <br> | |||
- what is bad code anyway? (Ref to Lu Wilson?) <br> | |||
- ref list (Raphaël, Doriane, Timothée, etc.) <br> | |||
→ take inspiration from previous projects → use prototypes as playground <br> | |||
Tron: "users" refers to creators, writers of the scripts, makers <br> | |||
++ a program that takes over and destroys any small program in its way, small programs rebel, the creator has to step in and reclaim its creation in order to fight back</span> <br> | |||
On Monday 19 January, I had a conversation with Kamo & Charlie that gave me some perspective. Here are some notes: <br> | |||
✺ '''about webrings''': | |||
: focus more on webrings as a practice: dive into their history, context, usage, eventual rules to find my own entry point | |||
: by having webrings inside of webrings it creates a chain, a mesh of webrings | |||
: I read somewhere that in order to provide efficient guides to the handmade web it would make more sense to interconnect instead of repeating content ---> is it possible to reference those various sources of knowledge and practices in one ring? | |||
✺ '''about magic''': | |||
: the magic is more in the process than in the final outcome (a way of thinking) | |||
: like books of shadows and grimoires, create a "book of spells" webring in which the various pages/sites provides keys to the handmade web (code snippets, experimentations,... | they are the spells) | |||
: the globalised separation between body and mind is too reductive (example in trauma healing, we tend to refer to psychotherapists but we also should put attention to body healing as our nerves and muscles remember the trauma and carry it) -- intuition involves both. As intuition is the starting point of magic thinking, we need to reconnect body and mind. | |||
: References given by Charlie: ''Reclaiming Animism'' + https://publications.servus.at/2026-almanac.sh/almanac.html | |||
✺ '''about language''': | |||
: the limits set by language and writing (to explore, maybe an entry into CSS spells, etc.) | |||
:: fixed meaning, a need to reactivate imagination into language (to explore) | |||
: find more magic analogies between the web and magic (the one example now being webrings and magic circles) | |||
: the webring of prototypes resonates with journaling ... maybe journaling is not the right word, more like digital scrapbooking! | |||
---- | |||
= archive.html = | |||
== <head> == | |||
=== THESIS OUTLINE #2 === | === THESIS OUTLINE #2 === | ||
{| class="mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" | {| class="mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" | ||
| Line 59: | Line 162: | ||
|} | |} | ||
= <body> = | == <body> == | ||
=== PROJECT PROPOSAL #2 === | === PROJECT PROPOSAL #2 === | ||
{| class="mw-collapsible" | {| class="mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" | ||
| | | | ||
|- | |- | ||
Latest revision as of 12:41, 25 January 2026
<head>
about how to stop overthinking
This is January 2026.
I am behind schedule and have to resubmit.
It was time to put aside all the constraints and methods and go back to my internal chaos in order to trigger an active brainstorming.
Drawing from the reflection that has been going on since September 2025 and my previous/current practice, I get results.
Results that help to start writing. So I still (on 17-01-26) don't have a main question, but I do have direction, that's the thing I always had.
Realising that both writing and prototyping were blocked by methods seems ironic. But I need to let things flow. So that is what I am doing, and through this start of writing, that will go on and on, the question will arise from the shadow, for I will have been writing the answer to it. I am confident.
Looking into my personal practice, I come up with recurring themes: dreaming; playfulness; experimentation; language(s).
They also have been present from the beginning of my research. Obviously.
They are my direction and made me realise how important the political aspect is, as it is underlying, hiding in plain sight, connecting those themes together. (to dev ++)
Later on this page are the thesis outline and project proposal I wrote in light of the assessment resubmission. They are not final, in fact they are still very flawed and, as for the project proposal, mostly unfit. I will however leave them here, as their method is unfit for me. Some updated document might surface, later on.
State of HTML my progress
Last edited: 23-01-2026, 15:04
As of today (17-01-2026), I have (finally) started laying down some writing. I will paste it below and try to add time stamps as I go (ah...versioning would work as charm here... hey Kim ;)
The plan is ultimately to obtain an article (better word than thesis imho)
Words have meaning, and paying attention to these meanings is in my opinion key to a good communication. With oneself as much as with others.
In that sense, I can expand towards language. Language and words have always fascinated me. Most of my work deals with that, from my first bachelor’s graduation project in 2021 to this day. So very naturally, when I got introduced to web programming languages – HTML and CSS – I fell in love. I view them not as mathematical/logical programming but as actual languages with their own grammar and syntax. Parallel to this passion for languages, I also enjoy games of all kind, so they also made their place in my practice: I mess around, break rules and conventions, intentionally play with the viewer/reader/…’s capacity to get lost or confused, and so on.
Language and games are both playing big parts in politics and in magic. Language is one of the pillars of politics: how do you address people, diction and tone, choice of words and topics… and convincing, gaining voters. Games share the spotlight, but more insidiously: looking at Johan Huizinga’s Homo Ludens, he draws a tight connection between the mechanics of playing and those of contesting: “The agon in Greek life, or the contest anywhere else in the world, bears all the formal characteristics of play, and as to its function belongs almost wholly to the sphere of the festival, which is the playsphere. It is quite impossible to separate the contest as a cultural function from the complex "play-festival-rite".” (Huizinga, J. (1964) Homo Ludens: A study of the play element in culture. Boston, USA: The Beacon Press. p. 31). The political sphere has rules, contestants (players), winners, losers, just like a typical card game.
Looking at magic, what we call traditional magic (spells, potions and big books) lives on through time thanks to language. As for more spiritual, metaphysical kinds of magic (caring, being connected to one’s inner self, etc.), they also involve a great deal of language: we put words on feelings, bear intentions that might be voiced out, it can even involve some kind of prayer. Relating magic to games is a bit trickier (pun intended), but it is easier to connect it to playfulness. Magic has this mystery, this way of appealing to our curiosity that makes us want to play, to experiment with it. We might call them enchantment, amazement, mesmerising. Referring again to Huizinga, “just as there is no formal difference between play and ritual, so the ‘consecrated spot’ cannot be formally distinguished from the play-ground. The arena, the card-table, the magic circle, the temple, the stage, the screen, the tennis court, the court of justice, etc., are all in form and function play-grounds, i.e. forbidden spots, isolated, hedged round, hallowed, within which special rules obtain.” (Huizinga, J. (1964) Homo Ludens: A study of the play element in culture. Boston, USA: The Beacon Press. p. 10). Here he uses something interesting, connecting magic circles, stages and screens as play-grounds. With such a connection, we end up with an allegory for every theme covered here: magic circles represent magic and physical gatherings; stages are where action takes place, and simultaneously the illusion served by seamlessness; screens represent the web, the digital.
And the snake is back to eating its own tail. The Ouroboros has been invoked. We are now back to the web and the curiosity triggered by magic leads us into its craftiness, through experimentation.
17-01-2026 word count: 550
— CHAPTER ABOUT WEB CRAFT —
From the beginning of the web, Tim Berners-Lee, its inventor, viewed it as a way of connecting all the people of the world together and a great opportunity to expand creativity and imagination (Berners-Lee, T. (2025) This is for everyone. Macmillan, London. p. 3). This idea took on quite rapidly, with the first net.artists rising as early as 1994 (the web itself was created in 1989 and open to the public in 1993!)
Net.artists saw the potential of hyperlinks and inter-connectivity to create, the most active practitioner being Olia Lialina. still acting nowadays on the preservation of early web through the One Terabyte of Kilobyte Age[1] project she leads with Dragan Espenschied, documenting the GeoCities archive. A lot of her work showcase the many possibilities of hyperlinks, notably On artsy.net we can read: “In 1996, her browser-based piece My Boyfriend Came Back From The War[2] made her a notable pioneer of internet art. Her click-to-reveal storyline about reunited lovers was built on HTML frames, a newly-released feature that let developers put multiple pages in one browser. She wasn’t just translating a story onto the internet, she was telling a story in the language of the web browser”[3]. Telling a story with the language of the web – this is beautiful and very à propos as web poetry might/will be mentioned. Later, in 2013, Lialina built Summer, a webring working across 26 websites, based on an animated GIF of a woman on a swing. The GIF was split in still images and the webring connects every image to the following by having every website included hosting one image. This ring is particularly interesting for the fact that it plays by itself, it doesn’t need a single click to operate, only network connection and maintenance from the web makers. In 2011, when HTML5 eliminated frame elements, Lialina told Creators’ Kathleen Flood that “Many of my works were based on features that browser developers considered being bugs and were removing those bugs in newer versions, so, I have to find new tricks to keep them alive.” I believe this is a perfect definition of crafting; inflating life into ideas with the means at our disposal, adapt to change to maintain the unexpected, hack – in the sense of using inappropriate or unexpected means to create or perform an action.
This notion of ‘unexpected’ is also ___________________
The aesthetics of the early web result from a combination of experimentation, freedom and self-expression. The early web was in motion, full of textures, expanding the crafty practices we knew. look for something in Kendal Beynon’s work to quote as example
Crafting makes a lot of sense when speaking of website making for it is a form of expression, and as explained above, an art form. In her book Reading Writing Interfaces: From the Digital to the Bookbound (University of Minnesota Press 2014), Lori Emerson refers to crafting as experimentation: “Learning through doing, tinkering, experimentation, trial-and-error is, then, how one comes to have a genuine computer literacy.” This can make one reach the following conclusion: even the most stereotypical developer, having done their curriculum in programming, maths and engineering is making art, in the sense that they are writing, and the trial-and-error, drafting process is very similar.
The following needs some smooth connection to the part about crafting, a nice little transition:
Here again, the floor is shared: magic is also full of crafting. From the most obvious love potion to the most mystical meditation, every practice involves the body (often this of a channelling person, usually the “magic” person (e.g. fortune teller)) and sometimes even some specific gestures to reproduce to reinforce the power of intention.
Now that this has been laid down, we can dive deeper. Magic and the web share quite some characteristics and practices. As they are both relying on language and craft, the third shared pillar is intention. As stated in the beginning of this article, words bear meaning, making the process of choosing words an ongoing display of intention. What do I want to say, convey, share? The answer to those questions is the resulting intention. That very same intention then gets put into action; this is where we reconnect to crafting, and the web.
>> IMG: The process is the following: thought >> intention >> verbalising intention >> action
+ somewhere, later:
>> IMG: The process is the following: thought >> intention >> verbalising intention >> action > protest > counter-culture > crafting > community
17-01-2026 word count: 667
17-01-2026 total word count: 1217
We’re always compelled and pushed to find purpose, to have a reason, a use for everything we say and make. That’s the principle of design, art with an applied function. That’s terribly sad. It always made me feel like an outcast, because sometimes it is very nice to do things because we appreciate them or because they ‘feel right’. So let’s embrace the useless, for the sake of fun.
THESIS OUTLINE – FINAL
In a hyper-marketable world, ruled by seamlessness, polished Instagram feeds and machine-generated content, how can we, by embracing the useless, reconnecting to the fun and reclaiming our singularity, fight the rising technofascism and (re)shape the web?
- The web, a craft directed to self expression
- net.art (Olia Lialina)
- Building, sharing, caring
- Webrings and digital gardens: where the web becomes *magical*
- should include: analogies with the physical body/gesture; references to Raphaël and Doriane + Daniel Murray + TimBL …
- The ghost in the shell, a tale about efficiency
- Templates and polishing: performance, technicality and productivity
- Losing our identity: between fading in the mass and wanting to stand out
- should include: rant about GenAI; references to Cyberpunk book + Nolwenn Maudet + Miriam Suzanne …
- Reclaiming: a fight for our future
- Fun against totalitarianism
- Cyberpunk: aesthetics vs ideology
- Initiatives like wobble, omg.lol. neocities, etc.
- should include: references to Huizinga + Cyberpunk book + Laurel Schwulst + Doriane's web exstension and Hyperzine; …
23-01-2026 word count: 237
23-01-2026 total word count: 1444
<body>
Last edited: 20-01-2026, 11:12
As of today (17-01-2026), I have been prototyping various webpages and digging into W and Eleventy (both CMS). I might leave the CMS experimentation aside and focus on making more pages with prompts – in a true Oulipian fashion. I will keep uploading them inside the master webring I started building on neocities and logging the progress here.
My idea so far is a playground website, showcasing experimentations and tips(?) this will definitely be refined and detailed very soon, but here are some random thoughts about it:
Dear users,
--- a website that offers a journey through handmade web:
- CSS playing around
- navigation maze
- hyperlinks
- webring
- visualzzz
- error
- CSS print
- what is bad code anyway? (Ref to Lu Wilson?)
- ref list (Raphaël, Doriane, Timothée, etc.)
→ take inspiration from previous projects → use prototypes as playground
Tron: "users" refers to creators, writers of the scripts, makers
++ a program that takes over and destroys any small program in its way, small programs rebel, the creator has to step in and reclaim its creation in order to fight back
On Monday 19 January, I had a conversation with Kamo & Charlie that gave me some perspective. Here are some notes:
✺ about webrings:
- focus more on webrings as a practice: dive into their history, context, usage, eventual rules to find my own entry point
- by having webrings inside of webrings it creates a chain, a mesh of webrings
- I read somewhere that in order to provide efficient guides to the handmade web it would make more sense to interconnect instead of repeating content ---> is it possible to reference those various sources of knowledge and practices in one ring?
✺ about magic:
- the magic is more in the process than in the final outcome (a way of thinking)
- like books of shadows and grimoires, create a "book of spells" webring in which the various pages/sites provides keys to the handmade web (code snippets, experimentations,... | they are the spells)
- the globalised separation between body and mind is too reductive (example in trauma healing, we tend to refer to psychotherapists but we also should put attention to body healing as our nerves and muscles remember the trauma and carry it) -- intuition involves both. As intuition is the starting point of magic thinking, we need to reconnect body and mind.
- References given by Charlie: Reclaiming Animism + https://publications.servus.at/2026-almanac.sh/almanac.html
✺ about language:
- the limits set by language and writing (to explore, maybe an entry into CSS spells, etc.)
- fixed meaning, a need to reactivate imagination into language (to explore)
- find more magic analogies between the web and magic (the one example now being webrings and magic circles)
- the webring of prototypes resonates with journaling ... maybe journaling is not the right word, more like digital scrapbooking!
archive.html
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THESIS OUTLINE #2
What will the text be about?The text is about the world wide web: both a space and a craft, full of various forms of expression all linked to one another through the hyperlink system. The text is about individuality as shaping and owning who we are on the web: the importance of having your own corner of the web, your own garden -- that may or may not resemble those of Maggie Appleton or Matt Prebeg -- away from the big corporate platforms and their seamlessness that erases our capacity to customise and express our identities. The text is about physical bodies and gestures: exploring how we can reconnect and reinvest the physical when crafting the web; investigating the ways in which by doing so we can reconnect to our individuality, to others and start putting intention and sensitivity at the core of our creations. This idea was born while reading JR Carpenter's "Handmade web", where she connects the physical to the digital. It now flourishes with my own practice of web crafting and input such as D. Murray's in an interview with Kendal Beynon:
The text is about politics, resistance: all those investigations lead to a common topic. By reinvesting our bodies we might shape ways to resist against automation and online seamlessness. How will that story be told? (form and mode of address)The text aims to be a sort of chimera writing, acting as a guide, an essay and the result of a detective investigation. dev ++ KEY ISSUESwip title: The Wicked Witch of the World Wide Web INTRODUCTION (1000)1. Incantations and spells (2000)Investigation into web making as a craft, the importance of the gesture and the role of intention when making, creating. 2. Behind the smoke screen (2000)How nurturing sensitivity, distancing oneself from corporate platforms and shaping the web you want is a stance against automation and seamlessness and a path to connecting and tying links. 3. Alchemy (2000)Highlighting the links between web crafting and physical gesture, through examples such as zine making and CSS-print, or hybrid initiatives such as hackathons and code-a-thons. This exploration leads to shaping resisting tools and spaces that intertwine in the way alchemy transforms a given matter into another in a equal-value exchange. note: maybe this is the conclusion and i have only 2 key issues? CONCLUSION (1000) |
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PROJECT PROPOSAL #2
1_ What do you want to make?I will redesign entirely my own website. Coming from a graphic design background, I realise I have been focusing on a portfolio type of website that somehow never really suited me, simply because it “made sense” in this field. Through the years I have been trying to emancipate from that, while never really finding my voice, my expression. The Instagram hegemony shaped a way of thinking about how my website should look like, therefore I never felt truly connected to my own website, entangled in a sort of seamless capitalistic spiral. Today, I set my website free. For years now I have been meaning to dig into eleventy and now I have also learned about W. Those content management systems, relying on high customisation, give me interesting perspectives into how I can shape my website to reflect who I am and how I work. Which is actually what matters when being an freelancer, rather than having a nice looking gallery that looks just like everyone else’s. I want this website to embrace all that I do: it shouldn’t focus only on graphic/web design, but also include my crafting, thoughts and research, maybe books and movies lists, resources, etc. Through XPUB I learned how to maintain a wiki page and I really like the architecture of it. I tend to have way too many tabs and bookmarks in which I get lost. Having them stored on my website would help (I could even use tools like Martin Lemaire's) and also allow me to share them more easily and broadly. Furthermore, this comes into a larger reflection around hosting: I have been looking for an ethical and not too expensive hosting service and domain name provider, that could also allow me to finish my migration out of google services. This will help me putting more focus on that as well. 2_ How do you plan to make it?see: User:Kiara/Research/WebSpell/Prototypes 3_ What is your time table?
4_ Why do you want to make it?I face constant frustration with my website, I want it to feel like home. It is also a great exercise into learning more CSS tricks, maybe develop some rituals. I want to be proud of it, to like working on it as much as I like adding to my XPUB wiki, I want it to be a place of gathering, for potential clients but also for friends, family and strangers. A place full of resources and inspiration, like a blog without the “pressure” attached to it (like expected regularity in publishing content). I have been circling around the indie web since I started coding, today is time to fully make my own little corner in it. 5_ 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 6_ Relation to previous practiceI started coding websites in 2021. My skills haven’t evolved as much as I would want to, but almost every project I have worked on since has involved code. Whether it be to make websites or printed material, I use CSS almost daily. It has become my main working tool.
7_ Relation to a larger contextThe web is not that old, and yet it evolves so fast that it seems it was born with the steam machine. We refer to it today as “web 3.0”, centred around the blockchain and ultra capitalist schemes. In the last 5-6 years we witnessed the rise (and fall) of crypto currencies, NFTs and now generative AI. Those concepts are one after the other more and more energy-consuming, destroying our natural resources and atmosphere. 8_ ReferencesAppleton, M. (2023) Folk Interfaces. Available at: https://maggieappleton.com/folk-interfaces (Accessed: 8 October 2025). |