In his writing, Chimero talks about how technology is another place where we live, and how it should be. My first response when I read this was what does he mean by “living in technology”? However, I soon thought it makes a lot of sense after thinking about how frequently we use technology each day. Yet I never thought of technology as a ‘living space.’ A tool? Sure. But a living space? Not really. Chimero’s suggestion of technology as a living space felt like a new perspective to me.
Then, things seemed a little odd. The way how most web spaces are commercial seemed odd all sudden. Social media, search engines, and shopping services all felt foreign. Like the New York Public Library Chimero mentioned, I felt the internet space also needs some non-commercial, nourishing space. Then, that would be at least a livable space.
I don’t think Chimero is trying to suggest that the entire web needs to rebuild. I think he’s suggesting us to see technology from a different perspective and I also think that is needed. Now I’m wondering, what could be the NYPL of the technology space.
Seu listed examples of work that are “poetry of tools.” I thought the reading really opened a dialogue on how have we used technology as a poetic tool. As Seu said, technology has been evolving very fast unlike ever before (imagine Gutenberg’s printing press vs 3D printers). Now it’s more like we are consuming the novelty of technology that changes every day and are more concerned about the functional use of technology. This week, there was an Adobe MAX conference where they introduced the latest/upcoming technology in Adobe software. It was exciting to hear all the new features like image analysis, automated this and that. I wondered, however, has anyone thought of its for poetic use instead of functional use like creating faster and smarter ones? Among all the projects Seu listed, the ‘Performing Data’ caught my attention.
My first impression of using data as poetry was a surprise. This was because I always thought data was something so far away from artistic subjects like poetry. You know, data sounds more like science, extrapolation, conclusion, evaluation, etc. But I thought the use of data for poetic performance, nothing about scientific value or deriving a conclusion, was somewhat resilient. It was like taking a break from the fast-changing technology landscape and celebrating technology as a tool for whatever purpose you wish to use it for that is not necessarily utilitarian. I felt like there are a lot of tech pieces that we can take a break from all of its changes and updates. One of my professors in the graphic design department (Lauren!) once told the class how she turned off the auto-update for her Adobe creative suite. I thought the idea of focusing on the current tool instead of a better tool was something I haven’t thought before.
Chimero’s essay was somewhat confusing because it was difficult to fully understand his idea of the “web’s natural character.” However, I had some threads of thoughts from his observation on how we design the web today.
He mentioned how the web is usually designed to be vertically scrolled, and vertically stacked. This is because it is the most efficient way in order to have the web be responsive. This made me wonder if we have been catering too much to the functionality of the web and setting boundaries to what a web should look like. For example, almost all the time we have a header, body, and footer on the web. There are even HTML tags just for these sections. But why do we have to strictly follow those layouts?
Another thought came from the “edgelessness” he mentions. I thought this was interesting because sitting in front of a monitor, I also rarely thought about the design outside of the screen frame. I mean, I do sometimes create elements that go outside of the viewport, but that was not necessarily because I re-interpreted the monitor screen as a larger space. For physical arts like painting, a lot of artists attempted to redefine what a canvas is and expanded to painting on a wall, floor, and more. However, I don’t really see much of that for the monitor. I can’t really think of what a design that goes edgeless might look like, but it definitely gives a fresh perspective to what a monitor is if we see it as a canvas.
First, I want to appreciate how Copley simulated the online text message for an article about text messaging. The experience of waiting until the text fully loads, and switching between other “chats” during the wait effectively communicated what Copley was trying to tell us.
While I never consciously think about it, I agree that online social platforms and mobile devices have significantly influenced how we interact with others, and our mental state. Our online presence overrides the physical presence and blurs the separation between work and life. We also have a new form of communication - texting which is not quite writing, yet not quite speaking. The throbber (three dots) keeps our attention by having us expect a reply. Such an attention economy has another whole debate about how it impacts our life. More surprisingly, this all happened in the last two decades (practically more like a few years though).
I don’t really have negative viewpoints about how online socializing impacted us because it has as many positives as negatives. The Internet is not necessarily evil. However, I find it very intriguing how online interaction like texting is basically a new form of communication. When I think about communication, I imagine talking, writing, gestures, facial expressions, etc. However, I don’t think I ever thought of texting as a new form of communication.
Taeyoon encourages us to take a step back from computers which we became too familiar with. And day after day, the gap between computers and us grows bigger and bigger making it hard and even reluctant to understand what computers are and how it works. On the other hand, you might ask “why do we need to understand it in the first place?” Well, first thing is that it’s not about understanding the science behind computers, software, and hardware. What I thought Taeyoon’s Handmade Computers communicated is understanding how computers work and from there understanding how we, humans work. Because after all, we built the computers! Also, it’s not only computers where we can find the roots of how we think and function. It can be observed from paintings, architecture, cities, and more.
The text felt like a reminiscence of early days of webs. There’s the value of the “handmade webs” that’s been forgotten after the webs started having more than what’s being displayed on the screen and the front-end. After the appearance of large social media platforms, the maintenance, interaction, logistics behind the web gained more importance. Building your own webpage became a thing of past that you don’t need to invest time and energy on.
However, the value of the “handmade webs” still alive as much as the webs built a decade ago still works today. Although some webpages no longer work due to changes to technology (end of the internet explorer is one), handmade webs serve as your personal archive. Furthermore, your web can be an archive that still lives today unlike historical archives in museum which lives in the past.
Then, there’s the value of craftsmanship - The time and energy you invest to making the web, managing the codes with your own hand makes your website more special to you. That is something Facebook nor Instagram can’t provide you. It’s like decorating your room. You paint your walls, it may fail, but you get sense of intimacy to your room.
On the other hand, handmade webs feel like romanticism of early 2000s’ webs. It’s like seeing a potter who keeps crafting using traditional methods instead of using technologies. However, as for me who also occasionally enjoys a slower path over efficiency (such as cooking complicated dish instead of eating out), I would still choose to write a web line by line even if that’s simply romanticism of handmade crafts.
I thought about what technology is, and the purpose of websites again. As Gen Z, we were pretty much born with technology and websites. They are as common as air and didn’t feel like anything new to me. For this reason, I didn’t really think about what the value of technology and websites are to me as a designer.
I thought I should start with not seeing technology as something very complex, something reserved for engineers and the “tech experts”. Technology is not limited to robotics, nuclear engineering, chemical engineering, etc - They can be as simple as a match for lighting a fire. With this approach, I thought about how I be more open to using technology and utilize them in my design practice.
Then there was thinking about the purpose of websites. Just as the reading said, I mostly saw websites in terms of functionality in the eyes of similar to what big corporates would have. I nearly forgot about how websites could also be an experimental space, not just a commercial space like Instagram, Google, Amazon, and more. It reminded me when I used p5.js in my first class for graphic design. It was a very simple javascript library, and the experience was nothing like other times when I used web browsers for. It was closer to playing in a sandbox.