Another Sunday, Another Naive Weekly — Observations From The Internet Wilderness.
Good morning,
On the first day in a foreign city, I prefer to browse the streets at random, to converse with the new environment, like how the wind talks with the poppy flower. Here in Athens, I was welcomed by hundreds of small independent bookstores, countless fruit-carrying orange trees, and an intense scent of jasmine trees occupying the narrow streets.
While walking in the perfume, I was taking back to Tel Aviv, a city I visited with Ana when we were freshly in love. The two cities share a strong kinship through the Bauhaus-inspired buildings. It fascinates me how a school of thought can link the physical presence of two cities placed 1200 km from each other on two different sides of the Mediterranean Sea.
I easily turn romantic about the moderate scale of Bauhaus buildings: the rooftop is in eyesight from the street, and for some reason, plants grow everywhere. Even in the middle of the pavement.
With care,
Kristoffer
ROADSIDE FLOWERS
Frog Chorus is a pond where you can sing songs with other readers (if they are online).
Cloud Country is a newsletter covering your inbox with shadows.
Text Garden is a collective reflection on what you want to leave behind.
Sugarcane is an interactive rush-story.
FIELD NOTES
Build Your Own Screenshot Garden
Taking screenshots is how we photograph the internet. My screenshots rest in a giant pile of unsorted files, rarely used beyond those I include in this newsletter. Thus, I have long had the aspiration to create a screenshot garden inspired by Everest Pipkin. For a novice developer like myself, the task always felt daunting. However, with this detailed guide on how to create your own screenshot garden using the desktop folder system, Everest is eliminating my excuses for not moving forward with the project. See also Maya’s garden and screenshot.garden.
Situated Knowledge – A Reflection on Folder Poetry
Digital Love Languages is a course taught by Melanie Hoff at the School for Poetic Computation. The class teaches students to reintroduce themselves to computers “based on the premise that there is a world where all our software is made by people who love us and that we can contribute to building it.” The linked post is a Donna Haraway inspired reflection on one of the classes within the course where the students are practice folder poetry. Make sure to visit this year’s collection of folder poems.
Maya Man on mayaontheinter.net
I’ve searched for a reason to introduce Maya Man in this newsletter. For two years, her chrome extension, Glance Back, has photographed me looking at my laptop at a random time. It is revealing to look through the screenshots and see my disengaged computer gaze, and I encourage you to try it yourself, even just for a week. Maya also has a quirky personal website, it is handwritten and hand-drawn, and in the linked post, she talks with Elliott Cost about how it came into being.
PROMPT
Tiana Dueck is helping John Bengtsson to bring back his playful website creation project called Sunday Sites. In short, people gather online on a Sunday afternoon to make handwritten websites based on open-ended prompts. May’s prompt is “refreshing,” and all levels are welcome. The goal is not to win website awards but rather the peer-to-peer adventure and creative interpretation. I will not participate this Sunday 12pm-4pm EST, but I’m looking forward to featuring the creations in this newsletter, and I’ll make sure to join a session when we are back from Greece.
COLLECTIONS
Hi, I’m Kristoffer and you have just read Naive Weekly — Observations from the Internet Wilderness.
Last week this letter was sent to 904 people (we passed nine-hundred!). Thirtyone are crazy enough to chip in every month/year to support me making time to write. Logo by Studio Hollywood. Print by Luka. Photograph by Ana Santl.