Holiday
Another Sunday, Another Naive Weekly — Observations From The Internet Wilderness.
Hi reader,
We are on our way to South Tyrol. Ana is shooting three hotels, meanwhile, Uno and I are going to splash around in the pools. It is our first flight as a family and I’m beyond excited.
Thursday and Friday I was in Austria for work. It was my first flight in 1.5 years. Before the pandemic, I was flying on average once per week, so the idleness of lockdown has been an abnormality in my life.
The most uncanny about being back in the air was not the regulations or the lack of passengers, but how quickly it all felt familiar again. Including the flight shame.
With care,
Kristoffer
EYE CANDY
READER INTERVIEW
Emily Lau is a designer and art director from Hong Kong, living in Copenhagen. Emily asks the best questions, listens with care, and is kinder than the shadow of magnolia trees on a warm summer day.
K: Who would you like to provide a website for that can’t make it themselves?
Emily: For all the doggos that I spotted and stalked while strolling along the streets of Copenhagen. I might have more pictures of dogs than of humans on my camera roll.
K: What stones do you carry in your bag?
Emily: Stones I collected when travelling. I am not so particular about how they look as long as they remind me of the nice time I had. I put my small collections around my olive tree as a circle and imagine they would sometimes do a little growing dance like the one Totoro does. Sometimes I carry around a rainbow moonstone I found at a flea market in Lisbon.
K: How do you archive your thoughts?
Emily: My desire of archiving the beautiful and special moments is stronger than any other thoughts. Since my mind is an extremely unreliable storage, I capture them with my phone camera, sometimes an actual camera. I try not to capture too much otherwise it loses the point. From time to time, I look through my camera roll and delete many of the images so only the truly special ones remain.
In a more manual way, I always carry a small sketchbook and several different black pens in my bag for me to doodle my thoughts and feelings. There are on and off periods where I journal and plan my day on a bullet journal everyday. I am pretty bad at sticking to it, but when I do, my mind feels lighter and clearer. It also helps when I sort my thoughts and ideas by visualizing them.
For life goals and creative projects, I like to curate vision boards because they always bring me focus and motivation when I feel scattered.
K: What is progress to you?
Emily: I used to think of progress as something huge to be achieved, milestones that bring you to the next stage. But lately I try to remind myself to celebrate all the baby steps, especially on the days I feel stagnant and that my life isn't moving forward. Now, progress to me can be internal and as simple as learning more about myself and what is actually right for me while surfing the ups and downs of life.
K: What do you have saved in your bookmarks?
Emily: Mostly references and inspirations for my creative projects—type foundries, brands, portfolios of design studios, photographers and ceramicists. These are pretty well sorted into folders. And then there's just a pile of folderless mess that includes articles, tutorials and workout videos that I will hopefully go back to some day. But realistically I almost never reach for my browser bookmarks. I find my Instagram and Pinterest boards easier tools for me to curate my inspiration.
K: What do you have open in your tabs?
Emily: Art supply websites. I recently did my very first oil painting at home, and I painted some daisies I had in my room. I felt so much peace and pleasure while being in the zone. I remember this also used to be something my dad loved doing but somehow stopped. I hope he will pick up and enjoy this again, so I am going to get him some painting supplies as a Father's Day gift.
K: How would you start a letter to a frog?
Emily: *burp*
ROADSIDE FLOWERS
FIELD NOTES
How to Map Nothing
Starting by citing Kyle Chayka and Jenny Odell, two of my favourite writers on living with the internet, Shannon Mattern’s article on how to map the invisible work of everyone who had the privilege to do nothing during the lockdown. It is long. It is complicated. It is good.
One Billion Seconds from Now
I’m excited to follow the wave of bright stars emerging on the internet sky. Constellations of people with the vision and an intention to nurture other futures for the web shine through the dark clouds of monopolistic companies and pure tech criticism. In this post, Michael Szul clears the stage for The Billion Seconds Institute, comparing the initiative to the formation of The Long Now Foundation.
The Questions Concerning Technology
“What will the use of this technology encourage me to notice?” is one of 41 questions on technology written by L. M. Sacasas. Written in 2016, well before tech-ethics became a product you can purchase by consultancies. I appreciate how the questions refocus attention away from technology, and towards reflecting on the life we want to live and the societies we want to build.
INTERNETMEZZO
Hi, I’m Kristoffer and you have just read Naive Weekly — Observations from the Internet Wilderness.
Last week this letter was sent to 762 people. Thirtytwo 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.