Hydra Postcard
James Wrigley: Edit & Modify
Dear reader,
Soon you can buy the Internet Phone Book. It’s been a lovely collaboration with Elliott Cost and all the people who helped make it possible. I’m very proud of the result. I believe this is the first issue of what will become a defining contribution to reclaim the public imagination of the Internet, away from social media, opportunism, and cynicism.
I’ll write more about the book when it’s for sale. For now, I just wanted to suggest that you subscribe to the Internet Phone Book mailing list if you’d like to buy one of the books. We printed a limited number of books, so we might sell out fast. In fact, we’ll sell out if 15% of those who joined the mailing list buy a book.
With care,
Kristoffer
𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟
James Wrigley: Edit & Modify
James Wrigley is an artist, designer, writer and creative director living in Manchester, United Kingdom.
What is Edit & Modify?
Edit & Modify is an experimental personal project with the goal of creating lightweight free tools for designers, photographers and creatives alike. Building tools that strip away everything but the essentials and are built with intentional restraint, which means no social feeds, interruptions or unnecessary complexity. The project launched with E : M a photo editing and filter app for iOS, and I have A : C a fun ASCII camera in beta along with web tools for ASCII, Dithering and an image colour palette generator, with more updates and tools coming soon.
Why did you make it?
I built this project as a rejection that creators should pay monthly subscriptions to access the basic tools of creation. It’s a dramatic reaction really, but there are few applications that have a single payment, Edit & Modify goes the opposite direction, the project is completely free, you have access to these tools and all updates forever. I wanted to build and replace tools that I would use regularly and be a place where I could experiment with what it means to have creative tools that have a single purpose, find new ways to develop tools that would exist in multiple extensions with Figma plugins, web and iOS versions all grounded in a clear vision to build thoughtful, distraction-free tools that support creativity.
Who or what inspired you?
I am hugely inspired by internet artists like Chia Amisola or creative technologists like Ash Herr; people who create these incredible online projects or experiments. While Edit & Modify isn’t in the same realm, it’s very much inspired by a catalog of people online who are creating and experimenting with what it means to publish or create online.
Visit Edit & Modify and follow James on Instagram.
𓅰 𓅬 𓅭 𓅮 𓅯
Field Notes
1.
Meandering Through the Sites of Naive Yearly. The final essay from Naive Yearly is the closest you get to reading about my design decisions for the conference. The post is written by Vida Rucli from Robida Collective, whose lightweight artistic interventions became the scaffolding for reflection and social interactions.
2.
On my camera roll. A short blog post about how Elliott Cost brings intention into archiving phone photos.
3.
»I argued before that “social media” was an alibi for injecting more TV into people’s lives to take advantage of increased network connectivity — that we had to be persuaded that it was a pro-social thing to do to carry little TVs around and watch them at every possible moment. Conflating friendship and entertainment was part of that campaign. Now chatbots are being put to work on the same ideological project: Here are entertainment products that you can treat as friends, just as you have become accustomed to regarding your friends as entertainment products.«
— Rob Horning in Just for a second I thought I remembered you. Make sure also to read the prelude, Contentment.
4.
Calls for Participation: Are.na is open for submissions to their Annual (Due 23/5), Lullaby Machine is open for submissions for their second issue (Due 10/6), Everyoneisagirl is open for submissions for their next release (Due 15/6), form + foliage is open for submissions for an upcoming exhibition (Due 15/6), and Peckham Digital are open for submissions for their fourth festival (Due 30/6).
5.
Poetic Web Calendar: Screenshot Conf (NYC, 11/5), A Maze (Berlin, 14/5), New Media Writing Prize Awards Evening (URL, 14/5), Open Projector (London, 15/5), Meme Reading Club (Berlin, 15/5), Softer Lab Launch (Copenhagen, 16/5), Digital Intimacies (London, 16/5), Adela (Ljubljana, 16-18/5), Internet Phone Book Release Party (Rotterdam, 17/5), NODE+CODE (Frankfurt, 20/5), Internet Phone Book Release Party (Athens, 21/5), International Conference on Live Coding (Barcelona, 27-31/5), Demo Day (NYC, 4/6), Materials (London, 7/6), and Cursor Launch Party (Copenhagen, 13/6).
⊹ ﹏𓊝﹏𓂁﹏⊹ ˖
Kiosk: Hydra Postcard
What? Postcard.place is a growing collection of postcards sent to the readers of Naive Weekly. Every postcard is handwritten, numbered, and scanned. Today, May 11, you can receive a postcard from Hydra, my favourite Greek island.
Who? This is a personal project by me, Kristoffer.
How much? Upgrade to any paid subscription and send your postal address to kristoffer@naiveweekly.com. Existing paying subscribers can receive a postcard too if they send their mail.
𖡼.𖤣𖥧𖡼.𖤣𖥧
Wayside Flowers
Last email was sent to 4558 inboxes. Seven people support me taking time putting this email together with paid subscriptions. You can send questions, comments, products, sites, links, and more to kristoffer@naiveweekly.com.