Another Sunday, Another Naive Weekly — Observations From The Internet Wilderness.
If you click on the Naive Weekly logo at the bottom you’ll from now on be taken to a random website. Every week I’ll link to another random website. I won’t remind you about this again, so soon it will be our own little secret. The one link only you know exists.
I’ve always loved websites with a random button. My friends Andres and Lucy have one in their email newsletter. And I keep returning to Special.fish to get lost in the ocean of random profiles. There is something wonderful about being taking to some unknown place I did not look for. To land on a random website and try to make sense of where I am.
Have a good Sunday wherever you are. And thank you for reading.
With care,
Kristoffer
VISUALLY PLEASING
A Compendious History of Monstrous Fishes — As Depicted on Carta Marina (1539).
READER INTERVIEW
Lukas Kauer has an extensive toilet collection. He is also an extremely online person whose oxygen mask comes as an internet connection. His backpack is always neatly packed and his words well prepared. He co-founded Forward Festival, but today he is exploring how we can live and move without compromising our health and the planet we belong to.
K: What is the size of your internet?
Lukas: The size of my internet varies. Some days the size of my online presence feels immeasurably wide and multi-layered, mostly on my weekends when I allow myself to just get lost in the internet wilderness. Under the week my internet becomes kind of physical, similar to the apartment I live in. A space with rooms you enter for a certain purpose, filled with just everything I need for everyday (work) life.
K: How do you think about time?
Lukas: I often tell myself and others that time is the most precious thing we all have. Our perception of time not only changes as we get older, but also as our society progresses. Remember when we have been back at school, some days just didn’t want to go by? Today, most of my days feel like they only have a couple of hours. I observed in my weekly OS log (alias my weekly reflections) that I often noted: "I didn't have enough time for doing this and that". I can highly recommend watching the documentary SPEED – In search of lost time by Florian Opitz, exploring the meaning of time in our modern society.
K: How do you prepare for death?
Lukas: In the past, I haven't thought of death too often. It’s fairly easy to forget about our vulnerability. My relationship with death changed when I first read the manifesto of Vadik, the founder of LOT2046. A fellow spirit in my age, making death part of his daily code of practice. Principle #28: “Remind yourself daily — you and everyone you know will die”. Mortality is part of his everyday routine, whereby he reaches a whole new level of inner calm and satisfaction, which, in turn, pushes his creative expression.
K: Who are your spiritual mothers and fathers?
Lukas: My way of discovering spirituality is a rather odd story. Growing up in a county like Austria, with its society heavily influenced by Christian church, teaches you that spirituality is connected with religion. Even though I find some historical aspects of religion quite interesting, I quitted my membership as soon as I turned 18. Fascinated by motorsports and its legends, I came across Ayrton Senna when his documentary got published. An extraordinary driver and great human being, talking about spirituality, flow of energies and love in a world dominated by cold capitalistic power and egos. Another spiritual inspiration is Osho and his ten commandments, which I first heard about from my friend and mentor Carla.
K: Where do you go to get lost?
Lukas: The only way I really can lose myself in thoughts is by sitting somewhere inside, preferably somewhere near a chimney, and staring out of a window. Be it in a hood somewhere in nature, a train wagon cutting through landscapes or my apartment in Copenhagen.
K: What question would you ask a tree?
Lukas: How can I become one of you?
K: What was one rabbit hole you recently fell into?
Lukas: I recently fell (and I am still in there) into the rabbit whole of the history and evolution of the railway. As part of our recent project, we started to ask ourselves why trains are not the preferred mode of transport in times of a rapidly accelerating climate emergency. The answers are rather complex, but it is super interesting to explore how our society has developed through different and changing forms of mobility.
ROADSIDE FLOWERS
INTERNET STORIES
Our understanding of technology is limited. I’m not referring to our knowledge of technology, but our understanding of what counts as technology. It is as if we are blinded by newness, forgetting everything that doesn’t rhyme with AI. Whether you agree or not, please enjoy this short rant by Ursula K. Le Guin. I’m a fan. Via Patrick.
“Our goal at DOOM! will be to consider a plurality of futures and then do everything that we can to prevent nuclear war, oblivion and ruin.” So starts The Doom Report, co-written by the founders of K-Hole, random survey respondents and GPT3. It is hard to say what is true in the report, but maybe that is a trend we are witnessing the end of anyway?
TikTok has been a frequent mention in the Reader Interviews. I’ve not downloaded the app. Reading Kyle Chayka’s post on the experience of using TikTok, I’ll still not download the app, for the same reason as I do not allow myself to have Civilization installed on my computer, it is too addictive.
INTERNETMEZZO
The Anti-Browser. (Via Luka)
“The television isn’t able to change the appearance or flow of a program. A browser can do that. If we had browsers that change every blue color to red, the Internet would not have blue, and the user wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. He would actually be sure that every site never contains blue.”
Hi, I’m Kristoffer and you have just read Naive Weekly — Observations from the Internet Wilderness.
Last week this newsletter was sent to 693 people. Thirty are crazy enough to chip in every month/year to support me making time to write this newsletter: Nikolaj, Lars, Ditte, Jakob, Antal, Anders, Sascha, Cecilie, Søren, Dries, Tina, Gautier, Sarper, Maarten, Mystery x2, Joshua, Thomas, Mikkel, Aydo, Lukas, Hans, Vibe Johanne, Csongor, Dad, Yinka, Stine, Troels, William & Angela!
Photograph by Ana Santl.
<3
Kristoffer