Wilderness Land
Another Sunday, Another Naive Weekly — Observations From The Internet Wilderness.
Dear Visitor,
Welcome to Wilderness Land. Here you find five hundred odd, personal, and poetic places to visit on the Internet. It is not a directory but an ever evolving field of wildflowers.
All the sites are hidden, so you need to explore the map with your mouse cursor to discover new places to get lost. The Internet is all around us, you live right in it. It’s magic.
With care,
Kristoffer
ABOUT WILDERNESS LAND
We spend all of our internet attention in recommended feeds and closed apps; it is time to do the opposite, jumping through links, filling our bookmarks, falling down rabbit holes. The first action is to draw a map. A map to gather our discoveries, to navigate our world, and to remind us of unexplored territories. A map to get lost.
Wilderness Land is my map. It is a celebration of web surfing: an evolving archive of discoveries from my adventures through the web. It is links instead of likes. It is a portal between the known and the unknown, a reminder to escape the scrolling feed, and an attempt to produce other worlds than the myth of the death web.
I have hidden five hundred links across the map. To find the links move your mouse cursor over the map. You have discovered a link when your cursor changes from the arrow to the pointing finger. Since mobile phones do not have a cursor, Wilderness Land is primarily a desktop experience. Should you encounter a website of particular liking, try to hunt the nearby area for other links. Like when you are mushroom foraging.
Behind the map is a Google Sheet. So I did not have to use any code to make the map. However, I owe tribute to BodieH’s D&D map creator template. As for the names of the places, I was considering using Sad Topographies as recommended by multiple readers. However, I decided to use a simple online name generator. Finally, the images are from DeviantArt and Open Game Art. Questions and comments are welcome. To be continued.
ROADSIDE FLOWERS
FIELD NOTES
Can Are.na Make The Internet Calm Down?
Are.na is my favourite discovery website and archiving tool. See for an example how I use Are.na to store references for my personal projects like Wilderness Land, Penpal Café, and Codename URLPC (coming 2022). That said, don’t read this interview with the founders of Are.na expecting an answer to the clickbait-ish title. Instead, read it to gain a glimpse of an alternative tech-founder vision than the one promoted by venture capital-backed startups.
Internet Walks
“How do you take a walk with someone on the internet?” is the leading question in this art project, where five different people unfold their surroundings using the folder structure. It is cute. And a very different twist from Jay Springett’s “Come Internet With Me,” which I always imagined as Internet walks. Maybe I should start doing my own Internet walks?
COLLECTIONS
Ps. I’m happy to receive more!
Hi, I’m Kristoffer and you have just read Naive Weekly — Observations from the Internet Wilderness.
Last week this letter was sent to 757 people. 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.