The readings for this week were very interesting in thinking about reframing how we ideate and think. I feel like my personal relationship with the web feels like I’m a smaller piece in a larger machine, so reading about discovering a “local” mindset in digital spaces was intriguing. Based on Fukuoka’s ideology, we can reclaim power and control by taking over smaller microcosms of the web, where we can envision other worlds or “utopias” that better suit our wants and needs out of interacting with the Internet. I also found it interesting in the “On How to Grow an Idea” reading, the question of “What happens when moving forward means actually taking something away?”. In this way when we think about approaches to interacting with the web, it may serve us better to strip ourselves from the mainstream, commodified spaces that we typically engage in. This coincides with the “Learning Trails” reading, where it talks about navigating the web as a trail rather than a map, “it takes a certain combination of intention, orientation, and pacing to learn in a hypertext way”. When we surf the web in this way, we offer ourselves the opportunity to think and ideate in ways that break the linear constriction. In the same way in the Charles Broskosi interview, someone talks about bouncing between two different audiobooks to unlock another dimension of creative thinking, if we imagine all of the mediums we are consuming content from as nodes, where the individual draws the networks that link them together, we can break the linear mode of thinking. In this way, by self procuring “links” across these non-static nodes, these nodes can intermingle and spur new modes of thought.

Large corporations and service providers make the once decentralized internet a much more centralized environment. We now see large databases that house personal information, where we used to experience the web in a more independent, autonomous fashion where “everyone tends his or her own little epistemological garden, growing ideas from seed and sharing them with anyone who comes by”. Puts into question how much we depend on search engines and the larger, now corporate controlled technical demands of internet use. The death of the decentralized nature of the internet. We no longer have complete autonomy over our digital identities, and have lost the essence of democracy that is linked to a decentralized web. I personally don’t see an open future for the internet any time soon. Given how much the vast majority of people depend on megacorporations for every aspect of their internet use, it will take an absurd upheaval of a generation of internet users and a shift in the tech landscape towards decentralized applications for us to see any larger trends towards the “open future” The New Republic article discusses. At the same time, when stepping away from thinking about the internet at the large scale, leaning into the more democratized use of the internet has been an empowering experience for me. I particularly enjoy the concept of the website existing as both subject and object at the same time. “When you put energy into a website, in turn the website helps form your own identity.” is a quote that stood out to me especially as I’ve begun to build my class webpage into a more personal website. Through design and aesthetics I feel like I’m gradually learning how to build and share my world and I look forward to learning more tools that can allow me to complete this artistic endeavor. Min Guhong’s presentation is especially reflective of these more personal, and human aspects of website creation. I especially liked the quote, “Don’t try to look cool on purpose. If you’re cool, you look cool naturally. It’s a little sentimental, but making your own website is about loving yourself.”. I think a lot of times when I imagine myself building a website, it needs to be this perfect thing that has a lot of bells and whistles and is really seamless. But I’m beginning to learn how to dismantle this association of websites with the clean, corporate web I’m used to interacting with, and finding the means to express my individuality in its truest form through web design.

TODO