Beyond Text: The Handmade Web: Reclaiming Digital Spaces was a panel discussion session that invited participants to think about the hand-made web, hosted by Christine Chong with Amalina Lai and Rafi Abdullah as speakers.
Learn more about the event here!
Pre-event questions
- How do you think gen AI plays a role in crafting a handmade web? Does it seek to collaborate or replace?
Lina’s sharing
Visit Lina’s site! There’s so much to explore there alone.
- Using the web as a way to share what you’re curious + passionate about
- 404 pages: liminal spaces, how can we reimagine them?
- Interactivity: Lina used her 404 page as a text-based adventure game — pretty interesting!
- Lina’s definition on the handmade web
- Mindful + organic in exploring the internet; branching rather than a singular stream
- Active roles in defining internet experience
- Exploring rabbit holes; link-to-link based on interested
- Unguided by algorithms but by interest
- Doing something rewarding + fun for yourself
- Slow-paced, tended by care + effort
Rafi’s sharing
- https://negentropicfields.info/T-01_RA
- Art recommendations
- Age of You — radical engineering of human experience by digital interfaces
- The Age of Earthquakes
- Collapse of binaries: public vs private (feelings once private now very public and online); real vs fake; individual vs crowd
- Post-naïve internet era: new movement of creators looking at the internet with a new lens — see https://co-matter.com/project/welcome-to-the-post-naive-internet
- Trust: turning of tools (e.g. Twitch for live streaming) into productive non-money-making experiences
- Decentralised communities — forum boards, then converted to centralised platforms with decentralised communities (e.g. Discord)
- Dark forest analogy again — the idea that a civilisation keeps to itself in a “dark forest”, preventing communication w/ other civilisations
- Perfectly Imperfect
- Are.na
- Substack
- Rebuilding platforms that reject monetisation and the idea of creating for others
- Is whatever you do online performative?
Panel discussion
- Language used in the internet is based on books (e.g. “webpage”, “content page”)
- The internet was the first way of reading non-linearly; we regress now with algorithmic systems telling us what to read next
- Visual culture has become more prominent — in the past, we relied on text as a way to interact and bond; today, we replaced that with images and being able to see the other end
- Intentions shape the language; that’s how Substack has a “carry my own voice” vibe
- Digital gardens: people are uploading notes onto websites (heeeeey) — Zettelkasten system to craft a web of knowledge
- So, in a way, pursuing digital gardening is a rejection of the commercialisation of yourself; you let your curiosity decide what you do, and that is readable by anyone on the internet
- Pulling (based on interest, e.g. digital gardens) vs pushing (against your will, e.g. ads); agency with how you interact with the internet
- Hand-made vs existing platforms — to what extent is something considered hand-made?
- Lina has a more liberal perspective to what the hand-made web can be; coding can be time-intensive and difficult to pick up; anything cared for by a human (e.g. digital gardens) or has the spirit of exploration
- Rafi also has a liberal idea of the hand-made web; at the end of the day it’s the niat — intention — that matters
- Aesthetic of the “hand-made web”: nostalgic ’90s vibe; how can you tell if someone is just borrowing the old tech aesthetic vs actually living the ethos of crafting the hand-made web?
- THIS!!! I’ve been thinking about this!!!
- The ’90s presented the idea of “a new world” — much more so in Singapore, which experienced mass globalisation in that decade
- We can appreciate both happening at the same time: appreciating the visual language and using that to create your web hand-made
- There can be a discernible difference between an individual embracing the joy of the visual aesthetic of a time passed vs an organisation that uses that same aesthetic to sell you a vibe from that time
- Rafi brought up CARI
- It can be something authentic even if someone approaches the idea of a hand-made web as an aesthetic first — is that where I am, or have I moved beyond that?
- Does the hand-made web risk become artisanal (only accesible to those who can afford the time and cultural capital + the privilege)?
- Slow-surfing has now become a privilege — already experiencing the internet beyond the accelerated narratives is already a privilege in itself (e.g. because of responsibilities)
- An appeal of the hand-made web is the decentralised + democratic nature: you make the space what you want it to be, but there is the privilege of accessing the internet, having the time + attention to curate this space for yourself, etc.
- A problem of the hand-made web: it’s based off an internet of the past where computers/desktops are the primary medium; it’s now an added responsibility to consider accessibility + different device factors
- Economic considerations can drive the change of intention behind something
- Is Wikipedia an example of a successful hand-made web?
- Lina views that it is by her definition; Wikipedia is not algorithmic-driven and cultivated by humans
- Rafi agrees
- I asked a very haphazardly-phrased question about whether the hand-made web benefits from remaining its nicheness
- The panel replied that, economically, it does make sense — considering platform costs, maintenance, and other things that economically require it to remain niche — but in the spirit of the word, not necessarily
Post-event reflection
I think that the event covered a lot of different bases that surrounds the hand-made web, and it gave a lot of clearer insight about it as a whole. Lina shared more about the philosophy behind the hand-made web, along with the things she’s made along the way that were her foray into it. Rafi shared more about the design and considerations behind the hand-made web.
I now know that the hand-made internet, and a personal internet, is one that understands the effort of labour in its creation — the idea that human hands were responsible for its becoming, and that it resembles the person who created it.
The panel discussion highlighted the idea that even slow-surfing is a privilege today with the little free time we have, but it’s all the more interesting then that so many people are curating their own personal corners of the internet — rejecting the notion that we have to visit the same big websites everyday to connect with each other.