Ambient Co-presence

we were online

Turn the internet into a living, shared space with real-time traces of people browsing.

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Connected places: understanding how the new social web works

Federating friendly spaces - Roomy

hearkening back to the cozy vibes of old-web neighborhoods

The Web Needs a Context Layer Built on a Shared Protocol

Making context a shared protocol, rather than a platform feature, would let readers see competing perspectives anywhere on the web, argue Mallory Knodel, Evan Friedman, and Brad Friedman.

Introducing Ringspace: A Proposal for the Human Web

For months, I've been working on a project to demonstrate how we can preserve humanity on the web. It's finally ready for testing.

No Sense of Place: The Impact of Electronic Media on Social Behavior

Electronic media present us with a collage of experiences from everyplace. We eat dinner at home while watching starving children thousands of miles away reach out to us for food. From our easy chairs, we stare at blindfolded hostages, and coolly

Spatial Web Browsing

Adding spatial affordances to the experience of browsing the web

A space to converse and connect.

An X/Twitter Spaces alternative for Bluesky and the open web. Creating good vibes in the friendly skies.

Architecture and the Internet: Designing places in cyberspace

Cyberspace, as the information space is called, has become accessible in the past decade through the World Wide Web. And although it can only be experienced through the mediation of computers, it is quickly becoming an alternative stage for everyday economic, cultural, and other human activities. As such, there is a potential and a need to design it according to place–like principles. Making places for human inhabitation is, of course, what architects, landscape architects, and town planners have been doing in physical space for thousands of years. It is curious, therefore, that Cyberspace designers have not capitalized on the theories, experiences, and practices that have been guiding physical place–making. While most 3D environments closely mimic physical spaces, they are, by and large, devoid of the essential characteristics that differentiate a ‘place’ from mere ‘space.’ And only rarely are they sensitive to, and take advantage of, the peculiarities of Cyberspace. We believe that this state of affairs is temporary, characteristic of early adoption stages of new technologies. As the Web matures, and as it assumes more fully its role as a destination rather than as means of communication, there will be a growing need to design it according to place–making principles. By looking at physical architecture as a case study and metaphor for organizing space into meaningful places, this paper explores the possibility of organizing Cyberspace into spatial settings that not only afford social interaction, but, like physical places, also embody and express cultural values. At the same time, because Cyberspace lacks materiality, is free from physical constraints, and because it can only be ‘inhabited’ by proxy, these ‘places’ may not necessarily resemble their physical counterparts.

Gradients of intimacy and creating shelter: An interview with Erin Kissane

How might we use nature as an inspiration for creating online communities?

The inequities of our remote gathering tools

As we’ve been transitioning our in-person communities to virtual ones, our modes of interaction are now firmly established in tiny…

Quiet, and Sometimes Silent

Quiet, and Sometimes Silent is an on-going project that explores proximity, intimacy, and subtle communication. Two DIY wearable pieces talk to each other through LoRa, a wireless protocol that enables small data-packet transmissions using a free, hobbyist radio frequency. As two people approach each other, their headpieces morph into different shapes – flapping, shrinking, producing buzzing sensations and movements. Together, they turn into mutating sculptures, communicating with nonverbal subtlety. This project draws correlation between protocols outside of heavily surveilled mass superstructures and the state of acquainted human relationships, exploring the idea that small movements and sporadic data exchange can resemble our loose social connections with the people around us.

toward a new aesthetic

Lately I’ve been thinking about what being online looks like. The actual look of it. The aesthetic. As I continue to think and write and talk about escaping...

toward a new aesthetic

Lately I’ve been thinking about what being online looks like. The actual look of it. The aesthetic. As I continue to think and write and talk about escaping...