workshop

"I evoke the term 'handmade web' to suggest slowness and smallness as forms of resistance."
- J. R. Carpenter

This workshop will attempt to introduce the basics of the web (html + css) through the use of templates, tampering, and copy-pasting with the goal of producing a website that evades the typical uses and values that are deemed "useful" in the web today. I think of the web today as a fast, flowing, military-industrial rapids lined with pockets of calm, resistant eddies.

(let's head for the eddy)

What else can we use the web for besides providing endless nourishment to the imperial platforms that we claim as home today?

How can we reclaim it as space that we feel capable of making in and for?

Some questions to ask when making a website:

who might my website harm?
who is my website for?
what data can be collected from my website?
is my website useful to the military?

Consider a website as:

a memory
a poem
a still life
a self-portrait
a quiet room
a humidifier

The goal is to stay messy and free; there is time to refine later. What's important is that we explore the limits and nuances of making on the web.

Olia Lialina - My Boyfriend Came Back From the War

Nick Montfort - Taroko Gorge

The Cape - J.R. Carpenter

Jodi.org - untitled

We'll need two (2) essential tools: a browser and a text-editor.

Chrome or Firefox
Atom, Sublime, or Brackets

Then we'll download the template: (The Template)

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And now we can begin!

Tools:

Beyond:

Further Reading: