I like pairing images and text. I have an idea I would like to propose, and this simple html format is my preferred way of doing that.
The above image is of the architect Terunobu Fijimori, and friends, carrying a special ladder for climbing up into one of his floating teahouses. I want to build floating tea houses, too. I've put together this 'html flipbook' to solidify my intention of pursuing that goal. I want this webpage to feel like a treehouse: snug, elevated, playful, imaginative. This landing page is like a ladder up to this contemplative digital space.
My favorite kind of architecture is the kind designed to focus your mind.
The idea of 'time and motion studies' comes from the world of industrial efficiency. They studies were short films focused on sequence and timing of assembly processes in manufacturing. I am interested in repurposing this concept in a playful way. I am interested in forms of 'radical efficiency' that I see as relevant to navigating the uncertainties of our shared material future.
Efficiency is like a string that ties all my ideas together. I'm invested in doing more with less, and in developing a heightened sensitivity to my effect on the world around me.
This is an image of the space between two shipping containers, slowly scrolling back and forth. It's an abstraction that I'd like to use as a backdrop for talking about a lot of different kinds of ideas. Ideas about technology, energy, history, etc. Shipping containers are abstractions that you can put anything inside.
I chose to focus on the space between the containers because this is, literally, where I would like to locate my art practice. I want to build a treehouse workshop in two 20 foot shipping containers, and use the space between as covered outdoor workspace, suitable for working in 3 seasons. The shipping containers offer easy lockable storage, and serve as protective enclosures for lightweight architectural constructions.
It's very important to me, the way the green containers meld into the trees behind them, and act as a projection screen for the shadows of these trees. I want to start something like a business - a financially sustainable art practice, at least - and I want it to be the greenest game in town. I want it to nestle perfectly into the trees, disturbing nothing around it, including the air. This workshop should be quiet enough to let the birdsong through.
This slow scrolling feels like a download inbound through an old modem. I like the Web 1.0 idea of a global village. Tech companies have parceled-up and commodified digital space like land surveryors in the Belgian congo. I wish the role of computers in society was more modest in scope. Our computers are both frighteningly powerful, and never fast enough. Computers receive so much of our intellectual and emotional attention. They drain so much of our life force. I'm interested in a digital economy predicated on the abundance, rather than the scarcity, of attention.
The container is a house for the teahouse. Html is a container for my ideas. Both offer open platforms that can be built on top of.
This essay is a piece of 'slow thinking'. I think you might find it interesting. I want to present a whole range of ideas, but I want to do so at a leisurely pace. I've chosen to use this 'digital teahouse' as a capsule to hold these pieces of imagination.