I am on a personal journey of sorts to explore independent websites via the Internet Phone Book project and report out on my explorations.
This morning, I typed 17 into the phone and landed on a site called “electrocute.”
First impressions? It’s got a fascinating design aesthetic with content around technology and design and textiles, and it looks like there are a lot of tutorials and small projects, including music-themed ones that caught my attention. This interactive Wind Chime generator is beautiful and soothing. I got lost in it for a bit of time.
I was trying to find an About Me page for Yafira (which I think is the name of the person behind the site) and stumbled upon a blog link and then found a manifesto entitled: Soft Computing, Soft Textiles, Soft Worlds. I see now that Yafira is a student at NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program.
They write: “But I don’t just think of soft computing as a technical construct. I think of it as something tactile. Something tender. I imagine a computer that feels like fabric. A phone that squishes. A wearable that folds with your body, that warms up gently when held. A soft object that stores not just data, but memory, comfort, feeling.”
Which brings me back to some inquiry we had done years ago in the CLMOOC community around LED and fabrics and coding, and the whole hacker/maker ethos we were trying to encourage in teachers, so they could bring that to the classroom. This electrocute site is a cool reminder that people like Yafira are still thinking in that direction and pushing boundaries.
And their most recent post is called Poetic Pattern Recognition. It’s a thoughtful at how technology can intersection with the very human act of writing poetry. Man, this also resonates with inquiry and explorations I have done over the years. Way to go, Yafira, whomever you are and wherever you are – keep up the curiosity.
We are not machines, but we speak their language in whispers and rhyme. – Yafira
I took that and used it as inspiration for a poem.
Peace (in the spaces between digital and analog),
Kevin