For life itself is a bricolage, isn't it? A quixotic do-it-yourself project, assembled from and held together by whatever we have at hand: a homeland (if we're lucky), a home, a few loved ones, a friend or two, and stuff to sate our hunger and fill our waking hours.
A perpetual work-in-progress that we are constantly tinkering with. A tweak here, a change there, in our pursuit to perfect it, even though we know there is no perfection, only a making-do. And sometimes, we need something more drastic, a starting over—a new place, a new lover, a new vision—glad (or heartbroken) to jettison the old.
Sometimes we are proud of what we have made, sometimes ashamed. Sometimes we want to yell about it to the world from rooftops, sometimes we hope no one else will notice its shortcomings, sometimes we simply pretend there are none. The most painful, of course, is when we want to hide it away, as if we'd rather it didn't exist at all.
This is an experiment in a new way of being an artist (for me), both in form and process. What forms become available with the skills I possess as an ex computer-scientist? What art becomes possible with the freedom to play knowing there is always a space (this) for it?
Each webpage is its own little project, a bricolage bringing together an idea or two, some material either created or "borrowed" for the purpose (text, images, audio, video), and an appropriate form chosen/invented for the purpose. I grant myself permission to seek rather than "finish." Some projects are more realized, others are sketches, still others may have yet to find their final form(s).
These are also experiments of and on medium. What new forms can the medium of a webpage support by the flexibility it provides in presentation? If the medium is (also) the message, what messages can a webpage convey through its programmability, personalization, interactivity and connectivity?
In the beginning, the web promised us freedom and diversity. How then did all webpages end up with the same look and feel? Personal communication even has been drowned in a sea of sameness by commercial interests. Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, Instagram, TikTok, Substack, etc. straitjacket us into restrictive, monetizable forms. This is also an experiment in escaping those confines.
Some container form is necessary. I find the blank webpage more intimidating than freeing. As a writer, the conceit of a book is appealing. But not a book that, like the novel I'm working on, I can't share till I deem it "finished." A book that I can update, tinker with and share regularly.
It also interests me, as a writer, to push the form of a book in ways that the "published" book won't allow. What if multiple versions of a single piece can co-exist, where a final decision doesn't need to be made between two (equally interesting) choices? What if infinite variations can co-exist, if the visitor can never experience the same exact piece twice?
Another (technical) consideration: while the site is intended for larger screens, it still must remain accessible on mobile devices. The two-page layout of a page-spread allows for easy translation to the portrait mode on small screens, the pages displayed one below the other. I'm unwilling to spend more effort on devices that encourage shallow engagement.
is bricolage. The anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss introduced the term in "The Savage Mind" as a metaphor for the composition and generation of mythical discourse. But what is art if not an exercise in myth-making? The mythology of any age is created by its artists.
Lévi-Strauss defined the term as the appropriation of pre-existing materials that are ready-to-hand to create something new. Every artist knows they're not creating something new out of nothing, merely rearranging the old to say something (hopefully) new, whether materials or ideas. All art depends on what has come before.
The Oxford Dictionary defines it as "Construction or (esp. literary or artistic) creation from a diverse range of materials or sources. Hence: an object or concept so created; a miscellaneous collection, often (in art) of found objects." Art depends on a shared universe to be comprehensible to its audience. Even a minimalist piece of art depends for its impact on what has been left out.
At its core, the webpage is an always- and everywhere-available dynamic audiovisual medium that is programmable and supports personalization, interactivity and two-way communication. I can't think of any medium more flexible or more powerful than that.
HTML and CSS provide a declarative (outcome-focussed) means to program a webpage, while JavaScript provides an imperative (procedural) way to create and shape user experience. An entire industry of various utilities and libraries has sprung up to make these even more flexible and powerful. Entire websites, applications and games can masquerade now as a single webpage.
This website uses the open source JavaScript framework Nuxt to create, store and serve pages. I'm currently using Tailwind for styling, daisyUI for user-interface components, animejs for html animations, q5*js for graphics, and a host of other libraries and snippets of code as needed. This site wouldn't be possible without these free and freely available resources.
Conventional wisdom states that attention spans over the web are short and must be catered to with easily digestible content that can be consumed quickly. But this is mostly a restatement of how we have been trained by commercial interests, with the anticipation of sporadic unpredictable rewards.
This site (foolishly perhaps) takes the opposite approach. I cannot claim, of course, that your time and attention will be predictably and continually rewarded, only that whatever rewards this site possesses will require some time and attention. This is especially true of pieces that unfold in time or themselves deal with concepts of attention, consumption and interaction.
The landscape of communication is currently undergoing a seismic shift as a result of AI's current successes. The web is surely going to be overrun with content created with minimal human participation and besieged by interactions with human-like agents. Neither can be ignored.
As an ex-computer scientist, I'm impressed by how far AI techniques have progressed since the days (mid-2000s) when they struggled to beat my hand-coded search algorithm for Yahoo (succeeding eventually). The technology is fascinating, and this website is an excuse to indulge that fascination and keep abreast of the latest advances (and their limitations). I intend to experiment with them here.
As an artist, I'm distressed by how (some) AI companies appropriate the hard human labor of others without permission, remuneration or compensation for lost future livelihood. They argue that the tools will benefit humanity overrall by enabling enhanced productivity, creativity and "democratization" of the act of creation. I intend to test some of that here.
For various reasons, including a distrust of algorithm-driven platforms and discomfort with instant/constant connection, I have chosen not to be active on social media. This site is meant to be my only outpost online and my primary means of reaching out. I'm appreciative of your visit.
As much as this site is an act of creation and could be its own recompensation, it is also intended as an act of communication. I would love to hear back from you if there is anything on the site that resonates (or even sits uneasily) with you, or if you have feedback and suggestions on any project. I only ask that your input be respectful and constructive.
I have yet to fashion a way of hearing back from you, which like everything else on the website, I intend to be its own exploration. Until then an email to nawaaz [at] nawaazahmed.com will reach me.