This is my first lab update after going full-time researcher! There are so many things that call my attention in this space that I want to give dedicated time to, and I’m excited to follow my nose to explore this ever-expanding tunnel. I’m not sure what I’ll find or how much “use” it will be, but I know that it’ll be fun and interesting. So thank you for sitting with me in my searching, questioning, and wandering.

I would like to explicitly extend an invite for you to make yourself at home in this space of writing and prototyping. I envision my lab notes as an open workshop, one where you can feel free to redline and tinker and give open feedback. I write to riff and to seed open questions, and the cycle is only completed through your generous attention and response.

As I’ve been talking to many people about my explorations, this rough diagram of overlapping interests has formed:

This week, I’ve been exploring some prototypes and experiences around...

atten: embedded sites for reorienting attention: demo video
- I’ve been framing this exploration as the opposite of a todo-list, something that rejects optimization and getting things done and rather an instrument for sitting with things that you want to linger and become intimate with, as well as cultivate grounding rituals. There are two aspects:
  - Prompting: You supply a list of prompts, and every so often, it will confront you while you are browsing the web and ask you to answer (answers are saved to a destination of your choice).
  - Remembering: You supply a data source of things that you want to remember or sit with. These are embedded in the sites you already go to every day to reorient your attention when you are overwhelmed by the flood. (currently I’m supplying an are.na channel)
  - Let me know if you’d like to use this and where you’d like to source the list of information from! I’m finding a lot of value in having this be my default twitter experience personally currently..
“what is the future of data”: ongoing conversations with many people around this question
- as formulated in my research announcement: “modular networks: what is the most usable, extensible form of data? what is as approachable as JSON but as usable as a spreadsheet, as extensible as a relational database, as distributable as RSS?”
- excerpt from a call: "we have all the right ingredients, if we keep meeting, soup will emerge"
- what does a communal-care approach to data look like? What are the food co-ops, the community libraries, the neighborhood art collectives of data?
pondering the question: “what does communal software look like?”
- What does it look like to you?
Very close to launching a website for gathering internet dreams, a place for everyone, especially non-technologists to answer “what do I want from the internet?”
- see a preview 👀
- This has been a fantastic nucleus for fun explorations on the spectrum of collaboration from real-time interactions to persistent async collaborative interactions and a whole wealth of fun user interactions that make the internet feel fun to play in.

In a few days, I’ll share a deeper stand-alone exploration into places on the internet that make unintended commons. As always, I welcome responses, thoughts, and reflections. And if you have the means and enjoy my explorations, a reminder that you can support my research and art by becoming a sponsor. Thank you for being here and sitting with me.

Until next week, with a light heart,

Spencer

spencer's paradoxes

[TI-02] first independent note