032025: The Screenless Office
It has been invisible at first. But over the past years, I noticed it more and more: this weird barrier between me and my computer. I spend so much time sitting in front of it! And recently, it seems like the connection between me and the work has eroded. There is a gap, or a crack, or a transparent barrier, and sometimes I can’t pass it by.
So why is that? What‘s the missing link? I still love computing, and work, and making stuff?! Is it the interface? All these open windows, but no fresh air? Is it the hardware? Am I finally ready for augmented reality goggles? Is it my crippled attention span that makes a flow state so hard to achieve? Probably a mix of it all.
This whole debacle of my work-desk-mind-disconnect reminded me of a course during my Interaction design studies at university, titled The Screenless Office. Facilitated by Brendan Howell, the task was to translate contemporary digital workstations into analog workflows and media. The class was embedded within a broader artistic project, as Brandon writes on its website:
The Screenless Office is a system for working with media and networks without using a pixel-based display. It is an artistic operating system. (…) It is constructed using free/libre/open hard- and software components, especially for print, databases, web-scraping and tangible interaction.
And, while the project is well over 10 years old, it touches on many topics that I still find interesting (and relevant) today. Like the idea of a screenless office as a counterpoint towards efficiency:
[The screenless office] is freed from the implicit social requirement that new technological projects conform to standard principles of progress, universality and efficiency.
The radical removal of screens (and therefore current interfaces) as a way to kindle ideas and creativity again:
These interfaces have become so embedded in our conception of reality that we now have a crisis of the imagination, where it is difficult to even think of anything different.
I usually find it tricky to apply an artistic idea like the Screenless Office to an everyday work setup (which clearly cannot be screenless), but it tickles a nerve: Within my social bubble, there is this constant longing for less screen time, more time outdoors, hiding under a rock, etc etc, and just seeing an utopia like this can ease the mind a bit: There’s always another way of doing things.
Three screen-free jobs I can see myself doing:
Best Boy at a film set (I’d be labeling all the cables!)
Gardener (I’d meticulously sculpt those trees)
Choreographer (I have no clue what it involves exactly, but I think I‘d be good at it)
What would be yours?
Goings-on about town (as in my timeline):
On Liquid Glass: I have yet to meet the one person who is excited about Apple’s new visual design language. So much has been written already, and I strongly resonated with Naz Hamid’s blog post about it: Different Think.
Frame of preference: Marcin Wichary takes us down memory lane with Apple’s system settings, from 1984–2004. I just love a well-designed niche deep-dive like that, and I, too, was frustrated when Apple ditched its iconic system settings layout in 2022. A general life advice: Find your people who are as emotionally attached to a system settings layout as you are.
Solar-powered blogging: The Low-Tech Magazine has been around for a while, but I appreciate coming back to it every now and then, as it touches on societal, technological, and sustainability topics like public bathhouses and hot water bottles.
Summer has been idle, but is planning its comeback. My (phone’s) screen time average is currently down to 3.5h/day, and I can live with that. This was, by the way, the 50th edition of this newsletter—I’ll probably do 50 more. Thanks for reading! Yours truly—Christoph.