dear friends,

on hot summer nights, this city feels like a clamoring of monsters — with seven varieties of smoke, the noise of constant conflict, and the extension of claws, tentacles, and jaws. if it weren’t for the wind and the sea, the air would be unbearable.

I felt this when I first visited Istanbul in 2021, and four years later, I still feel it now. this is probably why I stayed — the chaos felt familiar, like a womb, as if what I saw in the external world mirrored what I felt inside of me: a clamoring of monsters, waiting to be fed, placated, or released.

it’s terrifying, of course. creature-like creative force doesn’t know timelines, schedules, or planning. it doesn’t care about quality of sleep, regulated nervous systems, responding to emails, paying bills, or the commitments it said it would do. even if I let it swallow me whole, I’ll then feel the urge to spend days or weeks trying to clean up after it, control it, tame it, make it arrive and depart on schedule.

after a decade being in relationship with the digital void, these days, I’m working on my relationship with my creative monsters.

what this really means, is: doing what makes me feel truly alive. following impulses and electricity to the end. being unafraid of my own obsessiveness, my tsunami and fire. this often feels incongruent with what makes me feel safe, responsible, or secure — but that, too, is something I’m challenging, and working on.

what do the monsters want? to make seven new web worlds — for every part of me that ever felt homeless.

to make a deluge of animated films.

to make experimental work about death, fairy tales, sci-fi, mythology, and parallel universes.

to radically transform the internet to make space for beauty, imagination, and otherness.

this week, I finished an animated trailer, which is also a preview and visual itinerary for my new course — sharing space camp. I’m pretty sure that this course is my warm-up to monster work. see details below.

creative courage in the digital void

a 30 second animated trailer / visual syllabus — on the journey of releasing your work into the void.

creative courage in the digital void — kening zhu

releasing your work into digital outer space

🚀 sharing space camp

a guided adventure about the work of sharing your work — beyond all social platforms.

this is a course about the practice of un-self-conscious sharing. it’s about how sharing will utterly transform you — not because of the validation you will or won’t get, but because of who you’ll become, when you transcend all need for validation.

this won’t happen overnight, but my intention is that what you’ll learn here will give you all the tools, resources, and skills you need to propel you into your future self.

live session — July 14th - August 8th
sign up until Sunday, July 13th

explore the itinerary

in the process, we’ll dive deeply into sharing practice, vulnerability in the void, and designing flexible systems and containers.

no, you don’t need to have totally quit social media, or even have a website. you DO need some experience with creating and finishing creative work.

it’s not an intro course about the creative process — it’s a course about letting go of what feels precious, and allowing yourself to be seen.

in a live session, you’ll have my full attention and responsiveness for the duration of the course — as well as the support of an intimate group of other participants. I’ll be creating the course live, in response to your questions, challenges, and requests.

I’ll release the self-paced version in August, but I don’t expect to teach another live version for a while.

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the torture & joy of creative puppetmastery

the very non-linear process of making the animation — how I procrastinated, almost abandoned it, and finished in a day

the torture & joy of creative puppetmastery — kening zhu

a story of a boredom, procrastination, and creative epiphany

drawing ravens as threshold guides

after feeling the urge to draw birds, I drew this on monday, like channeling a creature as guide

drawing ravens as threshold guides — kening zhu

channeling quiet intuition through ravens

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the internet as a creative practice

how I think about the internet as ultimate creative medium, vessel, and form (2024)

the internet as a creative practice — kening zhu

a philosophy for how I create and share everyday

the vulnerability of sharing your work

a 1-10 scale of pain tolerance (2020)

the vulnerability of sharing your work — kening zhu

vulnerability is a muscle of accepting potential pain

how to play the social media game

from another life, when I was grappling with how to ‘be’ on social media (2019)

how to play the social media game — kening zhu

finding more joy and purpose in social media. how can we reframe it, so that it adds to your life and wellbeing — rather than detracting from it?

the birds of my heart are eating out of his hand

there is a juicy story behind this drawing, which I’ll share another day

the birds of my heart are eating out of his hand — kening zhu

honey and walnuts

deep sea life of istanbul traffic

this is what istanbul feels like

getting around istanbul traffic — kening zhu

this red dot is me : traveling from my home on top of a hill to catch the dolmuş

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🩸 reclaiming tango

after many years (four exactly) of tango boredom / repulsion / hibernation from the showsmanship-centered, loaded gender/power/social dynamics, hierarchical, capitalist, competitive toxicity that is the istanbul tango scene, I’ve been dancing again and feeling ready to grapple with tango in ways I haven’t in a long time — from a place of creative sovereignty and radical re-imagination of what’s possible, beyond the terrible cliches of a 12 minute artifical performance of passion.

yes, this is one of my 7 web worlds, coming soon.

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thank you for being here.

I’ll write to you in a few weeks, or speak to you in sharing space camp — starting monday.

🪼

until soon,

PS. to celebrate the launch of my course, I’ll either start watching Star Trek or Dr. Who, or re-watch Star Wars. any strong recommendations?

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🍃 listen to my podcast: botanical studies of internet magic

🏔️ explore my courses: house on the webs | creative systems | sharing space camp

🪷 inquire about advising sessions

🌔 visit otherworldly - a web alchemy studio

💧 send me a gift: water my world