This month’s Dispatch is late because I’ve been occupied enjoying the best part of the PNW: summer. There’s been a lot of walking involved as my friends and I recently got into a Korean app called Walking Charlie; I also used these walks to contribute to Are.na’s Walking Scores. But I’m actually writing this today after a few days of being indoors due to wildfire smoke. What’s there to do when the grass is on fire?
Paying more attention…
This month, I was a part of Sense to Sense taught by Meg Miller and Laurel Schwulst for Ultralight School. I don’t (or, didn’t?) think of myself as a writer, but this class has helped me get reacquainted with writing as a tool for thinking and design. The exercises—each week covering a sense—asked us to pay attention to how things look, feel, sound, smell, taste.
I spent June in New York with the goal of using it as a “mini-residency” period, but of course ended up being distracted by events, friends, and—shockingly—sports. (Lucky me to be there during the Knicks win, but honestly the World Cup has taken over my life. I am watching a game as I write this.) It’s been a buzzy and busy month, but as this new one starts I find myself thinking more about duration and slowness.
In early June, I went to Dia Beacon with friends to see Tehching Hsieh: Lifeworks 1978–1999. I loved re-encountering pieces from some artists who’ve inspired me the most (Sol Lewitt, On Kawara, Agnes Martin), ones who work in scores and produce series of work using their own designed logics. But Tehching Hsieh is someone whose work I’ve only seen in slides during college, and I was struck by the scale of it—not the scale in size, but in duration and discipline.
Tending the Webpage is a workshop for the design- and code-curious to build tools in HTML/CSS/JS for tending and growing a shared webpage together. If you’re in NYC or know others who may be interested, please share this info with them:
I found myself awake at 3am this week, jotting this down into my notes app. If you’re interested in what’s on my mind in the middle of the night (though to be honest, I’m probably always thinking about these things in some form or another), here is my note, unedited. If this makes you think of any texts, projects, or other references that you think I should check out, please send them my way. 💌
what would it mean to create the conditions for the glitches, imperfections, and quirks to exist?
I'm a bit nervous and excited to be writing this first dispatch. As you might know, I (Nicci) am an incubator member this year at NEW INC and have been making steps towards SHIFT CMD, a studio practice for building and publishing experimental interfaces (and soon, hosting gatherings and workshops around this). 🥳🌱 I'm particularly interested in: how can computers and how we interact with them feel stranger, more human, and more collaborative?
TBH, it feels like a terrible, confusing time to be doing anything but despair, but I hope you're still finding pockets of life to enjoy. If you'd like to learn more or catch up in general, let's find some time. I'd love to hear from you!
