Week 13

Open Studios Reflection, Roundtable, and Confirming Deliverables, Refinement

This week was lots of confirmation and refinement for my project.

Reflecting Open Studios Feedback

    • Overall Feedbacks and Comments

Good Comments

Many people resonated with the idea of a digital third space, which the are.na API I integrated helps bring to life; they were particularly excited by the curated repository of websites “Towards a Poetic Web”, with someone even describing it as a “one-time social media”—a phrase I love, as it evokes the feeling of discovering old mini websites you forget about and then joyfully rediscover; the browser art interaction especially intrigued them, a nd I know I need to incorporate that element moving forward.

Opportunities to Improve

Many didn’t fully understand what Internet Art is or how it relates to the creation of the Garden Web, so in future presentations and video documentation, it’s important to explain that first—potentially through visual references to works by artists like JODI or Olia Lialina to help clarify the connection. There were also comments on how the browser pop-ups could be more interactive or engaging, perhaps through the use of simple colors or visuals.



Roundtable Session

    • Overall Feedbacks and Comments

I think I really agreed with Shu Min's comments and feedbacks on how Garden Web feels very static and nothing much gg on, I think the I did have ideas to implement some kind of liveliness to the website, but I'd also have to think of whether i'll be able to execute given the short amount of time and technicals too. Reflecting back on the feedback during open studios and also Shu Min, I think I'd find a creative ways for users to interact with browser art. The zine alone already talks about the problems, and the introduction of a poetic web and the idea behind it, so I think I would leave it as it is, and revised the deliverables again.

Final Deliverable



This will be what I will be working towards to for the final presentation.



Garden Web Refinement

So far, Garden Web already has 3 rooms, Breathing Space, Reflection Space, and Community Garden. And based on Shu Min's feedback and open studios, I would add the final room, which is the gestures to browser room. I started with incorporating the sem one interaction into the website, and tweak things slowly one by the one. The first step was to make the browsers close on its own. Much of this was done through the help of Chatgpt.

After a few hours It worked. yay

Thinking about the interface a bit more… I think it makes sense to remove the camera. The next step is probably just cleaning things up. Simplifying the layout and adding some clear, gentle instructions for people to follow as they interact with it.

I’ve updated the user interface, and the final version of the Playful Space now looks like this. The instructions sit neatly at the side, and the hand is still visible on screen. I also made the pop-ups close automatically, just so they’re not too intrusive or scary for users. (So much for making a playful, net art-inspired websites... what an irony that it had to be quite user friendly too)

Working on this browser art and gesture thing kinda brought back the fun and joy that i had while exploring this whole net art topic again... and when I let my friends try it out, there were equally as excited and found it really fun to play with as well.