The below is excerpted from the blog entry...
https://www.are.na/blog/onion-and-rocks
The “internet onion” is a webzine anthology that explores the possibility of love online. It started as a simple writing prompt with my interactive design class at Yale two springs ago—we started by wondering what thoughtful or generous interfaces might feel or behave like, and if there is any way to best send and receive love online, “reaching across the chasm of seamless signal” in any meaningful way.
Like love, onions absorb and magnify the time and energy you put in. Both have incredible healing properties, which we need now more than ever amid a global pandemic. Expressing love online is no longer a mere desire but a visceral need.
This project was begun as a seed two years ago, when I read artist Fei Liu’s writing, “A drop of love in the cloud.” One year ago, her words inspired a prompt for my class, and my students’ writings evolved into a web publication that we together compiled, edited, designed, illustrated, and developed. After a long time coming, I’m announcing it today with the help of Are.na.
Just so you know, this publication will eventually rot and die. It’s an onion, and the shelf life of a non-refrigerated onion is about 5 weeks. Thankfully, onions are perennial, and this one will return online around this time next year. “Who knows what will be going on then, what new things will arise to keep us apart, and what new inventive ways we’ll devise to stay together,” supposes Meg Miller in the onion’s final layer.
From another blog entry (on decay)...
https://fruitful.school/blog/2020-09-17.html
So much thought and energy often goes into how something we create goes up, but what about when it comes down?
Websites are often assumed to be up and running 100% of the time. Of course, certain websites we depend on for health and knowledge need to be. But in the case of an artistic project, the web medium is inherently performative — why not embrace it if it makes sense for the project at hand?