(d)écrivons un web sensible
(d)écrivons un web sensible (tr. describing/writing a soft web) is a 5-day workshop that is both an introduction to webmaking and performance work. "Today, platforms, which take advantage of their monopolies, and which enclose our content in 1080*1080px squares or in posts limited to 140 characters (preventing us from repainting the walls of these famous digital houses), are following the logic of impersonal computing, i.e. the transformation of the computer into an accessory, at the expense of true mastery of reading and writing.
However, there are movements, inherited from Net Art, that celebrate a poetic Internet: approaches that not only reclaim forgotten spaces and uses of the web, but also celebrate an artistic (and very often naive) way of coding. The resulting sites are used to tell a story, keep a recipe book, write down dreams, and so on.
« We only write the computer medium when we do
not simply generate materials, but tools. Don’t get me wrong, not all medium writing needs to happen on an old-style terminal, without the aid of a graphical interface. Writing the computer medium is also designing a macro in Excel or assembling an animation in Scratch. » (Silvio Lorusso)
In this workshop, students create websites, using only html/css, (without javascript) : this site is used as a support for a performance presentation. This allows the students to use this site as a stage tool, exploring CSS animations and navigation. In the past, students told stories about their online presence : an hommage to online friends, a story about a youtube comment that made them cry or the souvenir of a family blog.
The aim is to ensure consistency between the graphic and narrative choices made both in real life and on the screen.
‘The website’s representational space (screen) and the performance space of the theatre (stage) operate with the same basic ’ transcription conventions’ [...] in both cases, the scenic space has no roof and only three walls (Daniel Verville, Jean-Paul Lafrance -The art of chatting on the internet)
Thanks to le Lycée des Arènes for hosting this workshop in 2025.
