Adad Books, Athens

March 27, 2024

Dear reader

A friend practices phone-swapping to look at other people's social feeds. It is not a psychological quest for him; it is not an interrogation of the algorithm, the digital doppelgänger trained by the company to keep people hooked and sell ads. He doesn't aim to surface the secrets of the other person. What he is looking for is life outside of his own being.

My friend's name is D.

D is a photographer with exhibitions in leading galleries and campaigns for high-end fashion houses. His social feeds broadcast other worlds than mine. Sometimes, our worlds overlap when photos by mutual friends appear in the flow, but mostly, our worlds remain disconnected.

That's the thing with the internet. It is not a singular place: the internet is made up by many internets. Some are connected, and some are not. This makes it hard to talk about the internet because your internet is unlikely to be similar to mine. Even when we visit the same social site, we experience different worlds. Where D sees a subcategory of photography, I meet a fraction of handmade websites. Only if we dress incognito can we get a sense of the physical town square where the passing rain, kids playing, and loud boombox affect everyone, but at this point, it is no longer our internet.

Instead of discussing whether the internet is good or bad, I suggest we start by asking: do you want to show me your internet?

Once we have mapped each other's internet, we can air when and where the internet enriches our lives, societies, and umwelt. Making Diagram.website is my attempt at mapping the internet I love, the curatorial landscape of my weekly newsletter, the annual conference, and surreal estates.

With care

Kristoffer