¸.✿¸.•°”˜Ӝ˜” °☆¸.✿ ARE.NA CHANNEL GENERATOR ✿.¸☆° ”˜Ӝ˜”°•.¸✿.¸

THE MONTH YOU WERE BORN:

JAN- Decapitalizing
FEB- Virtual
MAR- Morphological
APR- Dystopian
MAY- Graphic
JUN- Digital
JUL- Sustainable
AUG- Liminal
SEP- Floral
OCT- Archival
NOV- Theoretical
DEC- Feminist

+++++PLUS+++++

FIRST LETTER OF YOUR LAST NAME:

A- Product
B- Perspectives
C- Vibes
D- Board
E- References
F- Mockups
G- Style
H- Research
I- Truth
J- Commerce
K- Type
L- Design
M- Utopias
N- Scapes
O- Websites
P- Intelligence
Q- Climate Change
R- Gardens
S- Objects
T- Fashion
U- Spaces
V- Morphologies
W- Interiors
X- Futures
Y- Inspo
Z- Shapes

One of the ways I'm trying to get "better" at using Are.na is being more conscientious about titling and/or adding descriptions to my blocks and channels. It's easy to not do this because I've become used to privileging speed over long-term use (i.e. it's easy to add things, but harder/more time-consuming to label them, particularly if it means having to actually research the content). Also, I might have a pretty good idea of where I've put everything, but no one else will. This, to me, is key to making Are.na a more communal project than an individualistic one. Labeling helps make what you've added more useful to others (and yourself in the long term!). By creating a culture around "tending to" / "taking care" of the things we add, Are.na becomes more useful for everyone, like a community garden :^). I should note that I would not want Are.na to go the direction of Pinterest where users are required to add titles/descriptions because forcing it down your throat doesn't actually engender care (this is a key distinction for me). I imagine it might be possible to encourage this behavior more through UI/UX, but I think the desire and behavior should ultimately come from the users themselves.

12/20/17

One of my beliefs is that Are.na has potential not just as a researching platform for other projects (blogging, presentation decks, web design, gallery exhibits) but as a publishing platform in its own right, where users are able to present ideas to an audience. One way to do this is to build sort of playlists for ideas, where by assembling text and media documents you're actually making a sort of argument, or presenting a sort of worldview. Another way is by using the container system as a format to stack and structure original fragments of ideas.

I'm tempted to use the word "postmodern" to describe this publishing platform, because there's a way in which things are deconstructed into blocks, but that's actually missing the fundamental mechanism of how Are.na works. What's actually happening is reconstruction, where a bunch of scattered blocks are built into a new structure all of their own.