Olia Lialina’s Vernacular Web 2
Olia Lialina has put her new network theory talk online. Her research catalogs ‘vintage’ Web aesthetics (including, ahem, the glitter folder). Here’s Cory Doctorow on her work:
Olia Lialina’s illustrated essay “Vernacular Web 2” builds on her earlier work, which is to “collect, classify and describe the most important elements of the early Web – visual as well as acoustic – and the habits of first Web users, their ideas of harmony and order.” The earliest days of the web were unkind to traditional designers, many of whom took some time to come to grips with floating window sizes, user-selectable fonts, and the limited palette of design elements in early HTML. The result was a folk-aesthetic, where untrained eyes and sensibilities dominated the look of the net. Much of that original look is gone now, but Lialina’s work brings it back and starts to delve into what it all means — and how its progeny still can be found online today.