Laurel Schwulst, My Website is a Shifting House Next to a River of Knowledge

What is a website?

- “A website is a file or bundle of files living on a server somewhere. A server is a computer that’s always connected to the internet, so that when someone types your URL in, the server will offer up your website. Usually you have to pay for a server. You also have to pay for a domain name, which is an understandable piece of language that points to an IP. An IP is a string of numbers that is an address to your server.” - “Links (rendered default blue and underlined—they’re the hypertext “HT” in HTML) are the oxygen of the web. Not all websites have links, but all links connect to other webpages, within the same site or elsewhere.” - “But my students already know this! So when they ask me about actually making a website, they are referring to a website in the world … today.”

I am glad Schwulst brought up the topic of “what is a website in the world today.” I think a lot of people are scared to get started in web design because there is this preconceived notion that things need to be done a certain way, or there are certain rules you must follow. A clean, corporate, and no-nonsense website is the only way to go… This is completely false. A website can have multiple intentions or possible variables and outcomes, not just clarity.

- “My favorite aspect of websites is their duality: they’re both subject and object at once. In other words, a website creator becomes both author and architect simultaneously. There are endless possibilities as to what a website could be.”

What can a website be? Website as room Website as shelf Website as plant Website as garden Website as puddle Website as thrown rock that’s now falling deep into the ocean

In conclusion, the web is whatever we make it. Laurel Schwulst stresses that these metaphors of what the web is keep it alive. She also touches on the digital divide and the importance of solving the issue. Precedently, we can’t fall behind. The web is always changing and we must stay updated. As she puts it “if a website has endless possibilities, and our identities, ideas, and dreams are created and expanded by them, then it’s instrumental that websites progress along with us.”

As artists it is important that we all have our own space on the Internet. One that is our own. One that is unique to us and speaks for us. I would like to push this concept a little further and argue that we ALL should have a space online, whatever it may look like.