Rafaël Rozendaal
Abstract Browsing
(2016)
72 pages
Published by Library of the Printed Web (printedweb.org)

Abstract Browsing is a project that consists of both software and physical objects.

The browser plugin is a free software that you can easily install. When you turn on the plugin, you can surf the web but all web content is reduced to abstract compositions (colored rectangles). It shows the skeleton of the web. It’s like seeing an X-ray of a building, showing the structural elements. Web pages are built of many elements, information is organized and categorized. Things we use every day but are not aware of. Invisible parts. Websites are constantly tweaked to maximize their efficiency, separate from aesthetic concerns. They are a weird hybrid of human design and machine optimizing. It is these anti-compositions that interest me, to not look for beauty but to look for strangeness, for unexpected decisions. Software coding by Reinier Feijen.