1
One day, during the semester break(?), I found that there was a big change in a room in uni. It was a wonderful wooden drawer. I asked a person who stays here more than I do.(Emil) This drawer was said to be from a bookbinding workshop. I got a feeling directly that I wanted to make something with this. Because it seemed very spatial. I mean, it is.
2
I thought this drawer could be architecture. As if this drawer is a building and each compartment is one floor. So, I could imagine that this could be a website. This image comes from the idea that I always think of a website as a real space. Therefore, the entire drawer is the site where the domain resides, and each parcel is a page under this site.
3
So, I decided to make a drawer-website that has the address “openme.neocities.org” and invite people to this address.
4
To invite people, I designed the envelope and letter and wrote the invitation. I wanted to send the invitation via post because I wanted to keep the idea of knowing the address and being there. (which means the addresses that were already in my head were the place I have been.) To make the invitation, I tried to write peoples’ name in a better handwriting style, cut and fold the paper precisely, and glue it clean.
5
To build the website(the website now you are visiting now is the drawer website.), I thought about the way of integrating the technical features of a website into the physical properties of a drawer, and vice versa. I found that each floor(compartment) could be a “tab” of a webpage so I wrote “a” tag always with “_blank”, which makes a drawer on the browser window.
6
Some invitations were delivered to peoples’ homes, some invitations were attached to the structure in the building where the drawer is located. And... some invitations were lost during delivery.
7
Well.. yes, finally, I built and installed the website, and people came! I wasn’t nervous that much at first but got to be nervous by people who were asking me “Are you nervous?”, “Are you okay?” But it was okay. People were caring for me, and I was ready to talk.
8
I got some flowers from some people as well. These flowers gave me so much power from my heart. This power is very strong and warm.
9
Most of the time, I’m not a great talker, cause I feel very shy easily when I talk. Also, sometimes, in my head, lots of words are just wandering without a logical arrangement. In addition, I don’t like opening my mouth big. Regardless of these reasons, I invited people to share my idea by presenting the drawer website, so, yes, I had to speak clearly about what I was doing. To do that, I wrote the script and printed it on very pretty thick pink paper.
10
I did the performance: I opened each link with its tab and opened each compartment of the drawer at the same time.
11
While I was doing the presentation, people laughed a lot. Some people told me it was like a comedy show. Whatever the reaction from people was sweet because I didn’t feel like doing a monologue. I just talked about what I observed, experienced, and felt in some specific spots in Leipzig. Maybe people could find some association with their life as well since most of the visitors are living in Leipzig.
12
Afterward, we talked about our own experiences and observation about some places in our everyday life. Also, there was some interesting idea that I can try out like building a drawer site with so many taps as a scam site. Also, what kind of other spatial structure I can relate to a website? and so on..
13
Of course, the conversation was not just about this work. We talked about lots of topics about our life with some drinks.
14
I made a souvenir(magnet) for this event to extend the range of openings. People can put it on something that has a metal surface. I imagine they can open the object to which they attach this souvenir and think about opening the website sometimes.