fruitful.school

fruitful.school is an independently-run learning initiative for making โ€œfruitful websitesโ€ founded in 2020 by Laurel Schwulst and John Provencher.

fruitful.school is dedicated to exploring new ways of publishing together using the www.

For our Winter 2021 workshop, participants will hang out and work together online to self-publish a piece to the www over the course of 6 weeks.

Well... what is a fruitful web?

A fruitful web requires seeds. We ask participants to apply with a proposal of their seed, their idea, their content to publish.

A fruitful web requires soil. Good soil is a point of view, specific perspective, or story. Prior coding experience is a plus, but itโ€™s not required.

A fruitful web is handmade. By learning some basic HTML, we will build a website by hand. (+)

โ€œIn todayโ€™s highly commercialized web of multinational corporations, proprietary applications, read-only devices, search algorithms, Content Management Systems, WYSIWYG editors, and digital publishers, it becomes an increasingly radical act to hand-code and self-publish experimental web art and writing projects.โ€

โ€” J.R. Carpenter

A fruitful web studies the histories and materiality of the web to understand โ€œthe webโ€™s grainโ€ and often works along with it. (+)

โ€œI believe every material has a grain, including the web. But this assumption flies in the face of our expectations for technology. Too often, the internet is cast as a wide-open, infinitely malleable material.โ€

โ€” Frank Chimero

A fruitful web is visually diverse. We like seeing things we've never seen before. We will learn how to add a presentation layer to our content with CSS.

A fruitful web flows and changes over time. We will learn basic JavaScript to seek generative opportunities.

A fruitful web aspires to be light, fast, and accessible. We will use only as much energy as we need to. We recognize websites are connected to limited physical resources. (+)

โ€œJust because things are digital doesnโ€™t mean theyโ€™re more sustainable. There are servers that are powered by fossil fuels that serve up these digital documents.โ€

โ€” Marie Otsuka speaking on the design of the solar-powered version of the Low Tech Magazine website

A fruitful web can be written. Maybe you can build a text-only website. (+)

โ€œThere is a renaissance underway in online text as a medium.โ€

โ€” Venkatesh Rao

A fruitful web can be a utility. Perhaps we can make tools for our daily lives.

A fruitful web can be performative. Maybe we can make sites with a purpose and life thatโ€™s brief but beautiful. We also recognize that the web is inherently a performative medium by its design. (+)

โ€œLike theater, CSS is contextual. As a playwright, I know the actors are going to say the lines I wrote in the order I wrote them in the script. But when I write stage direction (like how I think the stage and actors should look and behave), theyโ€™re all suggestions. The production company will make their own decisions because theyโ€™re working with specific constraints.โ€

โ€” Miriam Suzanne

A fruitful web can be archival. Perhaps we plant the seed and let it grow, let it collect.

A fruitful web can be an alternative to corporate social media. Letโ€™s evaluate whatโ€™s not working for us. (+)

โ€œAnyone can set up a web site and point to all the other web pages. Everyone is a publisher. Everyone is a peer. Thatโ€™s why itโ€™s called a web. Individuals knit themselves together by linking to one another. Everyone tends his or her own little epistemological garden, growing ideas from seed and sharing them with anyone who comes by.โ€

โ€” Paul Ford

John Provencher is a graphic designer and developer. He publishes work through his practice haha.services while teaching at The New School. Recently, he made a screensaver.

Laurel Schwulst has been making websites since the year 2000. Her design practice is called Beautiful Company, and she has taught at Yale, Princeton, Rutgers, and California College of the Arts. She also created ambient travel app Flight Simulator.

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When and where are classes held? (+)

Starting in Fall 2020 and continuing in Winter 2021, the workshop is 100% virtual. It happens wherever you are as long as you have a computer with a stable internet connection. The workshop will run for 6.5 weeks total and will meet synchronously twice a week: Wednesday evenings 7โ€“8pm EST and Sunday afternoons 12โ€“3pm EST.

Dates for Winter 2021 session: 2.7, 2.10, 2.14, 2.17, 2.21, 2.24, 2.28, 3.3, 3.7, 3.10, 3.14, 3.17, 3.21.

Do I need any coding knowledge prior? (+)

No ... and itโ€™s never too late to start! We view learning as a lifelong process, and we are excited to see how your previous experiences will inform what you create.

What's Fruitful Schoolโ€™s approach to remote learning during the global pandemic? (+)

With care, optimism, and realness.

We think it is up to us (the students, teachers, and guests of Fruitful School) to accept that the pandemic and remote learning is hard but also as an opportunity to be a portal to some new world. we are truly living and breathing the medium (websites!) in new and important ways with more people around the world.

We also want to continue to remember that weโ€™re in a public health crisis. Letโ€™s be empathetic to each other since none of us are truly "ok." We want to cultivate a caring, understanding, and supportive learning environment.

We'll be limiting prolonged screen time in the workship itself. We'll be splitting up our meetings into two shorter sessions that re-occur weekly for 6 weeks. We'll be providing just as much synchronous work as asynchronous work. See you with your fruit and water ( stay hydrated! )

What will we do during each synchronous session? (+)

Lectures, discussions, demos/exercises, class workshopping and guidance.

What will be provided for asynchronous time? (+)

references, links, videos, readings and more!

How much does it cost? (+)

$1,500 โ€” note there are no scholarships this winter 2021 session left, but in future sessions we hope to have some half-priced spots

Why does the workshop cost money? (+)

We're interested in building a sustainable school โ€” one that can continue over the years.

We have dreams for Fruitful School to be a place for many different ways to learn beyond the workshop. In the future, we would like to grant more people access to our materials โ€” both free and paid versions. By taking a workshop, you support us to continue Fruitful School.

Will there be future workshops? (+)

Yes. Subscribe for more updates.

Will there be other ways to get involved? (+)

We're currently working on ways for people to get involved outside the workshop. We'll be making guides for our asynchronous learning materials. Think โ€œclass without the classโ€ โ€” a digital publication you can follow at your own pace.

We are currently working on the guides. Subscribe for updates.

Why did you start this school? (+)

We love talking about, teaching and making websites! Weโ€™re hoping this can be a home to cultivate new ways of publishing to the www.

We think this skill is even more needed than ever before. We are excited the workshop can be more accessible to those around the world through remote learning.

Since we all come from different backgrounds and want to create a safe and open environment for collaboration, we've created a code of conduct to better interact with each other as students and teachers.

Fruitful Schoolโ€™s Code of Conduct

As we talk to each other at Fruitful School, we are:
  • open and free
  • suspending judgement
  • not afraid to share an honest opinion or risky idea
  • building on each otherโ€™s ideas
  • sharing often while respecting othersโ€™ time to share
  • always trying to help each other create their best work
we do not tolerate:
  • sexist, racist, homophobic, transphobic, ableist, religious discrimination or otherwise discriminatory actions
  • violence in any form
  • unwelcome physical contact or hostile attention
  • deliberate intimidation or stalking
  • advocating for, or encouraging, any of the above behavior
As we present our work, we:
  • communicate in a clear and concise manner
  • describe where weโ€™re at in the process
  • don't self deprecate our own work
  • leave lots of room for others to speak
When we offer feedback to others during critique, we:
  • firstโ€ฆ
    • state the facts
    • describe what you see
    • describe what you hear
  • afterโ€ฆ
    • describe how *YOU* feel
    • share any associationsโ€ฆ

our code of conduct is a work in progress. it was inspired by others and continues to evolve through use. see original blog post for more info.

Get Involved

( ) Workshop   

Our 6 week remote workshop from February 7 โ€“ March 21, 2021.

( ) Guides

Access to our class materials for self-directed learning...

( ) Updates

Weโ€™ve decided to use social media sparingly. We'll be using our email newsletter for updates.

Our Blog

Web as Maze

We gave a virtual lecture the other week! It goes over the history of Fruitful School from its start in late 2019 to present.

Thanks to Joe Potts and all the students from Otis College.

Icky Gooey Heart

Interview with Tee Topor, Fall 2020 Participant

Screenshot of ickygoohea.rt with a 3d hand in the center, left and right and question mark icons at top

โ€œLearning to make websites is like climbing a really tall ladder into the clouds. Itโ€™s slow, you have to start at the bottom, and itโ€™s more about the ascension than actually reaching an ending. You have to let the ideas guide you.โ€

Read More

rite.house

Interview with Vanya Padmanabhan, Fall 2020 Participant

A screenshot of www.rite.house at 11:06am. It includes an isometric exploded drawing of a house with round colored circles inhabiting it.

โ€œA few strangers have said that they came to the site at a low point in their lives and that seeing other people's (quarantine) rituals helped them come up with something they could be doing everyday.โ€

Read More

First, Last, Security

Interview with Raegan Bird, Fall 2020 Participant

A screenshot of First, Last, Security showing a slightly bleak and mysterious image of an apartment in desert tones with a small purple peace sign in the corner

โ€œScrappiness (in Tuscon) feeds into a lot of liveliness and creativity ... Like someone thinking, โ€˜instead of spending money we donโ€™t have to redo all the bathroom tile after a plumbing problem, letโ€™s just make a path of river rock up to the toilet...โ€™โ€

Read More

Many Sceneries

Interview with Ji Kim, Fall 2020 Participant

A screenshot of Many Sceneries that contains ovals of natural scenery some which occupies the background

โ€œThis site is not for information. You don't have a task to do. We don't need to try to understand or absorb the flowing scenes in front of us, but we may remember some of them.โ€

Read More

Pensรฉe Sauvage

Interview with Yelim Ki, Winter 2021 Participant

A screenshot of a chat-based website that has an angled image of the pansy flower in the background, messages on the right hand side, and a blueish purple background

โ€œItโ€™s a hypothetical & imaginary institution that can soothe all my complaints floating up in my mind as I attend art classes and more generally, institutions teaching art, such as the university.โ€

Read More
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