Dérive- A Web of Aimless String
Over the course of my half hour or so on the internet, I came across a lot of things I hadn’t quite expected. As one should understand, the Internet can be a very strange and wonderful place to simply explore. I started out on my internet voyage with a simple Google search of “curiously cool stuff”. The first link I explored was an article about problems with healthcare in the Dominican Republic of Congo, something I hadn’t expected at all. Though I attempted to read it, I lost interest somewhere after the first page and clicked a banner ad on the left side for a book website, which led me to a section specifically for business related books (https://www.sup.org/books/subject/?subject=BUSINESS) . I took a look through a small catalog, not really caring to look at any one book for too long. I don’t inherently find these types of books interesting. This led me to revamp my search for other things, so I switched to the authors section of the website, and then to the Digital Productions section. This led me to think about filming, and I chose one of the filming ones. Immediately turned off by the drawling explanation of some publication, another book caught my eye titled Cultivating the Creative Faculty. As interesting as the art looked on this, I didn’t find myself too interested in actually reading it, seeing as I’d either have to pay for it or be relegated to reading excerpts. So I pulled up a new tab, where I searched, “art of the creative faculty” to try and spice things up. That’s where I found this painting, nestled away amongst a lot of creativist business posters. I thought it was rather beautiful, and I noted that I hadn’t looked at a watercolor painting in a long time, at least not one like this.
After viewing it for a few minutes, I decided to turn my gaze to more art and film directed queries, seeing as these could interest me more so than business novels and articles about healthcare. I searched “color psychology” to see what would come up, having noted the rather large color pallet in the watercolor, and was disappointed to find nothing that challenged conventional knowledge of color theory in the images. That makes sense, though, it is what I searched for. I wish Google tried a little harder sometimes to just give us a taste of what the subject actually is instead of such a blunt, lifeless, and replicable answer.
Dissatisfied, I again returned to Google, although this time, I didn’t search anything. I instead clicked on the Google Doodle today, which appears instead of the traditional logo on days of import or to commemorate historic persons. It took me to a neat info pile about Dr. Virginia Agpar, who was apparently responsible for creating a test still used to test newborn infants for signs of healthiness. This information was expounded upon in a short article the Times ran about her accomplishments. Having nearly hit my time limit, I did on last scroll through Times and saw an article about how the suicide rate universally has gone up 30% since the 90’s, which really surprised me. It didn’t matter what demographic you looked at, suicide rates are increasing.
This would conclude my frolic through the information fields we call the Internet. Overall, I was both surprised and not surprised by my findings. The connections and things I searched weren’t things I would normally search for, though some may interest me overall. I didn’t want to just sit there and take a literal cut and dry path through ads or what have you because then I would just end up browsing Amazon or Youtube until I was looking at something so obscure I would wonder why the Internet even exists. In short, the Internet is a very strange place, sewn together with a variety of needles and tenuous thread that if you look at just right, makes a really mangled embroidery of information. However thinly spread the information is, there are always diamonds in the rough though, just like this painting.
