Are.na Editorial
Essays, interviews, and other forms of writing from the Are.na community.
You can also get our blog posts via email
Hello World
Are.na Spring Cleaning
Digital detox with us, Are.na style…
4/16/2024
Laurel Schwulst
Essay
The Future Will Be Like Perfume
After Brian Eno.
4/5/2024
alphonse f
Essay
Ephemeral Cities
On perfume and urban utopias
4/4/2024
Emily Jensen
Essay
My Beautiful Dark Twisted Carcinogenic Fantasy
On the prickly aroma of hydrocarbons.
4/3/2024
Vivian Medithi
Essay
Dowsing
Orange and silver memories. 
4/2/2024
Amelia K.
Essay
Worldly Things
And heavenly scents.
4/1/2024
Katy Kelleher
Essay
Post-Fragrantica Manifesto
Perfume’s digital slouch towards flatness.
3/30/2024
Audrey Robinovitz
Essay
Cherry Chapstick
Smells like seventh grade.
3/29/2024
C.C.
Essay
Death’s Signature Scent
Decay becomes her.
3/28/2024
Daniel Pearce
Essay
Notes on Notes
True freshness in a bottle…
3/27/2024
Maya Man
Essay
Metaphorically Speaking
In the rainy breath of time.
3/26/2024
Meg Miller
Essay
Mall Memories
What I cherished most about the mall was the baptism of synthetic scents.
3/25/2024
Terry Nguyen
Essay
Every Single Noise In The World
On cataloging sound libraries.
3/13/2024
Kalli Mathios
Hello World
Introducing a New Publication from Naive Yearly and Are.na
Eight pieces exploring the odd, quiet, and poetic web.
3/6/2024
Meg Miller
Essay
The Wake and Other Ghost Stories
On the beach, in the bay, I recognize that haunted people are the only people we can be.
2/15/2024
Amirio Freeman
Hello World
Our New Web Client, Sander, is Live
We are simply now the most current version of ourselves.
2/8/2024
Charles Broskoski
Are.na Annual
These Hollow Renderings
How Bruce Lee’s posthumous image lives on in deepfakes and bad reproductions.
1/25/2024
Terry Nguyen
Are.na Annual
Algorithmic Botany
Plants, fungi, and computer programming.
1/18/2024
Sean Catangui
Essay
Here for the Wrong Reasons
On tuning your radar toward the things that you love.
12/29/2023
Charles Broskoski
Are.na Annual
Base Notes
On the trace amounts of lewd odors found in our most luxurious perfumes.
12/13/2023
Sarah Chekfa
Are.na Annual
Introducing the Are.na Annual 2024
This year’s anthology, themed “trace,” is now available.
12/6/2023
Meg Miller
Gift Shop
An Unbound Book
Behind "A Catalogue of Simple Pleasures," a new card deck for the Gift Shop
11/2/2023
Alex Singh, Laurel Schwulst, Cab Broskoski, and Megan Pai
Hello World
Introducing Sander, Our New Web Client
Our in-progress rebuild of the the entire web interface for Are.na is now available for premium members to test
11/1/2023
Charles Broskoski
Essay
The Methods that Make Us
Unraveling an expansive definition of “protective style” that unites BIPOC ways of making
10/4/2023
Teah Khadijeh Brands
It's not Business, it's Personal
An Interview with Malte Müller
On web design as architecture, understanding social systems, and making your own weird mistakes
9/6/2023
Charles Broskoski
Notes on Blocks
On Elemental Computation
How do we define and explore the material relationships of computers and the environment?
8/22/2023
Jon Chen
Are.na Annual
House-Wi-Fi-zation
The hidden costs of digitalization and its effects on those outside of labor protection laws
8/17/2023
Stephanie Marie Cedeño
Essay
Toward a Non-human Lens
What does it mean to film the natural world through a non-human lens? Is such a thing possible?
8/1/2023
Jacob Lindgren
Gift Shop
The “Gift Alchemy” of the Fava Bean
Companion–Platform on their “Vicia Faba” seed packet for the Are.na Gift Shop
7/26/2023
Lexi Visco, Calvin Rocchio, Meg Miller, and Laurel Schwulst
Notes on Blocks
On Detail and the Sublime
Architecture has always been well equipped in manufacturing awe
7/19/2023
Mara Jovanović
Notes on Blocks
Is This a Poem?
Poetry as visual arrangement, a thing to be looked at
7/6/2023
Sharon Neema
Notes on Blocks
On Language and Time
“As words go forward, they also go backwards.”
6/28/2023
Nazlı Ercan
It's not Business, it's Personal
An Interview with Emily Segal
The first in a new series about work that occupies the blurry boundary between what we do and who we are
6/22/2023
Charles Broskoski
Conversation
Wikipedia as Sacred Text
“Once you stop thinking of Wikipedia as a passive consumption space, it’s really empowering.”
5/31/2023
Sharon Park and Carolyn Li-Madeo 
Notes on Blocks
Cloudscrying
On finding meaning in finding meaning in clouds
5/24/2023
Noa Mori
Are.na Annual
Open call for Pitches for the 2024 Are.na Annual
This year’s theme is “trace”
5/8/2023
Meg Miller
Conversation
With and Without a Firm Grasp, Part II
A conversation on the making of a Ramadan calendar.
4/24/2023
Shiraz Abdullahi Gallab and Forough Abadian
Are.na Annual
The Instability of Stone
Dispatches from a tombstone designer
4/13/2023
Morgan Strahorn
Gift Shop
The Forbidden Zone
Damon Zucconi presents: Carl Sagan’s “Diagram of All Space and Time” for the Are.na Gift Shop
3/30/2023
Damon Zucconi, Charles Broskoski, and Laurel Schwulst
Essay
With and Without a Firm Grasp
On translation, interdependence, and the generosity of Ramadan calendars (Allahu Akram)
3/27/2023
Shiraz Abdullahi Gallab
Are.na Annual
Wild Domesticity
The mind may wander but the body still has to live somewhere.
3/8/2023
Alice Yuan Zhang
Notes on Blocks
Fantasy of Future and Past
On party planning, technology, and the collision of time
3/1/2023
Luiza Dale
Notes on Blocks
On Culture
Localizing what culture means on an individual level
2/22/2023
Njari Anderson
Notes on Blocks
When We Have a Studio…
I hate work?
2/15/2023
Didier Lucceus
Are.na Annual
ASDFGHJKLKGJL
The keyboard smash remains an apt summary of fandom.
1/25/2023
Tiger Dingsun
Essay
The PLEASURE of Handmade Fashion
Purpose, Longevity, Ethics, Asymmetry, Style, Utility, Refashion, Empowerment...
1/12/2023
Tiana Dueck
Notes on Blocks
In Defense of Forgetting
Reframing forgetting as healing, purposeful, and even eudaemonic.
1/12/2023
Jo Suk
Notes on Blocks
Make Me Your Manifesto
An investigation into the ever-evolving form.
1/5/2023
Natalee Ranii-Dropcho
Essay
On Pricing
On upcoming changes to premium memberships
12/15/2022
Charles Broskoski
Are.na Annual
Introducing the Are.na Annual 2023
This year’s Are.na Annual, themed “service,” is now available.
12/15/2022
Meg Miller
Gift Shop
(Gift) Shop Talk
A conversation introducing the Are.na Gift Shop and our first product, How to Pass Time Inside This Room
10/25/2022
Laurel Schwulst, Charles Broskoski, and Meg Miller
Are.na Annual
Where Boundary Breaks
Finding the fractures in game worlds offer a new perspective.
10/5/2022
Travess Smalley
Notes on Blocks
On Sonder
We're made of the same stuff.
9/6/2022
Alex Tan
Are.na Annual
Of All Their Possible Variations
How I learned to stop worrying and love the primordial ooze.
8/30/2022
​Agnes Cameron
Notes on Blocks
On Connection
What kinds of vulnerability do platforms encourage, and what kinds of expression do they limit?
8/17/2022
Leslie Liu
Are.na Annual
On Object Freedom
“How are we going to build it if we don’t imagine it?”
8/4/2022
Evelyn Bi
Conversation
It Became A Ritual 
“I wanted us to leave something every day—it didn’t matter what it was.”
7/21/2022
Njari Dimario Anderson and Ariel Dong
Notes on Blocks
Welcome to My Thousand Funerals
“To love someone long-term is to attend a thousand funerals of the people they used to be.”
7/14/2022
Miaoye Que
Are.na Annual
Chop and Screw Everything
If you choose another way, if you reject the clock, time will flow again.
7/6/2022
Roque Strew
Are.na Annual
Open call for Pitches for the 2023 Are.na Annual
Submissions should take their root in a channel and fall loosely under the theme “service.”
6/23/2022
Meg Miller
Notes on Blocks
On Listening to the Void
All of life’s greatest truths are wrapped in mystery.
6/23/2022
Alice Otieno
Notes on Blocks
On Earth We Are Briefly Tender
A consistent space of refuge, a window into an elsewhere.
6/15/2022
Karl Rivera
Notes on Blocks
I learnt colour but did not understand it
On exploring color through as many tinted lenses as possible.
6/6/2022
Tess Murdoch
Are.na Annual
On Community Memory
In the ’70s and ’80s, the Community Memory Project explored how an information portal could be a shared experience.
5/19/2022
Mike Tully
Essay
Notes on “Taste”
Jottings on an elusive term.
5/2/2022
Brie Wolfson
Notes on Blocks
On Rejecting Narrative Identity
To be “against” narrative identity is to recognize that we’re unreliable narrators.
4/29/2022
Nico Chilla
Notes on Blocks
On the Aesthetics of Progress
And the potential of a society organized around awe.
4/19/2022
Molly Mielke
Essay
Poetry’s So Common Hardly Anyone Can Find It
More than a literary form, Poetry is the essence of inner feelings and thoughts as they relate to the external world.
4/4/2022
C.C.
Essay
Portals to Elsewhere 
Surfline provides live photo or webcam video feeds of surf breaks around the world.
3/7/2022
Lukas WinklerPrins
Notes on Blocks
On Food Ontologies
And the different ways to organize and understand cooking and food.
1/14/2022
Agnes Cameron
Are.na Annual
Introducing the Are.na Annual 2022
This year’s Are.na Annual, themed "portal," is now available.
12/15/2021
Meg Miller
Essay
Tongue of the Computer
On Kamau Brathwaite’s Sycorax video style, the poet’s attempt “to put on the page what sound looked like.”
12/13/2021
Bryce Wilner
Notes on Blocks
On Abolitionist Teaching Dreamscapes
And the artist’s role in building a world where we are all supported in our right to live joyously
11/9/2021
Sienna Kwami
Notes on Blocks
On Making Sense of TikTok
And the ways the app parallels a kind of religious experience.
11/4/2021
Maya Man
Essay
On Complexity
The search for fissures in systems and networks, towards parts-to-whole relations with ecological and biophysical processes.
9/7/2021
Casey Tang
Essay
The Art of Tending to Oneself
Piecing together a framework for reflection from various practices, quotes, and ways of thinking.
8/24/2021
Alice Otieno
Notes on Blocks
On Worlding
And lists, collections, diagrams, and configurations of discrete items that imply vast, continuous worlds.
8/17/2021
Tiger Dingsun
Essay
On Motivation
A meditation on what keeps us going, on the occasion of Are.na’s 10th anniversary.
8/9/2021
Charles Broskoski
Notes on Blocks
On Chess
Exploring the correlation between sports and art through an African American, abstract, playful, creative, tech, stylish, and instinctual perspective.
7/27/2021
Ephraim Johnson
Essay
What Do People Do All Day?
On how things are made, who gets to make them, and how labor and time gets leveraged.
7/21/2021
Michael Bell-Smith
Essay
Limitlessness and Limitations: Defining Dark Matters
An assemblage of knowledge established within our mutual histories
7/13/2021
American Artist and Zainab Aliyu
Essay
Who Cares?
As long as computers are built to be in service of, the limits of their intelligence will always be the limits of their suzerain.
7/1/2021
Emma Rae Bruml Norton
Are.na Annual
Open call for Pitches for the 2022 Are.na Annual
Submissions should take their root in an Are.na channel and fall loosely under the theme “portal.”
6/24/2021
Meg Miller
Essay
Tenderness Shares A Root With Attention
How have tending and attention changed over time and across contexts, and what might that evolution teach us? 
6/15/2021
Juliana Castro
Notes on Blocks
On Mental Maps
"By cataloguing media relative to my fears, desires, and stresses, I’m able to trace my evolving reality." 
5/25/2021
Cedric Payne
Notes on Blocks
On Surface Duetting Space
An ongoing exploration on how surfaces interact with the spaces they inhabit.
5/18/2021
Rohan Chaurasia
Notes on Blocks
On Fugue
Loops, cycles, knots, revolutions, and the development of a new game called Fugue.
5/11/2021
Francis Tseng
Notes on Blocks
On Practice (In Theory)
“Some of the blocks are like bookmarks for lines of research that I want to delve more deeply into.”
5/5/2021
Dodi King
Conversation
Webs of Care
Ingrid Raphael talks with Rae Dand and Onelson Nicholas about how care is activated when our needs are met
4/20/2021
Ingrid Raphael
Essay
Place Holder
Ecology is a weird compass, and through attendance, we can learn to use it.
4/14/2021
Austin Wade Smith
Essay
Measuring the Internet as a Gesture of Tending (Towards)
“How are you? No really, how are you?”
4/2/2021
Lai Yi Ohlsen
Conversation
Khorasan Dreamscapes 
On Afghan diaspora communities, film representation, and the practice of collectively cataloguing knowledge as it expands
3/31/2021
Rona Akbari and Weeda Azim
Notes on Blocks
On Engulfment and Escapism
Exploring the distinction between a life of occurrences versus a life lived and savored.
3/18/2021
Emily Nabnian
Notes on Blocks
On Indexing
“By walking the same route around my apartment everyday, I was in a choreography of noticing and collecting.”
3/11/2021
Ritu Ghiya
Essay
On Memory Palaces & Visual Computation
And using an ancient mnemonic device as an organizational tactic for storing and archiving information online.
3/4/2021
Taulant Sulko
Notes on Blocks
On Worldbuilding
Creating a future from the intersection of Blackness, rest, and technology in our past and present.
2/25/2021
Kai Jenrette
Conversation
Holding Hands
On meeting online, dating during a pandemic, and growing an internet garden together—an Are.na love story
2/17/2021
Lily Nguyen and Fiona Carty
Essay
A Place for Relating to Water
Examining the desire to recreate controllable environments that fit within our own scales and bounds.
1/19/2021
Lucy Siyao Liu
Essay
Southern Electronics and Grassroots Technologies 
Black people are the dependent variable in the progression of civilization, not a function of it.
12/22/2020
R.C. Clarke
Are.na Annual
Introducing the Second Are.na Annual
The Are.na Annual Too, themed “tend,” is now available.
12/16/2020
Meg Miller