Websites possess a duality; they are both subject and object, and their creators are both author and architect. This holds great potential for a self-reflective loop: when we invest energy in a website, it can in turn help us to shape our own identity. It becomes a tool with which we can determine our own narrative—far from algorithms and performance. How can the process of creating and maintaining a website contribute to who you are, what you do, and what you want to do?
To explore this question, the students turn to an activity that has always been practiced in human societies: collecting. To connect collecting and defining their own narrative on the web, students become museums themselves, engaging with themselves, their identity, and the things that define them. Museums collect and communicate—an inward and outward dynamic that they appropriate through their website.