The Pocket Observation Project

The Observatorium is a dynamic archive. It contains all kinds of different Objects that interact with each other and the observer.

Here is an incomplete list of Objects: Articles by me and many others, etymology, books, cultural artifacts, organizations - from churches to tech companies, research notes, audio, video, a selection of my personal zettelkasten, newspaper clippings, art, historical figures, pop culture moments and high-resolution art files ready for your downloading pleasure.

Each week, I add more to the archive from my own reading, writing and general discovery. Participants in The Pocket Observation Project can choose to add their Pocket Observations to the Observatorium. Each observance is a thread spun and then linked to other objects in the archive.

All of these objects are connected to one another with tags like Afrofuturism, Shareholder Capitalism, Stars, and Allium. The tags will decay over time and new tags will take their place, changing the shape of the archive and our perception of its objects.

This is just one corner of the web I've been weaving for the past five years. I'm just a common house spider, listening for vibrations from her funnel-shaped observatory.

A Defense of the Common House Spider

Have you heard of the Barn Funnel Weaver Spider? If you haven’t heard of them, you’ve seen them. They’re some of the most common house spiders in the world. They go by other names, Common House Spider, Drain Spider, Lesser European House Spider. Their Latin name is Tegenaria Domestica. Tegenaria is their Genus and Domestica is their species. Domestica is from domesticus which means “belonging to the house.” This spider does belong to the house, to nearly all houses. ...

They’re called funnel weavers because when they weave a web, they make a funnel in a corner. The spider retreats into these funnels and uses them for protection and predation. Their webs aren’t sticky, but they are sensitive. Each warp and weft vibrates when an insect walks across it. Our Barn Funnel Weaver sits in her respite, waiting. When the vibrations move her, she moves quickly....

The archive is in its early stages. But I have already been stunned by the connections I've discovered simply by following the vibrations of the threads. Like one of my favorite art installations about the home was influenced by the work of Hieronymus Bosch's The Garden of Earthly Delights. Suddenly, I see both works and both artists differently. Or the series of connections that helped me see the multidirectional connections between redlining in California and Afrofuturist work of Octavia Butler. This information was all framed in my notes, but without weaving the threads together I just couldn't quite see it.

Here, let me show you what I mean.

This is all very simple to use. Pocket Observatory members enter The Observatorium by clicking on a tag. Then you can deep dive into all the objects in a list. You can also go to the upper right hand corner and select the graph view. When you do, you'll reveal a segment of the web we've been weaving.

The Software

The Observatorium is being built with Capacities, a software framework for knowledge development.

Capacities is the only organization engine that's ever worked for my many-wayed mind. And - joy of joys - Capacities is now an offline-first product with excellent privacy controls. Like, this software allows your ideas to be ideas? And not mined-data? What?!

The Observatorium is online because I want you to be able to observe it. But! it is not listed and it can only be accessed via the secret links I share in the member-only spaces. If you participate in the The Pocket Observation Project and decide to submit observations, you can do so completely anonymously through a link provided in each month's Observance.

Want to start using Capacities to weave your own web of observance? Use this link to get your first month free. And yes, it is an affiliate link! Let's unpack that really quickly.

If you've been here since the beginning, you know I've never been an affiliate for any product other than books! I don't want to be incentivized to sell you anything but my own work.

I've used this software for a very long time. I really like Capacities' commitment to privacy, organic growth and transparency. But it's just one tool out of thousands. I am not going to tell you it's the right one for you. It's just the one I am using here and at home.

If some of you decide to use Capacities, signing up with my affiliate link will help support Pocket Observatory. And I think that's great. I also think it's great if you don't use it. You know? You know.