ultralight publication is created by the participants of the workshop “Ultralight: Lightweight Websites in Time & Place” organized by Laurel Schwulst for Fruitful School (https://fruitful.school/workshops/ultralight/index.html ).

ultralight publication is three letter sized pieces of paper folded in half lengthwise living inside a translucent glassine envelope. It features “ultralight recipes” throughout — lightweight structures allowing for growth, accumulation, and reflection, as well as ways to practice levity in everyday life.

Featuring ultralight contributions from Adrienne Bennett, Tiger Dingsun, Bokeum Jeon, Jess Joseph, Nile Koetting, Alanah Lam, Marie Otsuka, Benjamin Earl, Yatú Espinosa, Saba Feleke, Giri Nathan, Meghna Rao, and Mike Sugarman.

Special thanks to the participants and guests of Fruitful School.

What is “ultralight”?

The word “ultralight” simply means “extremely lightweight.” In the physical realm, examples include planes and kites. Some kites are so lightweight they can fly indoors, for instance. While some planes are so lightweight they’ve earned the title “microlight.” Or there’s the subreddit r/Ultralight, dedicated to lightweight backpacking equipment to ideally make your journey less burdensome.

But what does “ultralight” mean for technology and the internet? At first, ideas around lightness or heaviness might not intuitively make sense because ethereal technology metaphors like “the cloud” often hide or downplay physical infrastructure. But in reality, the internet is a physical thing, connected by underwater submarine cables and served from data centers containing many literal computers worldwide.

We can also approach lightness more metaphorically. Perhaps it’s about seeing the world in a new way. Italo Calvino, in the chapter on “Lightness” from his book Six Memos for the Next Millennium, perhaps said it best —

“Whenever humanity seems condemned to heaviness, I think I should fly like Perseus into a different space. I don’t mean escaping into dreams or into the irrational. I mean that I have to change my approach, look at the world from a different perspective, with a different logic and with fresh methods of cognition and verification. The images of lightness that I seek should not fade away like dreams dissolved by the realities of present and future…” -Publisher