A lot of ideas stay in my notebook unused most of the time, so I thought why not just share them here, maybe they can be seeds that grow into something eventually, with me or with someone else.

So the first idea I’m sharing came from the thinking I’ve been doing last year around how we consume media nowadays. How it’s all ephemeral, fleeting, and at the mercy of closed platforms and algorithms.

Now we have instant and infinite access, but almost nothing feels permanent. What does that do to the meaning it holds? Also what happens when all these platforms and services are gone, when the power is out or the world turns to shit and we don’t have access to the internet anymore at all?

This led me to an idea I wrote down in my notes as:
“Post-Internet Single Purpose Objects” PISPO

They are solar-powered, self-contained artifacts that hold just one piece of content. A single book, album, film, audio file or text. Something you can only access through nature’s energy.

The deserted island question

The seed for this came from the classic question: If you were stranded on a deserted island, what record would you bring?

I’ve always loved the weight of that question, maybe because I really like making lists of the things I like. The deliberate narrowing of choice into a single answer or list is an excerise I’m always up for doing.

Streaming and cloud storage have made everything available, but almost nothing feels tangible anymore. You can’t bring your Spotify library to a desert island.

Finiteness creates meaning

What I also find interesting about this is how it flips the modern relationship we have with content we consume. Instead of passive consumption, scrolling through infinite playlists or letting an algorithm decide what’s next, it forces a deliberate active choice that puts the agency with yourself.

So when access is finite, it becomes your choice and the relationship with the piece of media—a book, a song or a film— changes.

Digital entropy

The things we think we own digitally are often just rented. The way files disappear as platforms shut down, paywalls go up, or content is quietly removed from streaming services.

By embedding media into read-only flash memory, these objects create permanence. Once written, the content can’t be changed or erased. It becomes a modern relic, a digital artifact untethered from the shifting tides of the cloud.

Aligning with nature

I also wanted to connect this to nature somehow. So I’m thinking now that these objects are powered by the sun, grounding access in something larger than technology. They’re not always available, and that’s the point.

When you have to wait for the sun to charge your device and align your rhythm with it, the relationship with the content is no longer about instant gratification but a slower, more thoughtful experience.

What they could be

I’ve copied some frist thoughts on what they could be from my notes below but would defenitly like to spend more time here.

• Memory stone. A smooth, palm-sized object that plays a single spoken recording when held up to the light. My pick: A recording of my son and wife playing together.

• A compact audio device. Containing one album. No skipping, no playlists, just the full record as intended. My pick: Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska.

• A video player. No buttons but on and off. Loaded with a single film. My pick: The Tree of Life.

These two I feel less strong about, you could also just bring a book.

• E-ink reader. Holds a single book. Just one text to return to. My pick: The First Man by Albert Camus.

• Poetry monolith. A minimalist slab with a small display that cycles through a collection of poems. Maybe connected to time like only readable at dawn or dusk. My pick: Ocean Vuong, Time Is a Mother.

Next

I’m hoping to find some time to spend with this idea this year. Thinking on how should these devices feel and look. What materials are they made of? How do they interact? Hopefully I will also be able to prototype them in some way, maybe with a raspberry pi or arduino.

And if I don’t find the time maybe it sparks something with anyone out there. Do reach out if you want to collaborate on this!

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