Tessera

Elan Ullendorff

@elan.place

Algorithmic escape artist | Rolling Stone called me one of the people "quietly keeping the spirit of the human, personal, creative internet alive" Teaching @UPenn, Product @MarshallProj | 📍Philly 💌 Subscribe: https://escapethealgorithm.substack.com

147 Posts1465 Follower 926 Folgt

Shannon Mattern @shannonmattern.bsky.social · 2w ago

“But the idea that there’s any kind of reward from the system for becoming a bestseller, I’m over it. There’s none. That’s not part of my calculus anymore. In that way, I guess it was a very worthy experiment in whether I care about external markers of success from the publishing industry.”

Ann Friedman Had the Bestseller and the Followers. It Still Wasn’t Enough.

One editor said, “We would literally buy anything else from you.”

escapethealgorithm.substack.com

Elan Ullendorff @elan.place · 2w ago

A wonderfully honest conversation with @annfriedman.bsky.social about publishing a bestselling book, thinking it would lead to boundless creative freedom, only to encounter the same industry roadblocks. escapethealgorithm.substack.com/p/ann-friedm...

Ann Friedman Had the Bestseller and the Followers. It Still Wasn’t Enough.

One editor said, “We would literally buy anything else from you.”

escapethealgorithm.substack.com

Elan Ullendorff @elan.place · 3w ago

Posted a temporary software engineer position at The Marshall Project, averaging 100 applications per day, 95% of which are fake or completely AI generated. What’s that again about AI saving us all time?

Elan Ullendorff @elan.place · 2mo ago

Beyond honored to be on the selection committee for the Tiny Awards — which celebrates the best of the small, poetic, creative, handmade web — together with the absolute best people in the game. Nominations are open! tinyawards.net/nominations/...

Screenshot of a website for Tiny Awards. It has a medieval aesthetic with arches displaying flowers, and a person pouring an urn into a well. Below the text reads "Nominate a Site for Tiny Awards 2026"

2026 Selection Committee
Selection Committee
Celine Nguyen
Elliott Cost
Elan Ullendorff
Pirijan Ketheswaran
Matt Prebeg
Marty Bell
Kristin Merrilees
Annie Rauwerda
Tiffany Ng
Chia Amisola
Andy Baio
Alex Dobrenko
Manuel Moreale
Elle
Jana Wiese
Nick Susi
Ruby Thelot
Rusty Foster

Elan Ullendorff @elan.place · 3mo ago

For this month's issue of Anti-viral, a vulnerable conversation with @hrishikesh.co about releasing music when you’re better known for your podcasts, whether it’s scarier to be perceived or not to be perceived, and discovering music that moves you. escapethealgorithm.substack.com/p/hrishikesh...

Hrishikesh Hirway is Ready to be Heard

The creator of Song Exploder on releasing an album into the attention economy

escapethealgorithm.substack.com

Yvonne Lam @yvonnezlam.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Since I am trying to feel out the contours of my huge ambivalence about marketing/publicity/self-promotion, lots of things in Elan Ullendorff's interview with the artist Hallie Bateman resonate with me: escapethealgorithm.substack.com/p/anti-viral...

Anti-viral with Hallie Bateman

"People didn’t want the nicer thing. They wanted the $25 print they can tape to the wall."

escapethealgorithm.substack.com

John West @johnwest.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Presenting THE INTERNET WILL DIE, AND SO WILL YOU, out in September from @herebelow.bsky.social, a new imprint doing awesome things. Here's the cover, a lil' excerpt, and the tagline of the press: "Books for the subversive work of being human." herebelowbooks.com/978080288542...

The cover of a book (my book): THE INTERNET WILL DIE, AND SO WILL YOU.

Just one more byte

It’s possible that to store is entirely the wrong verb. Maybe it ought
to be to attend, to give our digital lives the same attention we are
called to give our physical ones. Attention, as a noun, comes to
us through Latin and French, and, from those languages, carries
the sense of to stretch toward, as though my brain, pinned behind
my skull, might reach out, feel the tight restriction of muscle as
it grasps at the world. But, by and large, attention words point in-
ward, not out. We attract it and call it. We can gather it like wheat
in a field or draw it up like water from a well. Always, though,
attention moves from the world into us—except when it’s to be
minted and spent. “Pay attention,” we say, as though it is a com-
modity, bought, sold, and traded by brokers.

The digital world both beleaguers and demands our attention.
The quality of our focus and the metaphors we surround it with
have diminished even as we’re asked to spend more of it. I’ve felt
it, lately, in the very medium of the book, which rests ever more
uneasily in my hands, though I’ve published two, including this
one. I’ve read, I would guess, a couple thousand books in my life.
It’s harder now, harder than ever. And as it’s grown harder, it’s
grown more meaningful, those acts of attentional resistance, as
straightforward as reading a book for pleasure—a refutation of
market logic, a proletarian revolution in even the word attention,
not something I pay for and sell on an open market but, instead,
something I stretch toward.

“Whole strata of reality are lost to us at the speed at which
we live, our ability to perceive them is lost,” Garth Greenwell
writes in his novel Small Rain, “and maybe that’s the value of
poetry, there are aspects of the world that are only visible at the
frequency of certain poems.” Greenwell advances an argument
best advanced in literature, in fiction or poetry, buttressed as it is
by the logic of allusion. This logic stands in stark contrast to the
totalizing, seductive logic of instrumentalism, which would have
us see everything, every act and artifact, as for something else.
Reading under instrumentalism is pointless at worst and a form
of self- betterment at best—merely a way to refill the coffers of
attention before spending it again. Greenwell argues for poetry,
for reading, for all those many varied noninstrumental activities
that demand this “unmixed attention,” to use the philosopher
Simone Weil’s language, which are a species of prayer. I mean
this in the same way Weil does—in the best and truest sense of
the word: prayer not as an attempt to change the world, but as a
chance to attune ourselves to a greater will, one that asks of us,
Be more human.

Everest Pipkin @everest.bsky.social · 5mo ago

I couldn't be more excited to announce something I've been working on for a long time - Please welcome Belltower House Artist Residency, a multidisciplinary gift of time in my erstwhile home in southern New Mexico, now accepting applications for 2026. belltowerhouse.org

Belltower House Artist Residency

Belltower House Artist Residency is a gift of creative sanctuary in southern New Mexico.

belltowerhouse.org

Elan Ullendorff @elan.place · 5mo ago

reupping with a link! lenyx.neocities.org

Queer Digital Graveyard

A digital memorial for defunct LGBTQ+ websites of the early internet. Created by Lenyx Dickey.

lenyx.neocities.org

Eileen Clancy 🧿@clancyny.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Queer Digital Graveyard is a digital memorial for LGBTQ+ websites of the early internet. I found this through @elan.place's newsletter "Escape the Algorithm". Via @johnwest.bsky.social.

Image of iron gates to a graveyard on a dark background.

text:
This is a digital memorial for LGBTQ+ websites of the early internet. A
graveyard for those that came before us, A place to sit with what was lost.

Created by Lenyx Dickey.

ENTER

Elan Ullendorff @elan.place · 5mo ago

The Student AI Trap escapethealgorithm.substack.com/p/the-studen...

The students tremble-walk this curve like a tightrope, trying not to look down for fear that they will catch sight of the world they are setting aflame. Meanwhile, the university is erecting a 116,000-square-foot, six-story, energy-efficient building to further advancements in artificial intelligence. April was just declared AI Month.

Elan Ullendorff @elan.place · 5mo ago

in honor of Meta shutting down the metaverse, resharing this short strange piece I wrote as an homage to avatars gaining legs (legs legs legs) escapethealgorithm.substack.com/p/the-day-th...

The day they gave us legs

The day they gave us legs was the day we danced.

escapethealgorithm.substack.com

Elan Ullendorff @elan.place · 5mo ago

I wrote about the mixed messages universities are sending about AI. escapethealgorithm.substack.com/p/the-studen...

The Student AI Trap

Prompt if you're damned, do if you don't

escapethealgorithm.substack.com

nick andersen @nicktheandersen.com · 5mo ago

the wonderful @halliebateman.bsky.social is an artist and a human being and following her work is a gift and a treasure, so this interview with her by @elan.place was appropriately also a gift and a treasure

Anti-viral with Hallie Bateman

"People didn’t want the nicer thing. They wanted the $25 print they can tape to the wall."

escapethealgorithm.substack.com

The Marshall Project @themarshallproject.org · 5mo ago

We’re launching Redemption Songs, a limited-run newsletter that spotlights one song each week by incarcerated artists. Starting March 22, we’ll tell the story of mass incarceration over almost a century, one song at a time. Sign up now to get a new song each Sunday afternoon over 25 weeks:

Redemption Songs: A Limited-Run Newsletter

The story of mass incarceration, one song at a time.

themarshallproject.org

Elan Ullendorff @elan.place · 5mo ago

A Google Sheet that is a six-week syllabus for getting you into Bad Bunny adding to my Doc Web repository docs.google.com/spreadsheets...

Bad Bunny 101

docs.google.com

Elan Ullendorff @elan.place · 5mo ago

I spoke with @halliebateman.bsky.social about how the internet can trick you into being static, the miracle of anyone connecting with literally anything online, and why people don’t want to pay $75 for a museum-quality print from “commercial artists.” escapethealgorithm.substack.com/p/anti-viral...

A screenshot of a colorful, quirky webshop

Hand-drawn figures walking in various directions on crayon-textured paths. In the center is the text "it's a miracle we ever met."

Elan Ullendorff @elan.place · 5mo ago

Saw an Instagram reel in which the CEO of McDonalds answers the question "how do you use AI" by eagerly explaining that he no longer needs to get his family together to take holiday photos because he can just generate them instead.

Elan Ullendorff @elan.place · 5mo ago

My favorite annual tradition is taking my Escape the Algorithm students to a local zine library called The Soapbox to talk about radical publishing + expressive design. While we’re there, the students each pick a zine and recreate it as a website. This year’s web zines: leaflet.pub/aed57e9a-d7d...

Student looking at a zine called cyberpunk apocalypse with a grainy photo of shadowed people and recreating it as a website

Student on a computer next do a bunch of zines splayed on a table

Student looking at a zine in front of a shelf full of zines

Student drawing on a computer at a table with other students

Elan Ullendorff @elan.place · 6mo ago

On coffee filters and filter bubbles escapethealgorithm.substack.com/p/on-coffee-...

On coffee filters and filter bubbles

and a banner ad that was good, actually

escapethealgorithm.substack.com

Elan Ullendorff @elan.place · 7mo ago

Thinking once again about this comment under a Simulacra and Simulation quote on Goodreads that’s the best illustration of a simulacrum I've ever seen.

“The media represents world that is more real than reality that we can experience. People lose the ability to distinguish between reality and fantasy. They also begin to engage with the fantasy without realizing what it really is. They seek happiness and fulfilment through the simulacra of reality, e.g. media and avoid the contact/interaction with the real world. (Note: This quote is fake and does not appear in Simulacra and Simulation. I tried to delete it, but the system doesn't allow that because this quote has "too many fans" lol.)”

— Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation

Elan Ullendorff @elan.place · 7mo ago

normal ad seems safe

Screenshot of New York Times story with a banner ad that reads "(1) View PDF" and has a download button

Shannon Mattern @shannonmattern.bsky.social · 8mo ago

"It’s hard to imagine getting back to a time [when] discoverability of people’s work and ideas was possible in a way that I don’t think it is anymore... I find more new stuff in actual magazines now... The internet is no longer a way for me to find new stuff, it’s just a place where stuff is."

Anti-viral with Alicia Kennedy

"People just want you to talk about yourself"

escapethealgorithm.substack.com

Elan Ullendorff @elan.place · 8mo ago

Today I’m excited to launch Anti-viral, a series where I talk to creatives about projects that struggle to find an audience—not to label these projects as failures, but to explore the meaningful, essential work our platforms and economies overlook. escapethealgorithm.substack.com/p/anti-viral...

Anti-viral with Alicia Kennedy

"People just want you to talk about yourself"

escapethealgorithm.substack.com

Elan Ullendorff @elan.place · 9mo ago

Accepting "I loved his brain. I hated the idea of an intruder therein." into the canon of captions that would work on any New Yorker cartoon.

Two snowmen wearing boxing gloves face off in a snowy ring, one of their heads lies knocked off on the ground.

A cartoon of Mr. Potato Head sitting on an exam table while a doctor reads from a clipboard.

A cartoon of the Grim Reaper playing an electric guitar in his apartment, while a neighbor leans out a nearby window watching.

A black-and-white cartoon illustration of a lively cocktail party. In the center, a smiling inflatable tube man — like the ones seen outside car dealerships — waves its arms cheerfully. Next to it, a man in a suit holding a drink gestures toward the tube man as if introducing it to the crowd.

Anna Bower@annabower.bsky.social · 9mo ago

“Baby, don’t worry,” he said. “It’s not a worm.” www.vanityfair.com/news/story/o...

I did not like to think about it just as later I would not like to think about the worm in his brain that other people found so funny. I loved his brain. I hated the idea of an intruder therein. Others thought he was a madman; he was not quite mad the way they thought, but I loved the private ways that he was mad. I loved that he was insatiable in all ways, as if he would swallow up the whole world just to know it better if he could. He made me laugh, but I winced when he joked about the worm. "Baby, don't worry," he said.
"It's not a worm.
." A doctor he trusted had
reviewed the scans of his brain obtained by The New York Times, he said, and concluded that the shadowy figure was likely not a parasite at all. He sighed. It was too late to interfere with what had already vaulted from the sphere of meme to the sphere of screwy legend, but at least I did not have to worry about the worm that was not a worm in his brain.

Elan Ullendorff @elan.place · 9mo ago

teaching my escape the algorithm course again and it’s such a joy to be able to put such kind testimonials on the flyer 🥺

flyer for a course at penn called escape the algorithm. praise from past students:
"this class was unlike any other one i've taken. it felt real and personal."
"I'd enthusiastically recommend this course to anyone interested in platform design, media studies, or just figuring out how to move through the web more intentionally."
"Escape the Algorithm taught me how to unsee the internet I thought I knew, and begin imagining what a more human, slower, stranger digital future could look like."
"This class really reshaped how I think, create, and collaborate."
"This course has been one of the most creatively liberating and intellectually stimulating experiences I've had at Penn."

Elan Ullendorff @elan.place · 11mo ago

I’m honored to have my essay The New Turing Test published in the Internet Phone Book, now in its second reprint through @metalabel.bsky.social Revenue is split between contributors and the Living Web Institute, which has the goal of cultivating a better web livingweb.metalabel.com/internetphon...

The Internet Phone book lying on a page being colored on by a child

Internet phone book carried in a pocketbook

Elan Ullendorff @elan.place · 11mo ago

whoever said AI won’t create jobs can eat their hat now

Instagram screenshot, post by 404mediaco: freelance developers and entire companies are making a business out of fixing shoddy vibe coded software

New_ Public @newpublic.org · last yr.

Exploring the concept of gifting through experimental design — this is the beauty of the internet when it’s totally free from engagement-maxing algorithms and corporations. Highly recommend diving into this collection from @spencer.place and @elan.place's Gifting Interfaces class.

Gifting Interfaces

A collection of gifts developed by students at the School for Poetic Computation's Gift Interfaces class in Winter 2025.

gifting-interfaces.pages.dev

Elan Ullendorff @elan.place · last yr.

It was an honor to talk to Willa Paskin about artisanal white noise for @slate.com’s excellent Decoder Ring podcast slate.com/podcasts/dec...

White Noise Has Become Part of Life’s Soundtrack. But Who’s Behind It?

From crickets to rain to cellphones vibrating, white noise keeps evolving.

slate.com