5 min read

The browser is the most underrated canvas in the world

Every computer in your house comes with the same incredibly powerful drawing tool, and most people never use it for anything fun.

If you sat down today and tried to design a creative tool that ran on every device on Earth, did 3D and audio and video and animation, was free to use, and didn't require an install, you'd basically reinvent the modern browser.

And yet, culturally, we mostly think of the browser as the window we use to log into Google Docs.

There's a quiet movement of artists, designers, and weird-software people who treat the browser as a canvas instead of a window. They make tiny generative art pieces, ambient soundscapes, browser-based instruments, single-page games, scrollable comics, and interactive essays. Every one of them is a few KB of code that runs the same way on a phone, a laptop, a smart fridge.

The reason this stuff doesn't show up in your feed is that it can't be summarized. A browser-as-canvas piece is a thing you have to actually open and play with. A screenshot doesn't do it justice. A 15-second clip doesn't do it justice. You have to be there.

The good news is the open web is still where these pieces live. Click around. Find one. The first time you stumble onto one, it's hard to stop.