There is a scene in the episode Who Killed 711? of the 1963 American detective television series Burke's Law in which Burke and crew pay a visit to an eccentric accountant, Harold Harold, who is the prime suspect in a murder. Entering into his hotel room, they find him tinkering with a peculiar machine the size of a large chest. It emits whizzes and dings and is adorned by various spinning whirligigs and whatnot.
After being asked to cease its clanging and ringing by the titular Burke, Detective Tilson asks him a few questions.
Burke: Can you turn this thing off?
Harold: Certainly, certainly. Yes, I-I-I always take this with me when I travel. At home, I have a m-much bigger one.
Tilson: What is it?
Harold: Well it's my... my therapy, I'm still perfecting it.
Tilson: What does it do?
Harold: Do‽
Tilson: Yeah, what's it for?
Harold: Well, nothing, nothing, I mean, that's the beauty of it! Every machine in the world does something, but not mine. This is my rebellion against efficiency!
Harold Harold's outré behaviours tickled me somewhat. Why shouldn't something do nothing, or at least something in a nothing way? Must everything have a purpose?
In our lives everything we do is in pursuit of a goal, even if not clear to us. The overarching goal being some sort of personal satisfaction defined by our world view. So much of the world, and the web by extension, is tied up in business and capitalist intent. Much art is even commercial and driven by some motive, rather than simply for the sake of art.
While efficiency and utility are undoubtedly valuable, this relentless pursuit of purpose can act to stifle creativity and genuine connection. There are no rules with a blank canvas other than the ones in your head – the predefined expectations you yourself set and which you yourself can subvert.
I develop on and for the web and often treat it in an artistic sense. To quote myself on something I once wrote: "'The web is my canvas,' I confess as the people watching over my shoulder observe me open a text editor and tile a browser window. 'CSS is my brush; MDN, my muse.'"
Some of the most beautiful things on the web aren't created for the purpose of anything, merely for sake's sake -- not in pursuit of any goal in particular. These are often called useless websites, but I'm not sure that is the most accurate term. It isn't that they're useless; it's more that they're just absent of use.
The Art of Digital Purposelessness
Rube Goldberg was a famous cartoonist, sculptor, author, engineer, and inventor whose name is now most associated with the concept of Rube Goldberg machines – contraptions pointlessly and purposely overengineered to the point of absurdity. They do usually have a purpose, but in such a roundabout way that the purpose isn't the purpose of the creation. The contraption exists for the existence of the contraption instead of the stated goal.
One could argue that the modern web has become a Rube Goldberg machine of sorts, where instead of deliberate inefficiency, it has been inflicted accidentally. Pointless bloat brought on by tracking scripts, analytics, and optimisation tools that serve no real purpose to the user and even prove disruptive to the provider in some cases. In the unrelenting pursuit of maximum efficiency and conversion, we've created the most inefficient systems imaginable.
In spite of this, there is a counter-movement of sorts. Digital creators embracing the philosophy of Harold Harold and building websites that serve no corporate purpose. People creating interactive experiences that generate no revenue and crafting digital art that exists purely for the joy of creation and discovery.
The commercial web operates on the principle of friction reduction. Every click, every second of loading time, every moment of user confusion is seen as a barrier to conversion. User experience and performance professionals spend careers optimising the path from visitor to customer, removing any element that doesn't directly contribute to business objectives and making number go up.
But friction can be beautiful. The slight delay of a realistic, handcrafted button depressing under the click of a cursor gives weight to the experience. The moment of uncertainty as you navigate an unconventional menu structure creates anticipation. The discovery of an unexpected interactive element or hidden page provides sincere delight – an emotion notably absent from most optimised user flows.
There's something deeply appealing about websites that deliberately choose inefficient design patterns. Sites that require scrolling through multiple screens to reach basic information, navigation systems that prioritise atmosphere over usability, or layouts that break conventional design rules without explanation.
These aesthetic choices communicate values that extend beyond mere design preferences. They signal a rejection of optimisation culture and an embrace of personal expression over conventional usability. While functionality usually remains important, some creators choose to prioritise emotional impact or artistic vision over conventional usability metrics.
The aesthetics of inefficiency often draw from pre-digital design traditions: magazine layouts that prioritise visual impact over scannability, architectural spaces that prioritise atmosphere over circulation efficiency, or art installations that prioritise contemplation over comprehension. Digital creators adapt these approaches to web media, creating online experiences that feel more like visiting a physical gallery than consuming digital content.
This whimsical friction can also serve as a sort of filtering mechanism. Visitors who appreciate purposeless digital experiences are likely to spend time exploring, returning, and sharing their discoveries with like-minded individuals. The inefficiency becomes a feature that attracts the right audience while repelling those seeking quick, consumable content.
Flânerie in the Digital Age
Beyond just creating, there is also just experiencing. Being a flâneur of the web – an aimless wanderer with no particular destination in mind, just the intent to experience.
I'm borrowing the concept of flânerie from 19th-century Paris. The original flâneur was a leisurely observer of urban life. Someone who wandered the urban streets not to reach a destination but to absorb rhythm and character. The goal is the journey, not the destination. Digital flânerie involves similar purposeless exploration, following curiosity rather than search engine optimisation or algorithmic intents.
The most rewarding discoveries happen when following tangential links, exploring personal websites of people whose work you admire, or diving deep into web communities focused on obscure interests. Stumbling down the street following the mysterious length of red string. These journeys often lead to unexpected connections between ideas, people, and projects that would never surface through algorithmic recommendations.
While stumbling about, one may come across broken links, or downed servers, or sites left to be taken by the tides. While businesses invest heavily in maintaining uptime and preserving functionality, personal websites can afford to be fragile, temporary, or deliberately broken. They can do things for the hell of it and subvert expectations on a whim. This fragility becomes part of their charm and character.
Exploring the semi-functional remains of an old facility that once produced trinkets and eccentric oddities, that has long since shut yet still has some power running. Machines when provoked may still spin up, but their original intention is nothing but a memory in the minds of those who operated them during their heyday. One can't help but feel intrigue while they explore and see what seized mechanisms they can kick back into some middling motion.
Many personal website owners deliberately choose inefficient methods for updating their sites. They write HTML by hand, upload files directly via FTP, or maintain static sites that require manual intervention for even simple changes. These choices would be considered backwards in a professional context, but they serve important psychological and creative functions.
The ritual of manually updating a website creates a different relationship with digital creation. Each change requires intentionality. Each new page demands conscious effort. This friction forces creators to consider whether their additions truly serve the site's character rather than simply filling space with content.
It isn't a case of everything being in pursuit of profit or return, or of pleasing algorithms and hitting KPIs. It is evident as one stumbles about, uneasy on their feet, observing, that it is about creating beauty.
For The Sake Of It
I fear I'm using a lot of French, but l'art pour l'art – art for art's sake – finds perhaps its purest digital expression in purposeless websites and interactive experiences.
The principle of art for art's sake emerged in the 19th-century as a reaction against utilitarian approaches to creative work. Digital creators today face similar pressures to justify their work through metrics, engagement, or commercial viability. Creating purposeless digital experiences becomes a form of resistance against these quantification demands.
Some of the most memorable digital art Ive encountered serves no function beyond existing. Interactive poetry that responds to mouse movements, generative art that creates unique patterns for each visitor, or simple animations that loop endlessly without beginning or conclusion. These works succeed by completely abandoning success metrics.
The web provides unique affordances for purposeless art that don't exist in other mediums. Digital experiences can be infinitely reproducible yet individually unique – globally accessible yet intimately personal. These contradictions create space for artistic expression that exists purely for its own sake.
As artificial intelligence and automation make efficient content creation increasingly accessible, human creation only becomes more valuable. Art cannot be optimized or automated, for it is a deeply personal thing. Even art for corporate purpose or which is done in such a way that it is optimized is still produced with deliberate intent and care.
A lack of defined purpose permits ephemerality. Something fun and of interest that can exist for a day. Or exist for a year. Or remain in perpetuity. Or disappear when the creator's interest wanes. There are no stakeholders to fret about or dependent users who must be catered to at concern of breaking changes.
Perhaps you have a purpose and intent. Perhaps you haven't. Perhaps your purpose and intent is to be devoid of any. Whatever way you look at and approach it, or don't look at and don't approach it, the web is there and ready for your rebellion against efficiency.
Declan Chidlow is a front‑end developer and writer with a focus on core web technologies. When not tinkering with code, you might find them unicycling, exploring obscure corners of the web, or bricking tech trinkets.
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