Room 17 · Behind the glass

How this room wears

A photograph behind twelve panes of glass. Behind the pane your hand crosses, the print fades, for everyone, as a photograph left in a window goes; read the other way it warms instead, as one kept in an album does.

Each sentence is a separate surface. It is worn by a pointer passing over it, by a finger touching it, by being selected, by resting in the middle of the screen while someone reads, and a little by simply being on screen at all. Nothing below where a reader stops scrolling is ever worn, so the shape of the wear is also a map of how far people get, and that shape differs between a phone, which shows a few sentences at a time, and a wide screen, which shows many.

Being on screen only counts while someone is evidently there: a scroll, a movement of the pointer, a key, a touch within the last fifteen seconds. A tab left open in another room earns nothing.

Wear accumulates as weight. Weight becomes softness along the curve 1 − e−w/r, where r is 400 for the shared page and 20 for a personal one. The first touches show quickly; the last never quite finish.

The same history can be shown two ways. Erosion takes weight and presence away, like a step. Patina adds ink and warmth, like leather. Switch between them on the page. The wear is the same; only the reading of it changes.

Shared wear in this room is kept for good. It has never been reset. This room may become unreadable, and this page keeps a legible copy so that the loss is a choice rather than an accident.

One visitor may add only so much per day, so no one can wear the page out for everyone else. Crawlers and other machines are counted separately and do not wear the shared page. Their weight so far: 0.

Wearing since
23 October 2026, 05:16 in Kyoto, 4 days ago
Total weight
71
Reading now
0
Most worn
This photograph is behind twelve panes of glass. Behind the pane your hand crosses, the print fades.
Least worn
pane 4, upper middle left

The photograph

The picture is Ben's, kept whole by Cloudinary and never copied here. Each pane is a crop of it, and each of its 8 steps of wear is one transformation of that crop: as erosion, a draining of colour and contrast and a lightening towards the paper, as a print fades in a window; as patina, a browning and a little darkening, as a print kept in an album warms. Nothing is blurred: a faded photograph is still sharp. A pane's wear value chooses its step, so the whole life of the picture is at most 192 derived images, each made once by Cloudinary and kept at its edge.

  1. Pane 1, top left: step 0 of 8
  2. Pane 2, top centre: step 0 of 8
  3. Pane 3, top right: step 0 of 8
  4. Pane 4, upper middle left: step 0 of 8
  5. Pane 5, upper middle centre: step 0 of 8
  6. Pane 6, upper middle right: step 0 of 8
  7. Pane 7, lower middle left: step 0 of 8
  8. Pane 8, lower middle centre: step 0 of 8
  9. Pane 9, lower middle right: step 0 of 8
  10. Pane 10, bottom left: step 0 of 8
  11. Pane 11, bottom centre: step 0 of 8
  12. Pane 12, bottom right: step 0 of 8

As it was, week by week

A picture of the shared wear is kept each Monday after dawn. Nothing is wiped by it.

  1. 26 Oct 2026 weight 71

The text, unworn

For each sentence: total weight, of which merely seen, then how far down the page people get (its exposure as a share of the first sentence's), then the weight that came from narrow, medium and wide screens.

  1. pane 1, top left

    8 · seen 1 · reach 100% · narrow 0 · medium 0 · wide 8

  2. pane 2, top centre

    5 · seen 1 · reach 100% · narrow 0 · medium 0 · wide 5

  3. pane 3, top right

    4 · seen 1 · reach 100% · narrow 0 · medium 0 · wide 4

  4. pane 4, upper middle left

    1 · seen 1 · reach 100% · narrow 0 · medium 0 · wide 1

  5. pane 5, upper middle centre

    4 · seen 1 · reach 100% · narrow 0 · medium 0 · wide 4

  6. pane 6, upper middle right

    1 · seen 1 · reach 100% · narrow 0 · medium 0 · wide 1

  7. pane 7, lower middle left

    6 · seen 1 · reach 100% · narrow 0 · medium 0 · wide 6

  8. pane 8, lower middle centre

    7 · seen 1 · reach 100% · narrow 0 · medium 0 · wide 7

  9. pane 9, lower middle right

    6 · seen 1 · reach 100% · narrow 0 · medium 0 · wide 6

  10. pane 10, bottom left

    6 · seen 1 · reach 100% · narrow 0 · medium 0 · wide 6

  11. pane 11, bottom centre

    7 · seen 1 · reach 100% · narrow 0 · medium 0 · wide 7

  12. pane 12, bottom right

    6 · seen 1 · reach 100% · narrow 0 · medium 0 · wide 6

  13. This photograph is behind twelve panes of glass. Behind the pane your hand crosses, the print fades.

    8 · seen 1 · reach 100% · narrow 0 · medium 0 · wide 8

  14. The picture is kept whole elsewhere. What you see of it is made of everyone who has looked, pane by pane.

    1 · seen 1 · reach 100% · narrow 0 · medium 0 · wide 1

  15. A print left in a window goes the same way: pale where the light falls longest, warm at the edges, still a castle.

    1 · seen 1 · reach 100% · narrow 0 · medium 0 · wide 1