I’ve been looking at a prominently placed pitch black 24” display for months. Before moving in a year ago, I installed it and properly routed the cables with the idea that I would use it to showcase digital art.

Black screen surrounded by artworks

Using a screen as a canvas would allow me to pick the art based on my current taste and mood, in addition to enabling animation and interactivity. That appealed to me.

I had this plan to write the software behind it, integrate it with my home automation system and have it running a few months later. Well… let’s say life took over. My focus went towards other projects and I lingered for a year over finding this project’s name.

I recently settled on Tokonoma and I really like it. Merriam-Webster defines it as “a niche or alcove in the wall of a Japanese house for the display of a decorative object”. Wikipedia talks about a place where items for artistic appreciation are displayed. It’s exactly the spirit of this project. The place stays, the art changes.

So there you go, I started working on Tokonoma, a software solution for digital canvases. I’m building this project in the open: I’ll write about the process here and I’m open-sourcing it right from the beginning.

It’s at a very early stage right now and I don’t know when it’ll even be usable. In the meantime, if you’re interested, please drop me an email. I would love to know how Tokonoma could fit in your life!

I’m exited 🙂