Code as Generational Wealth

All of Good Graphics was uploaded to a flash drive. Pictures of prints, videos of plotter prints, SVGs, PNGs, JPEGs of graphics, code for graphics, and the entire Good Graphics monorepo—everything is preserved.

Why? Because of Octavia Butler.

While reading Black Futures, I learned Butler was an avid archivist. The Huntington Library now holds her archive: "more than 8,000 items" that have been "used nearly 1,300 times—or roughly 15 times per week." Her work continues to sustain and inspire future creators.

This represents a different form of generational wealth. Rather than monetary inheritance, it's the passing of knowledge, methods, and experience. For Black communities especially, this archival practice embodies survival and empowerment across generations—a way of saying "I was here. I survived. Maybe what I learned helps you too."

My flash drive serves the same purpose. I'm building my own archive, capturing my artistic practice in case it benefits even one future person. As one developer noted, "the computational aspect can be difficult to archive and display" because "software and code is lost to history" when it goes offline or becomes obsolete.

I can't predict whether GitHub will endure, whether JavaScript remains relevant, or even if computers exist in the future. But I'm documenting my work anyway. If I have no children to pass it to, libraries accept archives.

—mello

P.S. I'm not claiming to be the Octavia Butler of creative coding. But wouldn't it be remarkable if someone discovered my imperfect code and found it genuinely useful?