Illuminated Demos
Illumination meets computation.
Another bottle episode about a term that has been percolating in my head…Read to the end for links to wonderful demos from wonderful creators.
From Manuscripts to Machines
Illuminated manuscripts weren’t just beautiful books. They were arguments—extravagant, materially expensive arguments—about what counted as knowledge, which ideas deserved reverence and who had the power to “enforce” this. Gold leaf, pigments, dense ornamentation: none of this was necessary for reading. It was necessary for meaning, signaling and controlling.
Illumination was a cultural stance:
Making the thing was part of knowing the thing, and signaling why knowing this thing mattered.
The Illuminated Manuscript was never passive, ornamental packaging. It was a knowledge artifact that declared the written word a privileged medium of thought, worthy of excessive care.
Computation now holds that role.
With the rise of generative AI, we increasingly think through software—through code, interfaces, simulations, models, and prototypes. But the demos that accompany technological work are usually treated as disposable and lesser-than: functional sketches on the way to a “real” product. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that.
And yet a particular kind of demo breaks this pattern by introducing markedly different qualities. These demos are highly crafted, aesthetically intentional, and—crucially—over-invested in form. Not for polish but for philosophy. Their craft is part of their claim.
These are what I call Illuminated Demos.
What makes a demo illuminated?
An Illuminated Demo is a technological demonstration that treats computational making as a serious way of knowing. Like illuminated manuscripts, it uses a saturation – an excess – of care, detail, beauty, and strangeness to signal that the artifact itself is a mode of inquiry.
Illuminated Demos:
refuse passive consumption of novelty
embed arguments in interaction, behavior, and form
weave a creator’s thoughts and feelings with the technological “climate of opinion” around them (as developed by Becker)
expose the values our tools embody
propose alternatives primarily through working artifacts, not merely speculative words (although rare, word-only exceptions do exist)
live inside an ongoing creative practice, not a one-off trick, alluding to a creator’s ongoing, unfinished business
Where manuscripts elevated writing, Illuminated Demos elevate computational craft as an expressive knowledge discipline.
Why illumination matters now
Our technologies—especially generative ones—shape how we think, decide, feel, and imagine. But the cultural conversation about them is dominated by abstractions: AI disruption, innovation, “the future of X.” Illuminated Demos counter this flattening by grounding ideas in crafted experiences, interfaces and prototypes.
They let us see what a technology believes. They make implicit values tangible. They reveal how tools structure thought, and how alternative designs might structure it differently.
In short:
Illuminated Demos surface and contest the values embedded in our technologies by treating the act of building itself as knowledge.
This essay is simply an attempt to name that practice, gather its examples, and chart the terrain. The definition will evolve—as it should. But for now, consider this an invitation to explore the possibilities that emerge when we treat demos not as scaffolding, but as illuminated artifacts of understanding.
Illuminated Demos, notable examples
This list is incomplete, but it should give you a good idea of what I’m looking for in an Illuminated Demo, and an Illuminated Demoer:
- ’s REAList Stack, and his and Anuraj’s miniaturized, blockchain-powered economy embodied by a robot
Bret Victor’s Inventing on Principle
- ’s LLM daemons and barefoot developers
Pippin Barr’s V R 3 game and The Stuff Games Are Made Of book
Andy Matuschak’s timeful texts
Robin Sloan Spring ‘83 Protocol, Perfect Edition and Home-Cooked Apps
Andy Bell and Heydon Pickering’s Every Layout
Matt Webb’s Machine Supply
- ’s Touching Computers
- ’s Spy Chrome Extension
- ’s Playground
Arun Venkatesan’s Smart Speaker deep dive
- ’s ValTown
Devon Zuegel’s Edge Esmeralda
Dave Rupert’s Grid On Paper and Tale of Three Architectures
Tl;draw’s Make Real
The Block Protocol by HASH
And nobody does this better, or more consistently, than Ink and Switch (see Embark, for example).