Welcome to 4o4.au

About

About the Webmaster

Hey, my name is Karithina (they/them), or you might otherwise know me as Tenjin or Carly depending on where you are visiting from.

I’ve had a lifelong love of computers and the internet. I have been making websites since primary school, starting with an Anne McCaffrey-inspired dragon roleplay forum. I was often a form of tech support for classmates, teachers and family. In early high school, I got more practice with coding by making Bebo themes and Neopets layouts for friends. I was in a lunchtime girls’ coding club and thrived in IT, art and English classes.

I studied design and illustration at James Cook University and the University of Applied Sciences Würzburg-Schweinfurt. My intent was to do a design/art related course first and then IT, but I fell into life soon after that.

I had a few early career attempts - a people’s choice voting system cobbled together in what Office software I could access, a couple of modified Flash painting games, and some time creating a contacts database. Nothing to write home about.

Throughout the past decade I’ve been passionate about and fascinated by web accessibility. In some ways connected to that, my love of digging through subcultures on the internet has blossomed into an adoration for the indie web.

I’m now a web developer, designer and content editor, and I’ve also been a graphic designer and a digital media generalist, so I’m used to straddling the world between art and tech.

I’m Australian, a goth, a breast cancer survivor, nonbinary, pansexual, and autistic. I have ADHD, two cats, and a house full of Halloween decorations all year.

I’m a recovering plant murderer. My garden so far is a collection of Australian-native plants, vincas, and cactuses (the latter two categories are potted).

My favourite video games are often creative, social, chill, puzzle, retro, pixel, biology, or roleplay based.

In my artwork, I explore themes of otherness with muted or no colours across various mediums such as ink, watercolour, virtual reality photography, sculpture, collage, vector illustrations, art mods for 90s video games, and augmented reality animations.

Below is a bit about me in the form of lists of my favourite things. I also have a portfolio page for some of my artwork.

Favourite Things

Board Games

  • Dixit
  • Kodama: The Tree Spirits
  • Takenoko

Books

  • Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer
  • Cell, by Stephen King
  • Riftwar Cycle, by Raymond E Feist
  • The Broken Earth trilogy, by N. K. Jemison
  • The Stand, by Stephen King
  • The Day of the Triffids, by John Wyndham
  • Smoke Gets in Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory, by Caitlin Doughty
  • Dragonriders of Pern series, by Anne McCaffrey
  • The Tower and the Hive series, by Anne McCaffrey

Drinks

  • Genmaicha / 玄米茶 / “brown rice tea”
  • Lapsang souchong / 正山小種 / 正山小种 / 熏茶 / “smoked tea”
  • Masala chai / मसाला चाय / “mixed-spice tea”
  • Matcha / 抹茶 / “ground tea”
  • Taro milk tea with tapioca pearls

Fauna

  • Bats
  • Cats
  • Diploptera punctata cockroach
  • Macropanesthia rothi cockroach
  • Nudibranchs
  • Rats

Food (dessert)

  • Dacquoise
  • Garash
  • Gulab Jamun
  • Hazelnut castel (I don’t know where it’s from but it is hazelnut meringue and buttercream…)
  • Kyiv cake / торт “Київський”
  • Mochi / 大福餅 / Daifukumochi
  • Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte / “Black Forest cake”
  • Tiramisu
  • Ube Halaya / “purple yam jam”
  • Vermicelles

Food (non-dessert)

  • Lasagne
  • Moussaka
  • Ramen
  • Shepherd’s pie / cottage pie
  • Sop sop / “yam stew”

Films

  • The Day of the Triffids (1962)
  • Barbarella (1968)
  • Alien (1979)
  • Possession (1981)
  • Blade Runner (1982)
  • The Dark Crystal (1982)
  • The Fly (1986)
  • Něco z Alenky / Alice (1988)
  • Fargo (1996)
  • Bound (1996)
  • Ringu / Ring (1998)
  • The Matrix (1999)
  • Ritual (2000)
  • A Beautiful Mind (2001)
  • Spirited Away (2001)
  • Ghost World (2001)
  • May (2003)
  • One Point O / Paranoia: 1.0 (2004)
  • Marebito / Unique One (2004)
  • Parasite (2019)
  • Sound of Metal (2020)
  • The Matrix Resurrections (2021)
  • Cruella (2021)

Flora

  • Vinca
  • Viola hederacea / Australian violet

‘TV’ Shows

  • Cleverman
  • Fargo
  • Firefly
  • Mr. Robot
  • Star Trek: Discovery
  • Star Trek: Picard
  • Stargate: Atlantis
  • Stargate: SG1
  • Stranger Things
  • The Animals of Farthing Wood
  • The Day of the Triffids
  • The Watch
  • Twin Peaks

‘Video’ Games

  • Animal Crossing series
  • Astrobotany
  • Creatures series
  • Crypt of the Necrodancer
  • Life is Strange series
  • Pokémon series
  • Runestone Keeper
  • Stray
  • The Elder Scrolls series
  • VRChat

Visual Artists