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Digital Art on Acid

© Tony Sprinkle

Last time, I wrote about the advent of digital art as a new form of expression on the new media that has made this all possible, the Internet. Now, I'm going to delve into the alternative side of this new art form, better known as experimental web art. Similar to an acid trip, but without all the nasty side effects.

Hopefully, you've read the last article and experienced the web sites that I listed at the bottom. If not, please do so, because I'm going to go thru and analyse them, starting with betalab.

Wow! What a rush, huh? But don't worry; your computer hasn't blown a fuse. The web site is supposed to do that. When you go to betalab, all you have to do is sit back, and let the art have its way with you. No links to click. You don't even have to scroll, it does it all for you. The tradeoff, though, is that the site is low on semantic content, being that there aren't any actual words. Oh well. Anyway, it's not that hard to do, if you know some JavaScript. Look for some truly nifty tricks from this web site in later articles. By the way, don't look at this particular web site too long. betalab has been known to induce severe eye strain.

Next is mediaboy. Sorry, this site requires a little more participation from the viewer, such as clicking and mouse movement. But it's well worth the extra calorie expenditure; this site has words. Sentences, even! Yes, sentences, like "kill your television", "ignorance breeds hatred", and "hide your emotions". You can't, however, enjoy these profound statements, and many others, without the help of Shockwave. If you get tired of all that strenuous clicking and mouse movement, choose "people pressures"; you'll see small, different coloured popups with random words fly at Mach 2 over your screen. Another mind-numbing art experience thanks to JavaScript.

And now, for the pièce de résistance, superbad. This site is, by far, the best & most entertaining that I have yet seen. I have spent many hours at this site alone, going thru the different pages and clicking on links with reckless abandon. The main thing that makes this site so great is that it's constantly changing. Every so often, their index page will change (...and now for something completely different!), and they will add new pages into this massive, tangled jumble of a website. It's just great... no, strike that, it's superbad.

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