The HTML Vitality group advocates understanding HTML for what it fairly actually is: a language. And it celebrates the way in which the rudimentary character of that language calls for intention from the consumer. As an amalgamation of minuscule and complex inventive choices, a web site constructed utilizing solely HTML is a type of self-expression. Viewing a web site’s supply code is as vital as navigating its interface. There are sometimes Easter eggs hidden in that code, equivalent to cheeky messages or citations taken from different HTML websites. In some ways, an HTML web site captures one thing of the creator’s identification: what did that particular person select to construct, and the way?
This fascination with totally different purposes of HTML can be seen in bodily group gatherings typically referred to as “freewrites,” the place members of the motion get collectively to jot down code. Sunday Websites and Fruitful College are among the many web sites that arrange these gatherings, typically integrating instructional components into their periods to empower extra individuals to affix the motion. In the meantime, websites like HTML Assessment showcase a few of its merchandise within the format of a literary journal.
PROJECT 1
Terrarium of Many Sceneries
Ji Kim’s Terrarium of Many Sceneries collages snippets of footage from an previous iPhone. As guests scroll by the positioning, pictures overlap and embedded audio clips play. When customers click on any picture, a small description of when and the place it was taken seems, alongside extra accompanying media.
Kim’s web site is designed to imitate the sporadic, layered nature of reminiscence. It’s a digital expertise that’s deliberately fragmented and overwhelming—like making an attempt to recollect a household journey taken years in the past.
PROJECT 2
A Room with a Window
Shelby Wilson’s A Room with a Window is a web site that permits for just one interplay: opening and shutting a set of window shades. The positioning deliberately conflates bodily and digital areas: Wilson performs with the concept of a browser as a portal to a spot with bodily boundaries and edges, but additionally maintains surrealist parts (the room doesn’t get darker when the blinds shut) and randomized components (the colour of the room modifications on every go to) to spotlight the digital type.
PROJECT 3
HTML Backyard
Spencer Chang’s web site imagines what a backyard may appear like on the web. A number of “vegetation” made from native HTML components develop, and the passage of time is acknowledged and noticeable upon every go to—seasons change, vegetation sprout and bloom. There’s no express motion referred to as for—simply remark.
PROJECT 4
Prose Play
Katherine Yang’s Prose Play is an interactive poem that encourages customers to enter totally different phrases right into a pre-set sentence construction. Framing phrases as variables, the positioning explores the interactivity of the web. It places the literary concept of the “Dying of the Creator”—the concept that the which means of a textual content will not be decided by the creator’s intention however by the reader’s interpretation—within the context of code.
PROJECT 5
Erich Friedman
Erich Friedman’s web site is a private encyclopedia of his life, with archives of every thing from film rankings to evaluations of mini-golf programs throughout central Florida. Organized into the classes of Math Stuff, Puzzle Stuff, Private Stuff, and Skilled Stuff, the positioning is easy in construction. It makes use of fundamental HTML to showcase Friedman’s eclectic pursuits over the previous decade, together with an inventory of enjoyable information for each quantity from 0 to 9,999 and collections of math and trivia issues. The positioning doesn’t drive any particular motion. It merely stands as an exhaustive, candid portrait of Erich Friedman, occupying a small piece of the net.
PROJECT 6
Museum of Screens
Toulou TouMou’s Museum of Screens is a web site that homes browser video games created by sport fanatics. So as to work together with the video games on show, customers must navigate the digital house like a bodily museum visualized in ASCII graphics. There are precise visiting hours, with a “relaxation day” chosen at random.
Created to provide due credit score to beginner builders throughout the period of Flash video games, TouMou’s museum goals to spotlight the significance of acknowledging authorship and the wealthy historical past of impartial video games.
There isn’t a centralized supply for HTML Vitality websites: serendipity makes them discovering them really feel particular, like taking place upon a bit of avenue artwork behind a car parking zone. They’re not designed for discovery, nor are they optimized for any specific motion. They merely have interaction with a customer on the customer’s phrases, providing a portrait of their creator. If websites like Google or Fb are the supermarkets and procuring malls the place you purchase your requirements, HTML Vitality websites are just like the hidden gardens you occur upon, unmarked on any map.
Tiffany Ng is a contract author exploring the connection between artwork, tech, and tradition.
