Project #1: litany_against_
fear. html
Objective
Take the text from Dune’s Litany Against Fear into a web-based experienceBackground
It’s also useful to think of the poem as a way of exteriorizing how a (hyper)link works. A link presents a promise of content (“read more”), a tone, a beat in a larger rhythm, that loads and passes through to a new page, new content. How do we choose our connections “fearlessly” and does our inner eye reflect that they deliver on their promises?
This project is meant mainly as an exercise, where everyone has a similar end goal. It’s meant to be a quick one to see what page we’re all on aesthetically and code-ally. If you’d like to return to it, expand upon it, or use a different piece of writing as a starting point, that’s totally fine for a future project.
Requirements
- You must submit your site via repl.it or your online repository.
- Your site must contain the entire text for the Litany Against Fear (the longer one from the book) somewhere.
- Your site must contain at least seven HTML pages which link to each other.
(if there are distinct “states” within one long page; that is fine, let’s just have a chat about it) - You must use CSS to style your HTML.
Considerations
- Your approach ︎Do you want to do a net art type thing? Do you want to make it more like a promotional microsite? How much do you want to flex (as a function of time you have, what you remember from other web classes, etc).
- Your code will be checked ︎Your code will be checked to see how you approach this aspect of the project. Are your comments used to make your code clearer? Are they used in a “creative” way? Are you using id’s and classes in your CSS in a way that makes sense? Are you using relevant tags when needed?
- Clarity/Obfuscation ︎ if you submit via repl.it it will show me all your pages, if you want things to be hard to identify or how the pages link together is arcane or mysterious in some way.
- Affect ︎How do you represent fear and conquering it via a web page? Do you find the text wild corny? Then represent it that way.
“No shuriken mode” challenges
- Do some whacky Variable Fonts shit
(see this folder for some variable fonts you can use) - Record the Litany and have your site play it back using different buttons. Like a soundboard that you have to play like an instrument or a chant box that allows one to meditate.
- Make your website “perfomative” and recite the Litany for critique like a kind of karaoke video.
- Do something like...using a Javascript library, three.js for example, and use it to represent the box from the Gom Jabbar Test and make some kind “endurance test”game where you accrue “points” for each successive recitation of the Litany.
Further Reading/Viewing
- YTMND︎ This is of the early “proto-memes” on the internet; and linked here because it’s such a strange use of type and the looping audio reminds of repeating the litany. If you want to know more there’s a History of YTMND by Justin Whang
- Rafael Rozendaal’s work︎ I (personally) find this “art object, but on the internet!” thing kind of reductive, but I like the aesthetic of his work, also check his code/comments.
- http://wwwwwwwww.jodi.org/︎ Check the coments on this one.
- YH Chang Heavy Industries︎ These were from back in the Flash days, which allows for very tight editing and sound sync. That being said these are not difficult to do in Flash (now Animate), and a good example of a symple idea explored deeply.
- Petra Cortright︎ This is less the actual website but the way she captures the internet spirit, there’s a bunch of artists I could have picked for this (like Anthony), but was just thinking about this one for some reason. I first heard about her through this piece but didn’t see it on her website.
- Wendy’s Feast of Legends︎ in case you’re not into this net art shit, lol, you can also make your site more like a landing page or micro site, maybe like a New Age promotion for the Litany, or make the site like it is part of a promotion for David Lynch’s Dune. This is the first one I could think of, there are plenty of “24 Micro Sites That Will Change Your Life Forever!” out there.
- Typearture’s Variable Color Font Animations︎ These are slightly beyond what we can get to in a clean way in this class, but you can certainly incorporate animation via .GIF’s or videos for this project.
- Mould Map︎ Including this here for similar reasons that I am including the Wendy’s piece; except this has a bit more of an interesting aesthetic (to me).
- Dune (the book)︎ Someone put these on archive.org, but the book has a glossary that is super important to be able to quickly flip back and forth from, so it probably benefits from having a physical copy. There should be plenty of cheap paperback versions about, but if the library doesn’t have a copy, I have Dune, Dune Messiah and Children of Dune, they’re just in storage, I’d have to fish them out so I’d need a heads up.
- Dune (The David Lynch Movie)︎ There’s a couple different versions out there (including one that David Lynch is listed as Alan Smithee). I think any version is worth watching, but I’d recommend reading the book first so you know what the flip is actually happening. I might have an .mp4 of it somewhere if you want.
- Frank Herbert’s Dune︎ This was the TV movie that SyFy did. It’s not very good, but if you get really into Dune, you’ll probably end up trying to watch it. James McAvoy plays Leto II Atreides in the Children of Dune movie that came out later, so there’s that.
- Jodorowsky’s Dune︎A great documentary about a version of the Dune movie that Alejandro Jodorowsky was attached to at one point. If you like Moebius, Chris Foss, or H.R. Giger they did concept art so it’s worth watching just for that. Jodorowsky also took some interesting liberties with the story.