dreams of the great earth changes

net.art.in.review

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given that the internet looks to be on its way out this year i figured it's about time to memorialize it while we can. when i remember the internet, my fondest thoughts are cast upon the humble Website, wherein “from so simple a beginning [static HTML], endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.” however, over the years i've come to realize that my idea of what constitutes a website is markedly different than the norm, because i am the sort of person who chooses to spend their spare time visiting domains that haven't been touched since the 90s. what follows is partly a public record and partly an attempt to justify my personal syncretic hangups about digital aesthetics. enclosed within, in no particular order, are over a dozen pithy reviews of websites in order that you may better appreciate this forgotten art. i may come back to update with this time

  • dollspace
    • one of my biggest personal influences. truly staggering in its scale and conveys the sensation of virtual sexuality better than anything before or since. big flashing content warnings for rape and incest and necrophilia and wolf murder and everything objectionable. did i mention that i love this more than anything else
  • superbad
    • the OG. the only point of thematic coherence is its total incoherence. carefully and expertly crafted according to incomprehensible laws
  • rrr r rr
    • made by the guy who animated that one simpsons couch gag. relative to others listed here, more of a wade pool than a yawning abyss. has some laugh-out-loud gags and some moments where it feels like you can see the marrow of the universe
  • The Word of God
    • a bizarre and labyrinthine network of clipart, religious feeling, and awkwardly overlapping text masterminded by a man whose intentions i still can't discern. looks utterly unlike any website i've ever seen. a less mean-spirited time cube
  • Heaven's Gate
    • amazingly it's still up. they had a side hustle in web design and in the era of spacejam.com you can see why
  • Taxi1010
    • included due to its being beloved by one of my friends. was never able to get my head around it because it's terrifyingly large. gives the vertigo of standing at the base of a planetary megastructure or falling through a piranesi etching
  • Mouchette
    • a medium-sized collection of semi-interactive pages (most of which involve sending and receiving email), but the real highlight is the decades-long backlog of user responses to a PHP form which treat a question about suicide with every possible degree of candor, self-loathing, and topic relevance. the webmaster continues to read and sort every one of them to this day
  • global semen (archived)
    • there's a patreon post by alex walton that explains this better than i could
  • Sentimental Corporation
    • a fascist edgelord presents a selection of misanthropic, conspiratorial animated skits and horrible music. not a particularly appealing description but it's hard to look away. the thing that gets me is its apparent awareness of its own absurdity: every racist or sexist jab (of which there are many) is so ham-handed that it's impossible to parse the intention
  • The Thinking Man's Minefield
    • sublime combination of web 1.0 design and laughably exaggerated male chauvinism. visit the flowie page
  • Nobody Here
    • a bunch of good-humored micro-experiments about identity and fear. features a user forum similar to mouchette, but hilariously and disarmingly, in order to submit you must first select a bug to represent you. sincere without a hint of maudlinism
  • Church of Euthanasia
    • they're serious. chris korda is a trans icon
  • DREAMS OF THE GREAT EARTH CHANGES
    • speaks for itself. i filched the title of this very blog from here several months ago. at the bottom of the main page is a call to free leonard peltier which is maybe the funniest thing they could put there
  • Amazein
    • a numerologist's wet dream. the center-aligned text is a side effect of a suffocating obsession with symmetry. you'd like this if you know what a numogram is (i don't)
  • Exit Sense
    • digital collage and music project featuring several images of men and their genitalia (in fairness, they do provide a warning that “this website will make you gay”). the most impressive and aesthetically cogent page is the DAWN OF THE NEW UGLY, which elevates facebook paranoia to the level of theology
  • adaweb
    • a supergroup of artists sharing space on the same domain, including the jodis of jodi.org (honorable mention). vaguely meow wolf creative collective vibes. matthew ritchie's the hard way is a highlight
  • subculture
    • EVERYTHING VIBRATES A LOT

postscript: arise, go forth, and conquer

here are a few collections where i've had success in locating similar websites. please find me more