Ia! Ia! Yvette fhtagn!
Let's say, hypothetically, that "web design" was one of the fundamental particles of the universe. This, ladies and gentlemen, is its antiparticle:
... Hang on, obligatory disclaimers.
WARNING: Contains sound.
WARNING: Not safe for brain.
WARNING: May even be so bad that it locks up your browser (my Safari took about 5 minutes to render it); don't have any unsaved posts or forms up when you click.
That having been said, this is its antiparticle.
(Okay, it's missing Comic Sans. But it's damn close to being an antiparticle.)
Seriously, that atrocity has wrapped around so completely from design to anti-design that it's back in the realm of art. It creates such a perfect short-circuit of the aesthetic centers of the brain that it has a strange allure. By catching your brain in an infinite loop where it's searching for the appropriate punctuation at the end of the inevitable "WHAT", and then recursing into further rhetorical questions before finding anything satisfactory, it manages to stimulate a corner of your brain that is somewhere halfway between madness and transcendence.
In other words, I'm grateful to have found this before the start of the Call of Cthulhu campaign. It's a perfect illustration of what it feels like to lose 1d3 Sanity points as you have an epiphany about the secrets of the Mythos.
Don't believe me? Read on, I'll walk you through it. But I can't be responsible for you if you choose to click.
Stare at the page for ten seconds or so. Let your eyes totally unfocus. Things start catching your attention. The page stares back at you. Stares into your soul. You start to see patterns in the shapes. Hidden messages. The colors whisper to you. The bizarre aberration circling the page becomes a metaphor for the cycle of life, and the alternating circles and squares become coded dialogues between the ghostly apparitions. The giant smear of boxes dissolves into the blocky form of a helpless, domesticated animal, fattened and caged by the ravages of capitalism, helpless to do anything but squeal in wretched harmony and give birth to the next generation of mindless religious iconography ... but we'll get back to that in a second.
Then there's Yvette. By which I mean the model in the lower left, obscured by the surface message of the site. She stares out through the letters with an ambiguous stare, arching one eyebrow in a come-hither gaze while doing her best to seem cold and unapproachable in hopes that your eye will not linger. And why should it? She is simply modeling the product. But something rings false. The gown is not the point of the photo. How could it be? Obscured by text and devoid of links -- the only surface representation in a page full of hidden meanings -- and it's about that time that you realize there is a three-foot-tall doorway behind her. Why? How? And as your brain loops into entirely new holding patterns, you see: it is a doorway that the ghostly face approaches with every transit of the page -- and then enters, metamorphosizing into mere squares, taking the shapes of its passage, symbolic doorways into its own secrets.
When the ghost reappears at the top, it makes a beeline for the cradle of the bird's wing -- and passes through that circular portal, also taking that shape for its own.
It flits around the page, moving, searching. Each piece it reaches, it evaluates, and draws into itself.
It's a metaphor for the reader. The ghost is us. We are drawn into the page, and circle it endlessly. Now that the page has us, there is no escape. The moving figure -- and we -- stare out in horror, unable to scream.
But if we cannot get out through the edges - then to the center! No, not the true center, for the solid blocks of impenetrable color perform their job of warding quite admirably. But to the maternal figure just below. The gentle, welcoming mother, soothing in its evocation of traditional religious figures, cradling the baby of our troubled fears in her arms --
Wait!
That's no human baby ...
what is she holding
... goat ... headed ... demon infant?
dear god what the hell is that
And her fingers are claws. Claws! It's -- it can't be, it must be a hallucination --
But the baby thing
What happened to its head I mean the neck is twisted almost 180 degr--
AAAAAAAAAAAAH
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Edited to add: Okay, seriously, listening to the page music again (which I hadn't originally heard; I had to turn my speakers off at work) after going through the whole Forbidden Lore thing above? CREEPED ME THE FUCK OUT.
ETA x2: DEAR GOD THERE'S MORE. I didn't realize the page scrolled. LADIES AND GENTLEMEN WE HAVE DISCOVERED THE LOST DIGITAL TRANSLATION OF THE NECRONOMICON
I mean, it even has Aydin's Death Letter !! ~* Complete with skulls and ominous bass rumbling and it starts "Chamberlain doesn't give his home address to anyone" and and no no no this is STRAIGHT outta Lovecraft I am NOT going to look I've already come too close to the edge tonight. (*closes*)
the truth will set you free ~~
... Hang on, obligatory disclaimers.
WARNING: Contains sound.
WARNING: Not safe for brain.
WARNING: May even be so bad that it locks up your browser (my Safari took about 5 minutes to render it); don't have any unsaved posts or forms up when you click.
That having been said, this is its antiparticle.
(Okay, it's missing Comic Sans. But it's damn close to being an antiparticle.)
Seriously, that atrocity has wrapped around so completely from design to anti-design that it's back in the realm of art. It creates such a perfect short-circuit of the aesthetic centers of the brain that it has a strange allure. By catching your brain in an infinite loop where it's searching for the appropriate punctuation at the end of the inevitable "WHAT", and then recursing into further rhetorical questions before finding anything satisfactory, it manages to stimulate a corner of your brain that is somewhere halfway between madness and transcendence.
In other words, I'm grateful to have found this before the start of the Call of Cthulhu campaign. It's a perfect illustration of what it feels like to lose 1d3 Sanity points as you have an epiphany about the secrets of the Mythos.
Don't believe me? Read on, I'll walk you through it. But I can't be responsible for you if you choose to click.
Stare at the page for ten seconds or so. Let your eyes totally unfocus. Things start catching your attention. The page stares back at you. Stares into your soul. You start to see patterns in the shapes. Hidden messages. The colors whisper to you. The bizarre aberration circling the page becomes a metaphor for the cycle of life, and the alternating circles and squares become coded dialogues between the ghostly apparitions. The giant smear of boxes dissolves into the blocky form of a helpless, domesticated animal, fattened and caged by the ravages of capitalism, helpless to do anything but squeal in wretched harmony and give birth to the next generation of mindless religious iconography ... but we'll get back to that in a second.
Then there's Yvette. By which I mean the model in the lower left, obscured by the surface message of the site. She stares out through the letters with an ambiguous stare, arching one eyebrow in a come-hither gaze while doing her best to seem cold and unapproachable in hopes that your eye will not linger. And why should it? She is simply modeling the product. But something rings false. The gown is not the point of the photo. How could it be? Obscured by text and devoid of links -- the only surface representation in a page full of hidden meanings -- and it's about that time that you realize there is a three-foot-tall doorway behind her. Why? How? And as your brain loops into entirely new holding patterns, you see: it is a doorway that the ghostly face approaches with every transit of the page -- and then enters, metamorphosizing into mere squares, taking the shapes of its passage, symbolic doorways into its own secrets.
When the ghost reappears at the top, it makes a beeline for the cradle of the bird's wing -- and passes through that circular portal, also taking that shape for its own.
It flits around the page, moving, searching. Each piece it reaches, it evaluates, and draws into itself.
It's a metaphor for the reader. The ghost is us. We are drawn into the page, and circle it endlessly. Now that the page has us, there is no escape. The moving figure -- and we -- stare out in horror, unable to scream.
But if we cannot get out through the edges - then to the center! No, not the true center, for the solid blocks of impenetrable color perform their job of warding quite admirably. But to the maternal figure just below. The gentle, welcoming mother, soothing in its evocation of traditional religious figures, cradling the baby of our troubled fears in her arms --
Wait!
That's no human baby ...
what is she holding
... goat ... headed ... demon infant?
dear god what the hell is that
And her fingers are claws. Claws! It's -- it can't be, it must be a hallucination --
But the baby thing
What happened to its head I mean the neck is twisted almost 180 degr--
AAAAAAAAAAAAH
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Edited to add: Okay, seriously, listening to the page music again (which I hadn't originally heard; I had to turn my speakers off at work) after going through the whole Forbidden Lore thing above? CREEPED ME THE FUCK OUT.
ETA x2: DEAR GOD THERE'S MORE. I didn't realize the page scrolled. LADIES AND GENTLEMEN WE HAVE DISCOVERED THE LOST DIGITAL TRANSLATION OF THE NECRONOMICON
I mean, it even has Aydin's Death Letter !! ~* Complete with skulls and ominous bass rumbling and it starts "Chamberlain doesn't give his home address to anyone" and and no no no this is STRAIGHT outta Lovecraft I am NOT going to look I've already come too close to the edge tonight. (*closes*)
the truth will set you free ~~