Dérive
This assignment took me down a path of desultory discovery; to begin, I took to my preferred search engine: google. I asked google, first, to lead me down a path of finding a source for tangential hyperlinks. In this, a fruitful endeavor, I began with the auspicious request for a website that which could lead me to other such websites. The results yielded a menagerie of opportune suggestions, yet I chose to settle for the first option: theuselessweb.com
The primary directive for this site is to do none other than connect you with one of a vast myriad of nugatory websites — the extent of such a collection appears to be boundless. By clicking the hyperlinked, and heavily prompted, “please” at the center of the screen, you agree to open up another tab with one of such websites at the other end. The destinations varied from that of mere jpeg images amidst white screens, to highly thorough mind games such as an audio quiz that prompts you to recall the movie in which Owen Wilson exclaimed each of his unique ‘wow’s.
Each sampled audio-bite is posed with a multiple choice questionnaire featuring four possible films in which he has uttered his signature call. The end result of the quiz is tallied and graded after 10 questions.
From there, I was taken to several pages reminiscent of works made by such artists as Joan Miró and Piet Mondrian. The variation lied within the realm of both presentation and interactivity. They were all playful presentations, but no more useful than the last.
To my surprise, I was then met with a multitude of websites designed in fractal structures evocative of Olia Lialina’s ‘My Boyfriend Came Back From the War’. One particular website, with which I had prior familiarity, had a similarly interactive interface as that of Nick Potter’s favorite homage to MBCBFTW, My Burger Came Back From the War. This, I admit, was difficult not to suggest visiting during our class’ discussion of the website. The website being, KoalastotheMAX.com
What begins as a single dot on a white background:
Divides upon contact with the on-screen mouse cursor.
Such division continues to bifurcate and divaricate to your contentment. This process slowly improves the resolution of a progressively revealed image featuring one of many koalas:
Eventually, I was brought to a website with a familiar purpose and aesthetic, but a different objective: weirdorconfusing.com
Upon clicking the prompted hyperlink, you are put through a similar procedure: as a new tab opens, you are then met with a specific eBay listing featuring an item of either weird or confusing nature. These item range from calendars of defecating animals, banana slicers, metallic Madonna pet-costumes, and a pair of mirrored bifocals for the avid, yet particularly lazy litterateur, to canned meats derived from all-but-mythical creatures.
After coming to find items of peculiarly macabre nature, I chose to forego my indefatigable rummaging for nothing in particular. A journey that begun with a poor man’s face being belabored with an eel, ended with an eBay listing for a published instructional on:
