How Operatic Blobs and VR Dance Parties are Critical to Advancing Emerging Tech on the Web
In March 1989, while working as a Software Engineer at CERN, Tim Berners-Lee came up with the concept of the World Wide Web. He envisioned a system that would allow people to easily share research using hypertext files — files that could link to one another to form a web of information. Since then, the abilities of web pages have grown far beyond the static sites of the original web. Standardized in 1997, Javascript, the programming language behind the functionality of every website, expanded the power of a web page astronomically. Websites became interactive, and users could send data back to the server, allowing functionality as core to the modern web as logging into an account.
The internet is built on a number of technologies focused on getting code to your computer and running in a fraction of a second with minimal effort from you. We see this daily when we send an email with Gmail, make a purchase online, or work on a Google Doc. Compared to installing an app for your computer or phone, web-based programs are speedy and accessible. Yet, despite the web’s growth and evolution, much of it looks similar to Tim Berners-Lee’s original World Wide Web.
But it doesn’t have to be this way! Despite that web pages are almost always some combination of text, links, and various forms of media, there are innovative ways to enhance these amalgams of elements. The internet is home to many weird, creative, and unorthodox sites that take the potential of instantly accessible code to create new ways to experience the web.
Henry Heffernan’s website lets users access his portfolio through a virtual computer within the web page. Users can navigate through his 90s-esque mini-portfolio site or x-out of that window completely and play Scrabble, the Oregon Trail, and even Doom. Websites like Heffernan’s put a twist on an established format and provide a wholly original and strikingly cool experience.
Other sites throw practicality out the window. David Li’s Blob Opera has users manipulate the pitch and vowel sound of one of the four colorful blobs. As they do so, the other three blobs will harmonize with them, creating surprisingly beautiful harmonies. The site uses a bespoke machine learning model trained on 16 hours of recorded singing from 4 real opera singers to generate the blobs’ beautiful voices.
So What?
Although these weird and experimental sites often sacrifice the easy functionality of “normal” web pages, they are far from useless novelties.
The W3C (the organization responsible for standardizing web technologies) often introduces new technologies before developers, hardware, companies, or any combination of the three are fully ready to realize practical applications and complete products utilizing them. In contrast, small experimental sites can readily use these technologies without needing them to be prepared for widespread, practical use.
In 2016, W3C approved the experimental WebVR specification. A standardized way for developers to create VR experiences housed entirely in the browser.
A year later, LCD Soundsystem’s Dance Tonite site launched as an interactive music video. Users with higher-end VR headsets — that could track their heads and hands moving around a room — could dance to the site’s titular song with their movements recorded. Users with simpler handheld VR headsets, such as Google Cardboard, could then move through room after room of dancing figures.
Experimental sites are critical to the maturation of technologies on the web. In an article detailing the process of creating Dance Tonite, lead developer Jonathan Puckey recounted many problems his team encountered while voyaging through the relatively unexplored lands of WebVR. He described challenges such as low frame rates and recording user movements.
In 2019, W3C released the first working draft of WebXR, WebVR’s successor. W3C used the experiences of developers like Puckey to learn from and surpass the abilities of WebVR.
Code as a Creative Medium
Lastly, these sites serve as reminders that coding for the web doesn’t need to be serious, practical, or conventional.
A pie chart comparing the resources and jobs available for traditional versus unconventional web development would likely look to the naked eye like an uninterrupted circle. One might have to use a magnifying glass to glimpse the narrow sliver representing the weird side of the web.
This makes complete sense. Traditional web design is orders of magnitude faster to develop and is far more practical for most applications of the internet. But, sadly, it means that many developers rarely, if ever, have the chance to be inspired by this expanded vision of what it means to be a programmer and what a website can be.
In almost any functional creative field, from fashion to graphic design, significant evolutions and advancements come from artists who use the tools of their medium to imagine completely original forms of their craft. The architect Le Corbusier’s innovative Villa Savoye (1931) was a landmark in the evolution of architectural modernism. The style and ideology behind Villa Savoye and its contemporaries trickled down and remain a significant influence in today’s functional and avant-garde architecture.
As such, developers understanding the web as a medium for experimentation and creativity rather than simply a practical tool is critical to its continued evolution and vibrancy. Just like Le Corbusier, the work of avant-garde developers who push forward the design and functionality of websites trickles down into the design trends of the practical web. Parallax scrolling, now a widespread style in web design, has its roots in developers from the late 2000s messing around and creating proofs of concept, as shown in this blog post from 2008.
Weird and impractical websites have been and will continue to be essential parts of the web’s evolution. They expand our conceptions of how we can use the technologies of the internet and create corners of joy and amazement in a largely practical space. They lower the stakes of experimentation, forming essential steps in the maturation of present and future technologies.
At UNC Blue Sky Innovations, we focus on emerging technologies, many of which are yet to find widespread use. A critical factor in the adoption of new technologies is their ability to be accessible and easily usable for potential new users. As such, the web will likely be a vital tool in popularizing these technologies, which have been and will continue to be explored by the web’s singing blobs and VR dance parties.
