The Independent February 1, 2003
10 BEST SITES OF THE WEEK
www.everythingstartswithe.co.uk
The revival of old-skool dance music continues apace at this cunningly titled site, which houses a celebration of smiley-face culture. Everything... includes histories and reminiscences from those who were there for the start of what has become a global, semi-corporate phenomenon, but was once much more intimate. The party spirit is nowhere more evident than in the great array of flyers collected here.
www.there.com
Just when you thought real-time chat rooms were happy in their simple, scrolling textasy of communication, and that cartoon avatars of people and places had been consigned to the dustbin of unwanted net innovation, here comes There.com, trumpeting the concept all over again with a better set of graphics. Beta-version testers are being encouraged to sign up for the future of virtualism.
www.globalsecurity.org
Global Security.org's mission statement declares it to be "focused on innovative approaches to the emerging security challenges of the new millennium". It aims to do this by improving "the capabilities of the American intelligence community to respond to new and emerging threats, reducing the need to resort to the use of force". By accessing the site, you too can keep a close eye on global flashpoints: stories are handily divided into Hot Topics, In the News and News Archive.
www.wembleystadium.com
The great Pele described Wembley as "the church of football", while David Beckham declared his hope that the newly designed stadium will be a "big part of my life". You can chart the history of the grand old stadium (now, the towers aside, all but dust) in Flash, and keep up to date with the progress of its rebuilding over the next three years, via this website's constantly updated webcam.
www.homeshare.org
Loneliness and failing health are the two principle motivations for homeowners around the world who seek compatible co-occupants to share the burden of solo living. Homeshare seeks to unite such people, and is a marvellous example of the international cooperation that can sometimes be found on the net. The site offers dwelling vacancies in various countries around the world.
http://turbulence.org /Works/Knit%2B%2B/index.htm
"Space is about potential, and thus, about liberation." So begins the "about" section of this art piece by Xurban, a creative crew operating out of New York and Istanbul. In this work, "Knit", they present a woven space of meaning, designed to claim the web as open, infinite and heterogeneous. The pictures here evoke a nomadic world culture that they believe is replicated by the web, bursting from a nodal-Flash cat's cradle of ecstatic entanglement.
www.teleferique.org/equipment/hiddenCam/
Minimalism on a grand scale, this "HiddenCam" records the mouse action of visitors on the server's homepage and turns it into an animation sequence. Etienne Cliquet, the site's creator, draws on simple mouse movements to present faint trails of mousemat dust upon the white-out of the screen. Credit is due, for getting so little to suggest so much.
www.lecielestbleu.com
There has been nigh on half a million visitors to the flying giraffes, and other assorted fauna, of LeCielEstBleu's shockwave zoo. And the giraffes really do fly, providing you are persistent and open-minded with your clicking. Visitors can join in the creative fun by using the Puppet Tool, which, like the other innovative design objects at this site, should keep them amused for a while.
http://arkzin.com/competitor/
Strategic Competitor has a unique-looking interface, with shockwaved tabs and text-buttons, but the eye-catching design does not come at the expense of content. The site focuses on the incidents of September 11, and allows readers to make up their own mind about the details of what occurred. A wealth of information on a subject whose reverberations continue to be felt.
http://offline.area3.net/wartime/
The subject of war receives a good dose of attention from "The Wartime Project". This website contains net artists' reflections on, and reactions to, war via lucid, digital essays. A clickable map of the world (an artistic "theatre of operations") enables you to pick and choose work from around the globe.
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