Digital Rot in the Digital Garden

This net art piece comments on the web’s transition from a complicated technical instrument to a place of digital escape from reality’s troubles. The background is reminiscent of a 1990s digital era, specifically referencing Window’s famous Bliss wallpaper of a green hill and blue sky. The hill—warped and edited to fit this pixelated aesthetic— gets littered with pixelated lines and squiggles meant to represent flowers and weeds. Each garden is unique to the visitor, alternating between a grass and flower field. The garden is this escape into a beautiful and peaceful digital realm. The flowers and text load in gradually to reference the slow loading capabilities of a Web 1 internet. These digital plants also shutter and flicker when the program runs- alluding to the state of “constant distortion” seen in 1990’s web art and meant to mimic the fluttering of fauna in the breeze.
Visitors can explore variations of the art to see unique animated gardens.