Project 404

Project description

The concept for Project 404 was developed from earlier research into the theme of "no idea" by building an apparently blank website in order to explore the principles of truth and reality. The work reflects the problems that users experience on a daily basis - missing images, deleted text, pages which never load... Paradoxically, I had to create all these nonexistent elements in order to enhance the perception of absence. Designing elements that were meant to look like they hadn't been designed was something of a challenge for someone who instinctively wants to make things look "nice".

The piece established the emotional response I had hoped for - some people were frustrated by the lack of content and gave up immediately. Others explored the site, desperate to gain something from it.

Project 404 has been shown at the Web Biennial 2007 (Turkey), FILE 2007 (Brazil), and FILE 2008 (Brazil).

The later research and supporting work for Project 404 can be found in my blog (initial research was kept in a sketchbook): http://project404blog.blogspot.com/

User comments:

• "So my responses then? ...confusion, uncertainty, frustration at not getting what I was expecting ....possibly being "led up the garden path"....then slight amusement at the concept..."
• "i clicked your link but nothing was there. you might want to fix that."
• "I found it kinda fun to try and find the hidden areas,but i couldnt see any information - only the hidden txt and the control panal and the msg board. I looked in the source to see who made the site any like coments or anything, then i saw all the text i was like say whhhat and saw it was "Invisible" "
• "I didn't like other people being able to see the things I wrote, even though it was anonymous."
• "though i suppose it makes my eye twitch because i'm quite the fan of website designing and there's something in my brain that says "there must be something visually tastey here. keep clicking." ... but you defied that!"