The Poetry of Tools: Form Art by Alexei Shulgin

I’m taking a special look at Form Art by Alexei Shulgin, which is a web art piece made back in 1997.

I’m especially interested in this piece because of the date of its creation–it's pretty old at this point.

Seeing things that were made on the web that are around 25 years old and still function is so alluring to me.

While we often think the internet is forever, so many websites, platforms, languages, etc get old, are no longer supported in some fashion, and cease to exist.

Things on the internet are far from immortal; sometimes it feels as if the tactile is what really lasts forever, even if it’s just buried in some box in your basement.

Despite all this, Form Art still exists and functions, and I think this is due to the tools of its creation–HTML.

While there are a number of new languages that continue to shape the landscape of the web, HTML remains relative as the primary scaffolding of websites.

The importance of HTML goes beyond ensuring this site will work for years to come: it quite literally uses the built in styling and structuring that HTML provides to create something exciting and visually pleasing.

HTML is the art in this piece, not just something used in the background to display the art.

This feels really significant to me, especially in a class like Handmade Web that is trying to get us to re-examine what we think a website is and what a website can be.

Art Form also reminds me of how I was first using HTML when we first were introduced to the language.

I didn’t know how to style or build out anything using divs, spans, ids, or class in conjunction with CSS, so I relied on pure HTML tags that came with their own styling and structure.

This is especially evident in my first journal entry or so; I wanted to create something that was more than a block of text with the little resources I had.

Art Form almost seems like a commentary on access to resources or technology as well.

While not rich in fancy javascript or CSS styling, this bare-boned site still is visually appealing and interactive for the user.

It’s a minimalist approach that–now with more knowledge on how the web works–I can deeply appreciate.