Website watch

Doors of Perception

David M. Roy University of Southern Denmark dm_roy@nis.sdu.dk

The internet community has voted Doors of Perception the winner of the 1999 Webby Award for the best art site. 100,000 people registered to vote for their favourites from a list of 110 top sites. The result was announced live, online during the Webby Awards extravaganza on 18 March.

The Doors of Perception web-site contains a veritable feast of the decade’s ideas and creative thought relating to IT and design. With the contents of five conferences from 1993 to 1998 to browse, plus booklists, hotlinks and FAQs, a fascinating and mind-expanding time is virtually guaranteed. Each year’s event has brought luminaries and forward thinkers from around the world together to answer the question “New technology: Yes, this stuff is amazing, but what it is for?”. For me, the beauty of the site is in its diversity and instant access to such a range of visions and ideas; this is reflected in the con-ference themes: @home – exploring home markets, metaphors and myths, Info Eco, Speed and Play.

After such food-for-thought, you may feel inspired to post a graffiti message to the Doors 5 QuoteScape hypertext playground. Once there, you can add to and trash other peoples’ messages. Check out the “playful” interface.

Doors of Perseption website
www.doorsofperception.com/doors5/play.

The 1999 Webby Awards surpassed its history of spiffy swank and style.