shredding the web

Why Shred the Web? see shredder

The web is not a publication. Web sites are not paper. Yet the current thinking of web design is that of the magazine, newspaper, book, or catalog. Visually, aesthetically, legally, the web is treated as a physical page upon which text and images are written.

Web pages are temporary graphic images created when browsing software reads HTML. This gives the illusion of solidity or permanence in the web. But behind the graphical illusion is a vast body of text files -- containing HTML code -- that fills hard drives on computers at locations all over the world. Collectively these instructions make up what we call 'the web'. But what if these instructions are read differently?

The web browser is our means of perception through which we 'see' the web. The Shredder presents this global structure as a chaotic, raucous collage. By altering the HTML code before the browser reads it, the Shredder appropriates the data of the web, transforming it into a parallel web. Content becomes abstraction. Text becomes graphics. Information becomes art.