Technical notes before we proceed

The part of my site you are about to enter ignores several design rules that govern the rest of my Website. It does this because in this particular ongoing project, artistic concerns rank equal to, or higher than, more businesslike concerns such as maximizing accessibility. This art project cannot fulfill the vision I have in mind while adhering to the design rules (listed below), at least not with my present limited abilities in Web design, and the presently available technology. You have been warned. :-) :-)

My site's usual design rules, and how they are ignored in this art project

I try to make the rest of my site accessible to text-only browsers like lynx.

While I have tried to make it so that a lynx user can at least find all the pages in this part of my site, trying to preserve my artistic vision for them was hopeless from the start. I give up. I am relying too much herein on pictures and other images. This portion of my site will never be in accordance with the guidelines laid down by the folks at the Any Browser campaign. In particular, I strongly recommend setting one's browser to 'Autoload Images' or whatever the equivalent command is for the setup the viewer is using.

I try to make the rest of my site accessible to those using special equipment, like devices that read text out loud.

See the previous paragraph. This portion of my site will never be in accordance with the guidelines laid down by the folks who brought us Bobby. Especially since my art project intentionally contains puzzles --- e.g. "How I go on from here?" "Is the background image chosen here just setting a mood, or is it trying to tell me something?" --- which lead to some very odd links.

I try to make the rest of my site look and function the same under any graphical browser.

Another lost cause. There is too much minor disagreement between Netscape Navigator (or Communicator) and MS Internet Explorer --- let alone any of the other good, but less well-known, graphical browsers --- about stylistic details. "What should a table border do to a background image on the main body?" "Is it possible to right-justify a link anchor?" Different browsers --- or the same browser on different platforms! --- yield different results. I write for Netscape on a Macintosh first, and then try to do as much damage control as I can.

I try to make the rest of my site easy to read no matter how big one's browser window is.

Here I feel that my art project mostly succeeds. Nevertheless, the larger the window, the better.

I try to make the rest of my site high-contrast.

Here again I feel that my art project mostly succeeds. However, especially when laying out areas that are supposed to be dimly lit, my backgrounds tend to be dark and my text or images not much brighter. By all means, the viewer is encouraged to turn up the contrast on the monitor if necessary.

I try to make the rest of my site display the appearance I wish, regardless of the viewer's available color palette.

Urk. To be honest, I am not sure myself to what degree I have succeeded in this. Judge for yourself. All I can say is, the larger the number of available colors, the better.

To summarize:

1. Use a graphical browser to view all the coming pages, if possible. Turn 'Autoload Images' to 'on'.
2. My apologies to those who require special devices to use the Web --- they may not get the result I had in mind.
3. If you want to view something that most closely resembles my original vision, use Netscape on a Macintosh.
4. Open your browser window as far as possible.
5. Make sure your monitor contrast is fairly high.
6. Use as many colors as are available.

Please contact me if you still have any difficulties viewing this part of my site, even after adhering to my suggestions above. Or if you simply wish to give me feedback.

All right, enough talk about the technicalities of my art. Let us begin setting the scene . . .

(Last updated 1/18/02002)