Website Portrait Performances

Ursula Endlicher's Website Portrait Performances (WPPs) consist of graphical visualizations of the hyper-links of a particular website which illustrate the link structure two levels down into it. How the website is written in HTML will define how the links are displayed in the graphic. The grammar of one medium (HTML) is applied to another (graphic).

Furthermore these visualizations are read as so-called "dance notations". Each link is performed depending on how the individual node is defined in the graphic. If a link shows seventy sub-links (HTML) for example, the performance ("dance") will consist of seventy movements. Finally, each link selected by the user also simultaneously displays the real-time URL of the according page of the specific website on a secondary monitor (installation) or window (web).

The "www.whitehouse.gov" Website Portrait Performance exists as interactive installation with "mouse-chair", projection, secondary monitor and real-time web-feed. It also has a web-based version. Other web-based projects in this series are "www.vatican.va" and "www.morexoptimo.com".

Website Portrait Performances are another manifestation of my ongoing interest and research in translating the Web's grammar into other mediums, in this case by superimposing the link structure of a website onto a graphical representation and performances. With the interactive mouse-chair I developed an interface that engages the whole body; a navigation device which expresses my ongoing longing for alternative human-machine communication interfaces.