From the vault: TV static GIF grid, 2003. I posted this earlier today with some links to other artists doing things with fake TV static GIFs but I decided to stop being so damn nice all the time. And let's face it, the idea's been around and has been pretty thoroughly done. I like the way this one interacts across the borders of the grid--it suggests some hidden magic eye message. I find it very hypnotic, myself.
This grid has vertical white stripes on Bloglines, and probably any site that reproduces it that uses CSS and ignores my html commands for it not to have spaces. CSS stands for "clients so stupid"; it's a design language that adds spaces around things because it assumes you don't know what you want for your own web page. If someone else's art you're reblogging specifies no spaces, you have to add a command telling it to ignore the spaces it is putting in. Genius! (The future of the web makes me shudder.)
Default image rendering without "spaces" -- in fact it is about the image not laying on the baseline of the text line -- is due to a bug that was introduced in Netscape and is mostly emulated by today's browsers, if you don't use a certain document type header.
Can you explain this more? I'm not following it.
My knowledge is, if I put two image tags side by side without adding HSPACE=10 or whatever, they abut.
That's if I wrote the tags by hand and saved that as an html file.
But if a CSS-heavy Word Press blog reads those same tags it adds the 10 spaces automatically, and I'd need to add the command "ignore the addition of those 10 spaces" in CSS-ese.
That happened on Paddy Johnson's blog when she tried to reproduce my swimming pool GIFs. A professional generously stepped in to help, but that will not always happen.
I learned all the html I need in about a day but CSS is much harder to go in and poke for us little people.
Thus, my paranoid belief that the "CSS revolution" is about getting paid professionals upon whom we are dependent back into Internet publishing.
If only the various parties designing these standards could get it together enough to form some sort of conspiracy!
I got nervous talking to a student at Parsons who said it was going to be "all CSS" in the future.
The wordpress theme artfagcity decided to use contains various css commands to give images certain formatting properties. Probably indeed this css rules were designed by a "professional", but nobody is required to hire one or use the work they provide for free at wpthemespot. Artfagcity could just remove all the css they do not understand and have the desired default behaviour like you described it. But they chose to have a "theme" made by somebody else, use a content management system instead of typing and saving HTML files ... they simply give away a lot of control in the favor of ease, comfort and a "professional" look. So i don't understand how this can lead to the idea that any technology involved in the described process is taking something away from the little people.
In my original comment i misinterpreted what kind of space in between images you were referring to, so the stuff with the header doesn't apply to this case.
I have a Word Press blog that I use for posting my music. When I first got it I tried to make it look like this one. CSS is like a game of pick up sticks--if you make one change the balance is upset and the blog looks like shit. (Undesired dirt style.)
This Digital Media Tree blog uses CSS--gorgeously minimal as it is, every time I've tried to change it I've messed something up. Whereas I feel very comfortable doing anything I need with the 10 html commands I know.
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From the vault: TV static GIF grid, 2003. I posted this earlier today with some links to other artists doing things with fake TV static GIFs but I decided to stop being so damn nice all the time. And let's face it, the idea's been around and has been pretty thoroughly done. I like the way this one interacts across the borders of the grid--it suggests some hidden magic eye message. I find it very hypnotic, myself.
This grid has vertical white stripes on Bloglines, and probably any site that reproduces it that uses CSS and ignores my html commands for it not to have spaces. CSS stands for "clients so stupid"; it's a design language that adds spaces around things because it assumes you don't know what you want for your own web page. If someone else's art you're reblogging specifies no spaces, you have to add a command telling it to ignore the spaces it is putting in. Genius! (The future of the web makes me shudder.)
- tom moody 5-26-2007 8:33 am
Default image rendering without "spaces" -- in fact it is about the image not laying on the baseline of the text line -- is due to a bug that was introduced in Netscape and is mostly emulated by today's browsers, if you don't use a certain document type header.
- drx (guest) 5-26-2007 8:21 pm
Can you explain this more? I'm not following it.
My knowledge is, if I put two image tags side by side without adding HSPACE=10 or whatever, they abut.
That's if I wrote the tags by hand and saved that as an html file.
But if a CSS-heavy Word Press blog reads those same tags it adds the 10 spaces automatically, and I'd need to add the command "ignore the addition of those 10 spaces" in CSS-ese.
That happened on Paddy Johnson's blog when she tried to reproduce my swimming pool GIFs. A professional generously stepped in to help, but that will not always happen.
I learned all the html I need in about a day but CSS is much harder to go in and poke for us little people.
Thus, my paranoid belief that the "CSS revolution" is about getting paid professionals upon whom we are dependent back into Internet publishing.
- tom moody 5-26-2007 8:44 pm
If only the various parties designing these standards could get it together enough to form some sort of conspiracy!
- jim 5-26-2007 9:25 pm
I got nervous talking to a student at Parsons who said it was going to be "all CSS" in the future.
- tom moody 5-26-2007 9:37 pm
The wordpress theme artfagcity decided to use contains various css commands to give images certain formatting properties. Probably indeed this css rules were designed by a "professional", but nobody is required to hire one or use the work they provide for free at wpthemespot. Artfagcity could just remove all the css they do not understand and have the desired default behaviour like you described it. But they chose to have a "theme" made by somebody else, use a content management system instead of typing and saving HTML files ... they simply give away a lot of control in the favor of ease, comfort and a "professional" look. So i don't understand how this can lead to the idea that any technology involved in the described process is taking something away from the little people.
In my original comment i misinterpreted what kind of space in between images you were referring to, so the stuff with the header doesn't apply to this case.
- drx (guest) 5-26-2007 11:17 pm
I have a Word Press blog that I use for posting my music. When I first got it I tried to make it look like this one. CSS is like a game of pick up sticks--if you make one change the balance is upset and the blog looks like shit. (Undesired dirt style.)
This Digital Media Tree blog uses CSS--gorgeously minimal as it is, every time I've tried to change it I've messed something up. Whereas I feel very comfortable doing anything I need with the 10 html commands I know.
- tom moody 5-26-2007 11:25 pm