A single‑file resurrection of my winning entry
Animated checkbox art & scrolling dot‑matrix text, faithfully ported from 1997 JavaScript/HTML to today’s evergreen browsers.
No frameworks, no build step — just openindex.html.
This project re‑implements my submission that won the first International Form‑Art Competition (1997).
The original relied on early‑web quirks (document.layers, framesets, timed document.write), and no longer runs in modern browsers. Code is available to view in the archive directory, if you are really that much of a masochist.
This remake reproduces every behaviour — the scrolling “either/or” messages, the interactive 16 × 16 grid that flips between ☐ and ✓, and the grey‑accent checkboxes — using plain, standards‑compliant JavaScript and fewer than 15 lines of CSS.
git clone https://github.com/kassschmitt/choose.git # or your fork
cd choose
npx serve . # any static server works
# open http://localhost:3000The site is purely static, so any host that serves index.html works.
| Host | Steps |
|---|---|
| Vercel | Import repo → framework Other → Deploy |
| GitHub Pages | Settings → Pages → Source: main / root |
| Netlify / Surge / S3 | Drop the folder and publish |
Small tweaks live at the top of index.html.
| Variable | Purpose | Default |
|---|---|---|
FRAME_DELAY |
Scroll frame rate | 35 |
UNCHECKED_THRESHOLD |
Ticks before ☐ flips to ✓ | 93 |
CHECKED_THRESHOLD |
Unticks before ✓ flips to ☐ | 61 |
| 'MATRIX_ROWS' | height of scroller | 12 (included font will only work with this value |
| 'MATRIX_COLS' | width of scroller | 48 (change this as you like) |
Released under the MIT License.
Original 1997 assets © 1997 Kass Schmitt, relicensed under MIT for preservation.
See LICENSE for full text.
- Alexei Shulgin for inventing the Form Art artform.
- C3 Budapest for hosting the 1997 Form Art competition.
- James Stevens for founding and running the legendary Backspace on which this work was hosted, followed by his Sisyphean efforts to preserve its legacy.
- Fellow entrants who pioneered “Form Art”.
- Rachel Greene, who saw fit to include Form Art (including my entry) in her 2004 book Internet Art
- Yoz Grahame, who helped debug my wonky javascript in a memorable all-nighter.
- View‑source enthusiasts everywhere.