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Blue Velvet

Interactive, poetic wordscape describing the contours of American racial politics post-Katrina.

Year 2007
Format
Website
Credits by David Theo Goldberg
Information Architecture by Stefka Hristova
Design and Programming by Erik Loyer
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Words slide, fall, rain, dissolve, and transform in this poetic exploration of the contours of American racial politics post-Katrina. Featuring music by Liu Sola. A collaboration with scholar David Theo Goldberg and Stefka Hristova.

Video Traversal

A high quality recording of the project as a user might experience it.


The piece begins with a placid view over which hovers a ticker that repeats the words “New Orleans.” Evocative phrases rain down from the ticker.
The user can dislodge specific key phrases into what proves to be a liquid landscape. As the phrase submerges, we follow it downwards as it breaks apart and dissolves into other words.
As the words dissolve completely, they trigger the appearance of a text—one of the 24 arguments of the piece—and related media.
Accompanying media includes video, audio, photographs and maps that illuminate the status of New Orleans, present and past.
A bookmarkable index allows users to explore the content of the project independently of the main interface.