An Archive of Play
A wandering collection of images, with a few ways to get sidetracked.
Interaction design
Creative coding
Context
Course project, Parsons School of Design.
Tools
HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Claude Code, GitHub Pages
Role
Concept, curation, interaction design and prototyping.
Year
2026
My camera roll is full of things I stopped to look at without knowing what I would do with them. This project began by collecting those moments, then became a question about play: does spending time with something need to lead anywhere? The archive gives visitors a field of images to wander through and a few ways to interfere with it. There is no sequence to finish or arrangement to get right.
Collecting without a destination
The collection began with things that caught my attention before I could explain why. Bringing them together made me notice the impulse to organize, categorize and give them a purpose. I wanted the archive to hold onto the curiosity that made me collect them in the first place.
Removing the categories
Early versions used named collections, labels and notes to explain the images. I gradually removed those structures, including the sidebar, to leave more room for visitors’ own associations. The images remained, but the interface began to ask what someone might do with them rather than how they should be understood.
Six ways to get sidetracked
Six symbols change how the images behave: earthquake, cursor trail, rain, duplicates, magnet and drift. Some produce a brief interruption; others continue until the visitor switches modes. The collection becomes something that can be disturbed and rearranged, with the same material producing a different encounter each time.
Enough structure to begin
The controls needed to be noticeable without explaining away the experience. A small set of symbols sits around the image field, inviting visitors to try something and see what happens. Switching modes lets them begin again. The interaction offers enough structure to participate while leaving the reason for participating open.
Six interactions change what visitors can do with the same collection.
Time well wasted
The project makes room for time without a useful outcome, yet it began as an assignment and now sits in a portfolio. That contradiction remains part of it. I am interested in how much room for play can exist inside something that is still being assessed.