This exceptional site offers us a journey through a stunningly beautiful environment. Created by two American artists, Jeff and Gael Morlan, Snarg, which stands for Sustainable New Art Research Group, was born of the collaboration of a married couple. Coming from a background in writing and visual arts, the two artists have devoted themselves to electronic art since 1997. Jeff is responsible for the site's visual content and Gael for the writing. Together, they create the electronic music. With Snarg, the artists want to provide the visitor a light-hearted and inspiring experience.

Electronic music captures our attention as soon as we enter the site. Animated, clashing images follow the rhythms of sound. The visitor is enticed with a narration that addresses her directly. The days of the week scroll by next to a repetitive video sequence depicting a subject getting off a bus or subway. Drawn out of the day to day, the subject-visitor ventures toward a virtual environment on a backdrop of electronic sound.

This playful universe is comprised of colourful images where forms come alive under the cursor — a cyberspace where fluidity and transcendence merge. Sounds are caught on the fly as the cursor glides over the page. Eleven choices allow the visitor to chose a preferred audio environment. Joyful, entrancing rhythms accompany the moving images.

One can also switch between worlds by clicking on appropriate hot spots. Doing so, we are confronted with different environments, each as colourful as the other, each bearing its own characteristic and surreal images, animations and photos.

What makes Snarg so remarkable is its capacity to create a link between music and image, mingling them in a delightful fusion that betrays no technical glitch. It's the selection of electronic music that distinguishes the site from other Web projects. Interactivity is all the more interesting in that it gives the visitor the impression of being master of her own universe.

Other Web projects by Jeff and Gael Morlan are accessible from Snarg. There are also links to the photography and writings of Gael Morlan.

(requires Shockwave)

Magalie Tremblay