"Praystation" works as a kind of distance learning community, in which unusual ways of programming Flash are playfully and intuitively explored, and the source code of the developments is made available to the public.

1998/1999—PrayStation version I
NoFriendo and VideoGame destruction


The work from these years has been taken offline, to remain a fleeting memory in the minds of those who experienced it. All submissions were related to the effects of classic and modern video games on the minds of Internet designers and artists.


2000—PrayStation version II
Calendar based


Its objective was to apply design and technology to a collection of small, sometimes daily, modules. PrayStation year I came to a close in October 1999 and was ready to reinvent itself, maintaining the current first-year model.
The millennium was just a breath away and the idea of applying the same concept again for a second year did not seem to sit well. The first year, while it was rewarding, would never be 100 percent original content. So I sought to redefine its concept.

The domain again sat dormant for five months. A new concept was going no where fast. In retrospect, the impending hype of Y2K and its possible technology black out may have left developers thinking “What next?”
On a conceptual level, what hadn’t already been done? So PrayStation disregarded any heavy, high conceptual theme, believing that “keeping it simple”, would yield the best results. The passing of time. What did you do last week ? As adults, with families, paying bills, saving money, thinking of the future, when do we have the time to record the simple events of every day ? I found myself spending 80 percent of my day on personal introspection and researching building modules. Experiments were placed on the server with the current date affixed to its folder name.


Welcome to PrayStation year II


Its basic foundation is a calendar timeline. The whole year, divided up into three-month increments, is viewed at the bottom in the main navigation menu. You may shift the main timeline by clicking on whatever next set of months you wish to view. In the essence of a developers journal, finished projects, experiments, or general thoughts are posted on the day they are completed.


2001—PrayStation
version III—XML residue


PrayStation has always been about the movement of time. It has used a calendar-based system to archive and catalogue events as they happen in the course of a single year. In prior builds, however, content always remained a single untouched module having no relation to what happened before its date of archiving. May 01—releases the new archiving / data visualization system—Joshua Davis and Branden Hall have
used Flash 5 and XML to create a tree of visualization. Now entries leave an imprint or residue as you move forward in time. New entries might play upon layout and/or space of what has happened before it.


0 = not currently on stage
20 = an alpha transparency of 20 % and is the last visible object on the stage
40 = an alpha transparency of 40 % and is the second to the last visible object on the stage
60 = an alpha transparency of 60 % and is the middle object on the stage
80 = an alpha transparency of 80 % and is the second visible object on the stage
100 = an alpha transparency of 100 % and is the top visible object on the stage


This can even be mapped on an interactive level in terms of exploration of space. Interaction can (and will) be explored between multiple dimensions— machines on specific days will interact with machines from previous days—unfolding a little more of the
puzzle.
Objects are also aware of their position in the tree— the object on 4–28 displays in multiple colors, but as soon as it drops down (click on 04–29), the same machine runs but a different presentation. In this case all color is stripped. So entries are aware of whether or not they are the “top” visible object and can act or react accordingly.
The artist’s canvas that is never complete—as we watch process and form unfold over time, through space and dimension