Experiments in ship camouflage during World War I were necessitated by the inordinate success of German submarines (called “U-boats”) in destroying Allied ships. Because it is impossible to make a ship invisible at sea, Norman Wilkinson, Everett L. Warner and other artists devised methods of course distortion in which high-contrast, unrelated shapes were painted on a ship's surface, thereby confusing the periscope view of the submarine gunner.

This essay analyzes the age-old struggle of Life and Death as it plays out in the new digital medi um. It begins with a consideration of the dramati zations of an on-line improvisational group known as the Plaintext Players. Life and Death are discussed as contestants in a great morality play; as psychological driving force in the performances; as formal textual realm; and as thematic setting. The article goes on to discuss the complex negotiations of subject and object in the intricate interactions of dialogue, action, and spoofing in MOO performances.

Works that fuse the senses are often referred to as “synesthetic art.” Computers, which offer the possibility of controlling and synchronizing different media and implementing highly abstract compositional structures across media, seem an ideal tool for synesthetic art. This essay argues that a structural approach to such an art form is inadequate, and that it must be grounded in its potential symbolic functions.