You never know what will happen when Jesus washes his face. Sometimes, nothing. But other times, the towel he used miraculously turns into a holy relic, bearing the image of his face. It’s crazy.According to legend, one lucky king received one such towel, which became known as the Image of Edessa. Fast forward like, a million years later, and two Internet artists, Evan Roth and Geoffrey Lillemon, have made an interactive website called Image-of-Edessa (the dashes indicate modernity, obviously). Using animated GIFs and WebGL, the two guys created a hypnotic sequence of flashing Jesus faces, surrounded by an intricate lattice of geometric patterns. Whenever I stare at it for more than five seconds, a mix of anxiety and awe creeps up on me. I guess that's sort of how religion is supposed to feel.When I asked Evan and Geoffrey why they chose to work with GIFs, they said it was because GIFs are eternal--just like something sacred. According to the artists, "the idea of a looping image sequence that has no beginning or end creates a looping moment in time, therefore the idea of a timeless relic allows for worship without the pressure of the hourglass."Watch the videos below to see Evan and Geoffrey's experiments leading up to the Image-of-Edessa website. As you can see, they cycled through a lot of '90s style demoscene graphics before settling on the final result.@MichelleLHOOQ
Advertisement