Here’s a site that points to the future by remixing bits of the past — in this case, old, Victorian lithographic images from Dover Publishing (at least that’s whom the designer/programmer/animator Caleb Johnston credits for the illustrators).

The site’s navigation scheme is fairly straightforward and idiot-proof. In a nutshell, roll over something clickable and then click on it. The meat of the experience, moreover, is what happens upon the click, which is per usual a swirling, spinning, throbbing, flashing rush of animal parts, plant matter, calligraphic type, women in petticoats, and Olde English gentlemen under tophats. The experience pretty deftly evokes the obsessive thematic delirium that grips you in depths of a drug trip. Speaking theoretically, of course. Ha.

The compositional and motion work are really astonishing, both aesthetically vivid and technical seamless. Given Flash 8’s video alpha and clip blurring cabilities, it’s difficult — and probably pointless, really – to tell, in several transitory instances, whether Johnston is employing some expert tweening or playing pre-rendered video. That ambiguity, however, belies a clear trend towards the convergence of rendered and pre-rendered animation on the web (currently represented by the respective capabilities of After Effects and Flash), a convergence which will be realized soon enough. The two factors that determine how soon that is are 1) how well Macromedia will integrate with Adobe’s mother borg, and 2) how that integration aligns with the rate of advance in home computing processing power. What say you, Moore?

Anyway, strong, strong work!

(ps. and the sound design — by Dallas Johnston — is boss too)