THE _ ARE LEAVING, 2026
Website Design
THE_ ARE LEAVING is a fictional digital archive and an interactive web maze. It simulates an absurd yet heartbreaking reality: all cats have suddenly disappeared from both the physical world and every digital record. Heavily inspired by the "Mandela Effect", this project explores how truth is manipulated, altered, and erased in the "post-truth" era. By constructing a "shared illusion" around the disappearance of cats, we invite the audience to rethink the boundaries between consensus and conspiracy within algorithm-driven social media.
THE _ ARE LEAVING (Website demonstration interface GIF “do you love cats” ), London, UK, 2026
THE _ ARE LEAVING (Website demonstration interface GIF “virus” ), London, UK, 2026
Visually, I directed the project’s aesthetic towards a "retro-abandoned" style inspired by early Net Art. The design references Windows 93/95 interfaces, dense virus pop-up collages, and the visual logic of early internet forums. Through a non-linear narrative filled with dead links, fake scientific evidence, and 71Hz Schumann resonance audio, we created a Piranesi-esque sense of claustrophobic ruins and an oppressive atmosphere of a dying world. This "Open Narrative" uses a fictional hoax as a shell to carry the very real human fears and emotions associated with loss.
THE _ ARE LEAVING (Website demonstration interface “27/07/2027”), London, UK, 2026
THE _ ARE LEAVING (Website demonstration interface), London, UK, 2026
THE _ ARE LEAVING (Website demonstration interface), London, UK, 2026
THE _ ARE LEAVING (Technical development and coding in VS Code), London, UK, 2026.
As the technical developer and interaction designer, I deliberately rejected the modern web standard of "seamless" user experience. The site structure is built as an "impossible maze" via front-end code: the first layer requires an unconventional double-click to open, while deeper layers are entirely immune to single clicks. Falling into "traps" drags users into a virus pop-up matrix with no "back" button, forcing them to find an escape through a specific sequence of clicks, similar to Minesweeper. This frustrating and anxious interaction logic is a rebellion against how modern technology domesticates user behavior, aiming to make the audience feel the genuine helplessness of losing the truth while searching for traces of the vanished cats.