Flash: Interactive Works by James B. Pollack (2009–2012)
An online gallery of 17 interactive Flash artworks by digital artist and writer James B. Pollack, preserved and playable in any modern browser via the Ruffle WebAssembly Flash emulator. These works span digital art, electronic literature, interactive installations, and net art, created between 2009 and 2012.
About the Artist
James B. Pollack is a digital artist and writer. He holds a BA in English Literature from Yale University and an MFA in Digital Arts and New Media from the University of California, Santa Cruz. He received the UC Regents Fellowship in Digital Arts and New Media in 2010. His work has been exhibited at Catharine Clark Gallery (San Francisco), Brown University, the Electronic Literature Organization, the Ars Museum, and the MOCA Virtual Museum.
At Yale, Jessica Pressman advised Pollack's critical thesis in digital literature and novelist John Crowley advised his creative thesis in fiction. At UC Santa Cruz, Pollack was an MFA member of the Expressive Intelligence Studio, whose core faculty include computational-media and electronic-literature scholar Noah Wardrip-Fruin.
Featured Works
SPHIROS (2009)
Sphiros presents the fictional tale of what happens when a timequake creates a world that really is open source. Built on the WithinSpace interface created by net artist Jason Nelson for the Adobe Flash platform. Exhibited at the Electronic Literature Organization 2010: Archive and Innovate. The gallery installation version used low-cost infrared head-tracking with Nintendo WiiMote. Cataloged in the ELMCIP Electronic Literature Knowledge Base.
Mush (2010)
Interactive Flash piece remixing the Guardian's writing rules into a transformative digital artwork. Featured in The New Yorker in the article "Mush triumphant" by Macy Halford, who wrote: "I thought I'd never see the day when a blog post inspired a work of art."
Harp Aeolian (2011)
Interactive web-based installation created for the Media Room at Catharine Clark Gallery, San Francisco. Pollack takes the viewer on a multimedia mythical journey through a virtual space inspired by Al Farrow's reliquary sculptures, blending art, poetry, and virtual environments. Curated by Lily Alexander.
Digital Diving (2009)
Interactive Flash artwork featuring Z-depth parallax navigation through layered digital compositions. Users navigate through stacked visual layers using mouse movement for panning and vertical dragging for depth exploration.
Complete Works List
- Stereoscope v2 (2009) — 43.6 MB
- Digital Diving (2009) — 50.7 MB
- Brain Stuff 5 (2009) — 37 KB
- A Hot Number (2009) — 8.5 MB
- SPHIROS Final (2009) — 16.6 MB — ELO 2010, ELMCIP
- Of Paradise Scene 2 (2010) — 8.0 MB
- Of Paradise Scene 5 Final (2010) — 5.6 MB
- Of Paradise Scene 7 (2010) — 2.9 MB
- Mush (2010) — Featured in The New Yorker
- Mind the Art (2010) — 2.0 MB
- Cypresses (2010) — 861 KB
- Digital Postcards: Inside Sterling (2010) — 3.4 MB
- Digital Postcards: Vanderbilt (2010) — 7.3 MB
- Digital Postcards: Yale Crew (2010) — 3.5 MB
- Harp Aeolian (2011) — 6.4 MB — Catharine Clark Gallery
- To the Victims of Religion (2011) — 410 KB
- The Melancholy Devil 2 — 17.6 MB
Press and Exhibitions
- The New Yorker — "Mush triumphant" by Macy Halford
- ELMCIP Electronic Literature Knowledge Base — Sphiros
- Electronic Literature Organization 2010: Archive and Innovate
- Catharine Clark Gallery, San Francisco — Sandow Birk, Al Farrow, James Pollack
- Brown University
- Ars Museum
- MOCA Virtual Museum
Technology
All works were originally created in Adobe Flash with ActionScript. They are preserved and made playable in modern browsers using the Ruffle Flash emulator, a Rust-based WebAssembly implementation. The gallery supports multiple input methods: mouse, keyboard (arrow keys for panning, +/- for zoom), scroll wheel, touch gestures (pan and pinch-to-zoom), and gamepad controllers.