BLACK SWAN

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Cover art for Thom York’s “The Eraser” (2006) by Stanley Donwood.
Released in July 2006, The Eraser is Radiohead frontperson Thom Yorke’s debut solo album, produced by Nigel Godrich and featuring visual artwork by Stanley Donwood. Black Swan—the song featured here—is the fourth track from this record.

Purchase

The Eraser is available for purchase from XL Recordings in various physical and spectral formats. Tap the brand mark below to visit their virtual shop.

Capitalist data brokers are also standing by to exchange your virtualized currency for aural stimulation.

Receipt

Upon each completion of the song, a list of keyboard engagements will be displayed here. This includes both the activations scripted for the animation as well as your own keystrokes and pointer interactions. You are part of the artwork. This is your personal receipt for this experience. It is unique and for your eyes only.
NO DATA

Colophon

This interactive composition for Black Swan is a tribute to—and birthday present for—Thom Yorke and Stanley Donwood who share my birth month of October; the best month. This is also an ode to Web browsers. It was created by myself, Stewart Smith, in Brooklyn, New York during the COVID-19 pandemic / America’s descent into fascism / the Anthropocene climate crisis. “Fucked up”, as it were. (If you are an American citizen, please register to vote right now.)
A clip of Stewart’s 2006 sketch for a “Black Swan” music video; performed via Apple’s Keyboard Viewer application.
I originally sketched my concept for a “Black Swan” music video in 2006 as screen captures of live typographic performances using the OS X 10.4 Tiger Keyboard Viewer application. Keyboard Viewer, which replaced Apple’s old Key Caps program, highlights keys depressed by the user and displays available characters from the current keyboard palette. Sketches like the clip above were made by recording the screen while typing along to the song as it played back at half speed. Byproduct “receipts” of the live performance were created by capturing the performed typing in TextEdit. Have you ever hit a 14-year pause button on a personal project?
The code for this composition—primarily written in JavaScript and Cascading Style Sheets—is © Copyright 2020, Stewart Smith. It is free, open-source, and available for download and reuse from GitHub. (See license for details.) It was created on my personal computing devices during personal time and is not affiliated with any employers past or present. The audio is owned by XL Recordings and is not available as part of this free code package. Consider purchasing it from them.