Perception Creation

My 2021 print publication on how the brain builds the world, rebuilt as a scroll-driven interactive web edition with WebGL, GSAP and generative sound.

→ An interactive edition on how the brain builds the world you live in.

— 1 / Brief

Perception Creation began as a print publication I wrote and designed in 2021: a book about sensation, attention, Gestalt, illusion and the psychology of perception, built around a gatefold spread and a lot of artwork. Print can only describe perception. The web can test it on you. The goal was a web edition that keeps the book's copy and art direction but makes the reader the subject, so each idea becomes something you see, drag, scratch or hear.

— 2 / Approach

One long scroll, with each chapter booted as its own isolated module. Vanilla TypeScript and Vite with no framework, GSAP ScrollTrigger and Lenis for the scroll choreography, Three.js for the WebGL moments and the Web Audio API for generative sound. The artwork was exported at full resolution from the original print files, and I directed Claude Code through several passes, comparing each section against the printed page.

A few of the pieces: a Penrose triangle built as honest 3D bars that only closes from the "magic angle", so you can drag around it and watch it fall apart. A shader globe where each perceptual filter (past experience, expectation, culture) distorts the world in its own way. Differential and absolute threshold tests, a night sky with shooting stars to find, a CMYK-halftone nervous system with current running from fingertips to brain, the print gatefold rebuilt with every word interactive, a lift-the-flap Mooney image test and a scratch-card perception test.

— 3 / Outcome

A self-contained, framework-free reading experience: one long scroll, generative audio (off until you choose to turn it on) and a scattering of easter eggs. The book was always about how much of what we see is the brain filling in the gaps; the web edition lets readers catch theirs in the act.