Web Projects

More Webscapes Projects

Surls and Hoaxes! are two of eight community and museum web projects Bernard and his UH graduate students built this way over the years — Bernard and Sara McNeil call this model "Webscapes" in their own academic writing on it. The other six don't have their own archived page here, either because their real content already lives elsewhere on this site or because the original site is no longer online, but here's the full picture, real homepage screenshots included.

A few of these are still hosted on their original, decades-old UH servers, which some browsers and security software block outright — if a "Visit Original Site" link below doesn't load for you, that's very likely what's happening, not a broken link. It's worth trying again on a different device or network.

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston · 2001

Bayou Bend Collection and Gardens

The very first Webscape, built for the MFAH's American decorative-arts house museum — searchable collection and garden databases, virtual room tours, and NEA funding recognizing its innovative use of technology. More than 80 graduate students worked on it over the years, several going on to doctoral research from it.

Site no longer online

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston · 2002

The Grandeur of Viceregal Mexico

A more ambitious follow-up to Bayou Bend, built bilingually (English/Spanish) for an MFAH exhibition of 130 colonial Mexican treasures spanning 1521–1829 — interactive games, a historical-cultural timeline, and a "Two Collectors" feature comparing Ima Hogg and Franz Mayer, who, coincidentally, were both born in 1882 and died in 1975.

Visit Original Site →

Blaffer Gallery · 2003

Chuck Close: Process and Collaboration

The first of two Webscapes built with the Blaffer Gallery, supporting an exhibition by portrait artist Chuck Close — a wireless in-gallery network for "digital docent" interaction, plus online communities that invited discussion from visitors worldwide.

Visit Original Site →

Blaffer Gallery · 2004

Jessica Stockholder – Kissing the Wall

The second Blaffer Gallery Webscape, covering 35 sculptures, wallworks, and works on paper by artist Jessica Stockholder — the last of these projects built just before Bernard's work turned to digital storytelling.

Visit Original Site →

Houston Public Television · 2007

The War Experience: Memories of World War II

Built with Houston Public Television to support Ken Burns's documentary The War. Its real content — the actual stories — already lives on this site's World War II Stories and Roman Ohnemus pages, so it's linked there rather than duplicated here.

See the Stories →

Dept. of Hispanic Studies · 2011

Invenciones de la Inventiva

A Spanish-language sibling to Hoaxes! — the first Webscape built outside the College of Education, with Houston-area Spanish teachers narrating translated Engines of Our Ingenuity episodes to promote STEM awareness in the Hispanic community. Same underlying process as Hoaxes!, so it doesn't have its own archived page here — but the original site is still live.

Visit Original Site →