When my partner, photographer Frej Hedenberg and I decided to try and create the web's first truly interactive fashion editorial, little did we know it would end up being the first piece in a sprawling, 5 year long "alternate reality game" known to fans as Junko Junsui.

Shot in just one summer day in a rural artist colony on the west coast of Sweden, scenes depict an Eve-type character who wanders primeval forests donning delicate knitwear by designer, Iben Høj.

We composed nearly all the animations from photo stills, using multiple methods to create organic complexity — programatic swarming, plant growth algorithms, parallax movement, as well as brilliant pre-rendered video animations by artist, Daniel Johnson. 

Initially, we looked at our beta site with its beautifully ambient pastoral scenes... and honestly we felt kinda bored. That is when we came up with the idea of introducing hacker "glitches" to progressively tear the site apart.

This new spectacle demanded some sort of explanation — perhaps a dystopian conflict of epic proportions? And so the story of the genetically designed Junsui "sisters" and their struggle against the Putinist oligarchy was born.

By the time our Serbian digital media partner, Saturized came aboard and Mexican composer Murcof agreed to contribute music (remixed by Matthew Jackson), the Junsui Project had become one stop in a multi-node ecosystem. After launch in August 2009, the site garnered over 1 million unique visitors in just 8 weeks.