Fork is characterised by its makers' sense of rootlessness in the modern world. A recurring theme throughout the site is the questioning of the notion of 'home', and, in turn, related notions such as nationhood. The studio combines the talents of both American and German designers, a fact which is constantly alluded to and played with, whether it is the homepage telling us that we're entering 'German netspace' or that the site itself comes from the other side of the Iron Curtain (which apparently never came down, but was simply moved to the Atlantic)! To fit this schizophrenic 'cold war' mood, the press section of the site uses some clever java applets to turn the navigation into something resembling a flight simulator. It even comes with gun target which you use to 'shoot' links to different documents. Alternatively, it can be viewed as an html layout - the only thing to work out now is which version is meant to be the USA and which one is the Russians! Alongside the military themes, there is also a general mood of irreverence towards authority figures. These feature most strongly in the site's large games archive. Accessed from three lists entitled 'bread, butter and freshmilk', these archives contain a range of Shockwave delights, including a game where you have to feed the mind and body of former German Chancellor Kohl to keep him from starving. In another game you take on the role of the intoxicated chauffeur of a Mercedes driving a certain, now deceased, member of the British royal family through an infamous French tunnel while simultaneously being hounded by press photographers! Here again, military themes abound. One delightful game called 'Cold War' lets you either give a scrolling row of soldiers bunches of red roses with angels flying out of them, or simply machine-gun them to death. The site also features a great deal of audio: most pages have a 'soundtrack' that contains fragmentary blends of what sound like TV or radio reports. Some are English, some German, but all are mixed with subtle techno noises and general electronic noise disturbance. As you surf through the site, these soundtracks evoke feelings of surreptitiously listening to illegal broadcasts, which sits well with the general playful multimedia mood.

To give them all due respect though, Fork aren't all just about a cool, knowing postmodern cynicism. They have their humanist side, too, best exemplified in a section entitled 'Hotel'. Designed as interface experiment using a combination of java and Flash, Hotel uses key words which scroll past you at high speed, as if the browser were suddenly a train window. When clicked upon, these words start a process in which you explore personal narratives based on the theme of what 'home' might mean. This is an example of Fork's philosophy that, in an unsettled world, where we come from is not so important. Instead, what we share is our common humanity, and this is actually our 'home'. It is ultimately this positive message that wins out, delivered in an impressive, experimental and bold website.