A few things that are so-called “websites” will be presented here. However, we should bear in mind that for some time now “websites” have become sophisticated web services that have an access to our devices, and browsers have become universal applications for almost any task. The interfaces of some popular “websites” have become an integral part of our everyday lives, the layout of the user interface metaphors we have memorised by heart, just like the layout of the furniture in our homes.

These things are usually accompanied by a lot of overlapping terms — web specific art, web based art, browser based art, software art, creative coding, net art, internet art, post-internet art, web art, new media art, digital art, post-digital art, science art, and so on. The vast majority of these terms stubbornly contain the word “art”, so for now we'll call these things the non-functional algorithms.

Non-functional algorithms differ from “functional” algorithms in the same way that art differs from design in its utilitarian principle: design solves tasks, while art is more likely to create problems. We expect algorithms or programs to be usable and practical, but that is not the case here.

The smartphone or other device acts as the execution environment here. If the code is text, then the execution environment is some context, the environment in which the code is executed — it is the same as a gallery, a museum or a street. We could say that a painting, as a code, is “performed” by visitors in a gallery or somewhere on a wall — i.e. in an execution environment. Of course the painting is tied to it: the painting is better hung under the roof of the gallery, while the mural is rigidly tied to the wall of the building on which it is painted.