UPI Science Feature

By LINDA DAILEY PAULSON

Eight years ago a simply spray painted piece of white fabric became the first panel in what would become the AIDS Memorial Quilt. Today there are more than 31,000 panels in the quilt symbolizing people who have died of AIDS, and the continuing need for HIV/AIDS information and education.

The NAMES Project World Wide Web site unfolds the quilt in cyberspace midnight December 1, to coincide with World AIDS Day observances.

But The NAMES Project Foundation website is much more than a collage of remembrances. It is "an information repository and community gathering place" for information about AIDS education and research, says Scott Williams, communications coordinator, for the foundation, an international AIDS organization based in San Francisco.

"The quilt, to some people, is mainly a means for remembrance and healing," Williams says. "To a lot of other people involved with The NAMES project, it is a good way to increase AIDS/HIV education and prevention. This website creates an entirely new audience for the quilt. Anyone with a computer and modem can now see the quilt and the accompanying educational information."

No single site on the Internet ties together the varying pockets of information about AIDS testing, treatment, and prevention, safer sex, and resources about high risk communities. Website planners say they intend to make this website the clearinghouse for the information available in cyberspace as well as a community, particularly for those who might be isolated from urban areas with huge gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender populations.

"There is still obviously a lot of stigma attached to AIDS," says Williams. And not all those who need this information reside in urban centers. "There are tens of thousands of people in rural areas, smaller towns who can't discuss this as freely as we can in San Francisco, New York or other places."

Information about displays of the AIDS Memorial Quilt will be available as well as facts, highlights of panels, and information about the work of The NAMES Project. Eventually, users will be able to contribute electronically designed panels and attach text to each panel.

AIDS education and prevention has become increasingly important now that the disease is recognized as the leading killer of young adults in the United States.

"People automatically associate AIDS with the gay community," says Drue Miller, a vivid studios copywriter/programmer on the project. "Certainly the gay community has rallied around this far more than any other community. They understand what it is to be a minority. Also they've been hard hit by AIDS. I hope people are waking up to the fact that AIDS is reaching a much wider population. This will do a lot to alleviate a lot of the fears and misconceptions associated with HIV and AIDS."

The site contains information about being healthy and HIV positive. Miller says, "People need to hear those stories, that it is possible to lead a healthy life and be HIV positive."

The website also will be a repository for anyone needing factual information about safer sex and the disease. One major goal is to reach people with information in such a way that helps destigmatize the disease.

Both Miller and Williams point out some information presented is explicit. Prevention information addresses sex and intravenous drugs, the leading means of transmitting the virus.

"People in their homes can decide what they deem appropriate to discuss about sex and AIDS," says Williams. "There are pros and cons to that, certainly."

vivid studios, a San Francisco based Internet development firm, is designing the World Wide Web site probono for The NAMES Project. Past vivid studios projects include a Web site for the Microsoft's Windows95 launch and net hunts for Microsoft, Silicon Graphics, the movie "Johnny Mnemonic" and many other corporations. The company is one of I.D. magazine's "1995 Top 40 Design Firms."

"This goes beyond, 'Gee this is a cool thing to do.' We've been, in our own ways, active in these communities," says Miller. "It was a very natural fit for us."

To commemorate World AIDS Day, website planners are borrowing from a gesture similar to "A Day without Art," now a tradition in the art community in which galleries remember those artists who have died from AIDS by dimming their lights or shrouding art on display.

vivid studios will electronically shroud its website to commemorate World AIDS Day. Rather than seeing any part of the site, users will see an all black page announcing World AIDS Day with an explanation of the action and a link to The NAMES Project site.

For more information, visit these website addresses: http://www.aidsquilt.org and http://www.vivid.com.

Copyright 1995 The United Press International

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