- Leary.com website – current version (new version coming soon!)
- Original Leary.com website (as preserved on archive.org)
After releasing “How To Operate Your Brain” a Retinalogic video that Joey Cavella and his brother Chris Graves made with Timothy in 1993, the team turned to the web. At Dr. Leary’s request Joey and Chris moved their studio into Tim’s garage and began work scanning Timothy’s archives and building Timothy’s official home on the web, Leary.com.
Leary.com became a cultural phenomenon when Tim announced a live, online “de-animation.” The site was one of the first websites to introduce a three-dimensional site navigation.
The Leary.com crew from left to right: Joi Ito, Chris Graves, Camilla Grace, Joey Cavella, Tim Leary, Zach Leary
With photographs of Dr. Leary’s actual house, a virtual walkthrough of the house was created where books and archived documents could be found in the library, videos on the tv etc.
The Leary.com team won the “Personal Web Site – Cool Site of the Year Award” in 1996.
As Joi Ito explains:
“Christopher Graves and Joey Cavella made the website together with Tim and his team. My company, Digital Garage, funded some of the development, and I was involved in getting Timothy’s focus to shift from CD ROMs to the Web.
(See the interview with Chris Graves and Joey Cavella about the day Joi ran in to tell them all about the Internet.)
As Chris Graves explains:
“Yes, we photoshopped that picture. When we won the People Magazine award, they asked us for a group photo to display on the large projection screen during the acceptance ceremony. We thought about doing a rock-band style picture, you know, all of us leaning against a brick wall and pouting, but then Joey Cavella came up with the brilliant idea to use that final scene from Star Wars and photoshop our heads onto the cast. Star Wars was a seminal film for our generation, and we felt as proud about leary.com as Luke skywalker felt at the end of that movie. In our version, Timothy Leary took the place of Obi-Wan Kenobi.
Of course, none of it would have happened in the first place if it weren’t for Joi. His encouragement, contagious enthusiasm, hands-on training, and generous funding from Digital Garage turned Timothy’s dreams into reality. Timothy deeply respected and trusted Joi’s vision and advice, and considered Joi his hi-tech guru. We all looked forward to Joi’s visits to the Leary household, where we would crowd around the computer and be wowed. More than just a tech lesson, Joi personally showed us that the internet could be fun and was full of possibilities.”
The Leary.com Crew!
Camilla Grace - Another vital member of the Leary.com Team.
Joey Cavella and Timothy Leary
Timothy Leary and Chris Graves
