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"Why" she asks, is hypertext stuck and what can be done about it. He doesn't know so she has to....
From 7-8 holes in the ground, water spurted in rotation—
an unusual geyser- like effect. Jerry was wearing beige linen trousers and he stretched out as if to do a push up. Supporting himself on his hands and toes, he lowered his face directly over the spout. He opened his mouth and waited. Then the water shot in. When he stood up he looked taller.
Talan Memmott wrote:
>
> WHOOPS! I haven't had enough coffee yet, plus up to my ears with tedious
> work -- generating a user guide for a client...
Quit work, win Guggenheims, NEAs, Creative Capital, be poor, be great.
Um, yes, there are many experimentalists, but not many formalists. I
think you are one. Do you know Leslie Scalapino at Mills? You should
know her. Although, she's primarily a poet.
I have been thinking. I'm on Fellowship, an Alden B. Dow Creativity
Fellowship, in the woods, beautiful--deer, racoons, rabbits, everyday.
Watch WNBA basketball (don't have TV at home but here I do), ride a bike
every evening. Visit the Tridge, a bridge that spans 3 tributaries.
Okay, thinking. At the risk of sounding ridiculous or precious. I
think the size of those pop out boxes you do are important, that they
mean something psychologically. But more than that....
My task here is to write an essay on The Roots of Nonlinearity: Toward a
Theory of Web-Specific Work. Well, as intentional aim, nonlinearity
seems to have been around in a popular way since the 70's so that's not
new. And, yes, the history before it was called that, goes way way back
even to the Song of Solomon. But quickly one arrives at hypertext and
that's been pretty well tackled thoughout the 90s. So then, what's the
problem. I don't like it! in its present state as it has developed.
What's missing? I think it has to do with depth, visibility and
dynamism of the page. Lack of emotional investment in the writing is
also a lack. With the addition of these things, possibly hypertext will
become more satisfying.
Anyway, I was thinking this morning about Gertrude Stein who said the
problem with a play was that you have to keep refamiliarizing yourself
with the characters, you couldn't comprehend it all at once like a
landscape. Thus, she wanted to write a play like a landscape. All that
jumping around from page to page (totally new refreshed URL) has an
abortive effect, suddenly with the rudeness I can't remember what has
happened; I quickly lose interest in the characters and their paths.
I think that allowing the links to unfold on the page in the way you've
been experimenting with is one solution. To still be able to see parts
of what has gone before it important. We are not moles living in
seperate holes, right? Visually being able to track is important unless
you have a photographic memory. To create the layered, dynamical type
of pages I'm working with is another approach. To have the playful
interactivity (poetically) that Reiner Strasser has is yet another.
Anyway, I think we're taking it in a viable direction. The other area,
the most important area for me, that I'm trying to articulate has to do
with space-time. I know the importance; I don't quite have the
vocabulary for it. Now I'm struggling, as I periodically do, with Chaos
Theory and Strange Attractors (phase space, turbulence, pattern) and
Hyperspace (10 dimensions).
"
-----Original Message----- From: Christy Sheffield Sanford [SMTP:christys@gnv.fdt.net] Sent: Sunday, August 01, 1999 4:17 PM To: Talan Memmott Subject: Depth, Visibility and Dynamism WBR>
The sweet air of Gainesville—
perfumed with possibilities.
finalement something will come out of the morass: keep mapping the points.