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.be a][h!][ware that the texts make use
of the polysemic language/code system termed _mezangelle_, which
evolved/s from multifarious email exchanges, computer code re:appropriation
and net iconographs.
mez
 New
Media Writing began as hypertext, which in turn began as a concept
for the organisation of information. In 1945, Vannevar Bush of
the Carnegie Institute published in The Atlantic Monthly an article
entitled As We May Think in which he called for scientists to
find new ways to store, process and access the massive amounts
of knowledge available and constantly growing in the world. Libraries
and their traditional methods of indexing and classification are
no good for the navigation of such large data stores, he said,
because they are not sufficiently intuitive:
"The human mind operates by association. With one item in
its grasp, it snaps instantly to the next that is suggested by
the association of thoughts, in accordance with some intricate
web of trails carried by the cells of the brain.. the speed of
action, the intricacy of trails, the detail of mental pictures,
is awe-inspiring beyond all else in nature."
His proposed device, called a memex, was never built, but the
concept was further developed twenty years later when American
programmer and designer Ted Nelson invented a system called Xanadu
because, he realised:
"We need a way for people to store information not as individual
"files" but as a connected literature."
Bush created the idea of the massive information store, but Nelson
understood the imperative to find ways to connect and cross-reference
the data within it. It was he who coined the terms hypertext and
hypermedia. But it would be twenty more years before, in 1987,
the first Hypertext Conference was held. Some of the best known
names in the literary hypertext world appear in the conference
list, most notably the developers of Storyspace hypertext software,
Jay David Bolter, Michael Joyce, and conference organizer John
B. Smith, as well as developers of other other hypertext systems
such as Mark Bernstein, (Hypergate), and George Landow (Intermedia).
This same year saw the development of the Apple-based Hypercard
system, developed by Bill Atkinson. Many early hypertext writers
developed their work using the Hypercard system but it is now
used much more rarely, although elements of it remain in some
Apple programming. It's important to note that all these systems
happened in computers, but offline. They were pre-web. Michael
Joyce's afternoon, a story was written in 1987 in the
StorySpace program and when the first Eastgate edition appeared
in 1990 it was available on disk only.
In 1991 at Cern, in Switzerland, Tim Berners-Lee developed the
first global hypertext, which he called The World Wide Web.
Today hypertext, once a revolutionary concept, is now just one
of a number of colours in the new media writer's palette. New
kinds of programming and multimedia applications all contribute
to contemporary web-works, and academia, the original breeding
ground for experimental hypertexts, has given way to a broader
range of practitioners ranging from professional programmers and
designers to freelance writers and artists, mostly self-taught.
Some use commercial design tools, others write their own code,
and others collaborate to share skills. As with any research and
development projects, processes are constantly being examined
and refined. Whether it’s with a fountain pen or light pen,
we continue to apply technology to art to make new meanings and
to connect.
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