Space-Time and the Web
Will spatial and temporal freedom impact literature? (Christy1, 2/16/99 10:59:03 PM)
For years, visual poets have experimented with spatial treatment of text and image. The freeing up of text on the page has a long history in poetry. One could look at instances before Mallarmé's Un Coup de Dés jamais n'abolira le Hasard, 1897 but, I view that work as a dramatic turning point.
http://www.netkonect.co.uk/~kram/uncoupde.htm
I think that with hypertext and the many forms of animation techniques and now dynamic html, fiction and essay are undergoing a spatial liberation. Comments? Thoughts?
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Margaret Penfold (Saada, 2/17/99 5:24:59 AM)Y-yes, but in potential only. Technology is still at the stage where wonderful ideas are sabotaged by slow download time; sound is only as good as the users' (listeners') hardware/ software. What they see on the page depends on the brands of computer they bought, the browsers they chose. A book is more democratic in that a reader can get the same pleasure from a dog-eared hundredth-hand paperback as from a brand new hardback once they've immersed themselves in the writing. (OK Helen, some readers have to have the large print version and some cannot see the print at all but I still think the contrast is a fair one.)
When all your hardware is at maximum, the lines between countries are clear, and no servers are down I agree that a good web site can reach parts no other medium can. (Sorry for the unintentional 'can' pun, or is that a parochial joke?)
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Christy Sheffield Sanford (Christy1, 2/20/99 9:55:28 AM)Some very good points, Saada. I wonder if those technical limitations will ever be resolved. It may be that CD-ROM will be an increasing option, the only way to standardize what someone sees on a screen. I love the web for its immediacy and its way of penetrating borders. The web can probably go where some books cannot. Also I feel the revolution is progressing very rapidly. If we had had to rely on CD's, we wouldn't be at this stage.
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Jennifer Ley (jley, 3/2/99 9:25:06 AM)I too think Saada raises some very good points - learning how to program advanced features across platforms onl-line is intensely time consuming, as there are not a lot of standards. When I was able to view Robert Kendall's 'A Life Set for Two' on a disc - it was amazing - and did exactly what Christy is talking about re: spatial/and temporal/ limitations.
What would be the low tech ways to achieve some of these things on-line? gif-animations? standard hypertext? javascript, as opposed to java?
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Christy Sheffield Sanford (Christy1, 3/2/99 12:54:53 PM)Hmm, low tech? A challenge. Myself, I have gone to Dreamweaver and dhtml! I think this is high tech. But this is a good question. Here is one fun thing to do. Try this at home! Take a small animation and code it as huge. For example, if the animation is 100 x 50, in html type in
The results will be quite pixilated but sometimes cool. You can deform the image in other ways, exaggerate the length, for exmaple. Other low tech tricks? 5 of 11
Christy Sheffield Sanford (Christy1, 3/19/99 1:33:31 PM)In my space and at 3:34 p.m., there is a female cardinal in my bird bath. She has ruffled up her feathers so that she looks quite fat.
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reiner strasser (restra, 3/22/99 9:28:13 AM)i prefer to use javascript at the moment well it is low tech ... but it is an 'open' system - i can change parts in the process or afterwards.
javascript in combination with text, pictures (gif or jpeg), gif-anims, javascript anims .... alternatives may be flash or director. things to come are real streaming with quicktime or realaudio .... what has happened with the female cardinal?
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Christy Sheffield Sanford (Christy1, 3/22/99 9:26:56 PM)She has flown off in space-time. Will the QuickTime ever get to be BigTime? Will the small rectangles simply move to TV format or will there be various sized rectangles. Look into the future, oh, seers, and tell us. I think there will be all of the above. For women now, there are mini skirts, long skirts, and intermediate skirts. We do not have one predominate mode. This is the age of multiple choices. I don't think we are ready to give up that heady idea that there is a range of possibilities.
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reiner strasser (restra, 3/23/99 4:57:35 AM)future the bandwidth will increase .... there are still technologies out to get the factor 100+ you will be able to load fullscreen movies in realtime and faster ..... .... ... i am not at all happy about this ... i like the forced minimalism :) .... cruel fiction the entertainment industry will try to fill your mind with flickering pictures, sounds .... that you will no more know where/who you are ... you never have to leave your home ... working online, shopping online, loving online :) .... what will be the position/place of the artist/writer in this 'society'?
kissing the flowers
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Christy Sheffield Sanford (Christy1, 3/23/99 10:38:32 AM)Speaking of flowers, Reiner, my orange bougainvilleas are in bloom, here at 12:22 PM, EST, and three yellow finches are in the bird bath, two females and one male. Purple petunias on the left.
The bandwidth, the bandwidth. In the U.S., video has had a dreary history. The technology to make clear images has been with us for some time, but, the story goes that the enormous stockpile of TVs had to be sold first. I do not own a TV, but I watch basketball at the local Mexican restaurant or when I work out. And I watch in motel rooms. Do I have to have a video in my computer? This will mean ever more forceful advertising upclose, intolerable. And that is why it won't work. I do not think video upclose works.
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Alan Sondheim (ASondheim, 5/23/99 12:01:49 AM)I agree with Reiner about low-tech; I love javascript for that reason - it takes very little to run it, and no virtual machine is necessary.
There's a real issue for me about high tech and high bandwidth - the kind of privilege that pre- supposes. Low tech can run very lean and is much more accessible world-wide and I love it for that. Once printing became established, almost from the beginning, there were cheap broadsides, etc. This just isn't what's happening with computers - while the price is dropping, the other end of things is demanding not only more bandwidth but also more and more proprietary coding/protocols. This worries me in an age when over half the people in the world haven't made a phone call and don't have electricity. The online revolution carries a deep sense of privilege - and I was by the way reminded of this at the recent Mariko Mori show in New York - complete with a (brilliant and three-dimensional) million-dollar video. Production values are domin- ating more and more - at least the public for the exhibition can include anyone who can walk into the theatre...
I'm just musing on all of this, for which apologies, but I do think there is something _intrinsic_ in relation to class/bandwidth/tech that's rarely addressed - or when it is addressed, it becomes the _only_ thing of consequence, as if there wasn't any art/aesthetics/beauty/wonder involved - or as if these are inconsequential.
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Christy Sheffield Sanford (Christy1, 5/29/99 1:09:39 PM)Here's the good news for those of us who love the image and suspect that half the furor has to do with those not great with images. There are programs like Flash which cut the file size down in amazing proportions as they are done fractionally. Vector graphics is the key phrase.
Funny, visual artists often want no reference to the book or page, literary artists want no reference to the image as that is elitist and takes up too much room, while they are often the most verbal and thus the most aggressive. Some of these issues are subtle and never directly addressed. The most underrated act of aggression is the written word. I have witnessed this on several lists in which an individual takes over by virtue of a prolix style. The third world. Has anyone asked a third world member what his/her preferences are. The absence of the image would be an impoverished world indeed.
Java scripting is not low tech. I love it, but it is not low tech.