Reblog: New Journal Primes You for ppg256

Over at Post Position Nick Montfort writes:


New Journal Primes You for ppg256: 
"Emerging Langauge Practices is a new journal based at SUNY Buffalo (poetic hotbed and host of the next E-Poetry) and founded by Loss Pequeño Glazier, Sarah JM Kolberg, and A. J. Patrick Liszkiewicz. Issue one is a real accomplishment.
There are eye-catching creative projects by mIEKAL aND & Liaizon Wakest and by Lawrence Upton and John Levack Drever. There are also pieces by Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries and Molleindustria. (We can only hope for further industrialization of this sort and more of these compelling productions in future issues.) The issue also includes a piece by Abraham Parangi, Giselle Beiguelman’s mobile tagging, Sandy Baldwin’s plaintive piece “** PLEASE REPLY MY BELOVED **,” and Jorge Luis Antonio’s wide-ranging article on digital poetry.
The item that particularly caught my eye, though, was this article by Mark Marino: “The ppg256 Perl Primer: The Poetry of Techneculture.” Marino is an officer of the Electronic Literature Organization with me and a current collaborator of mine, although he completed this article before joining me on our current project. The discussion he developed for the first issue of ELP is really in-depth. Marino not only considers the workings and connotations of my ppg256 series of poetry generators, and considers related code and literary traditions from Perl Golf to the Oulipo – he also considers other programs that interest me and that I’ve discussed publicly in various contexts, sometimes with collaborators. And, he connects the coding traditions relevant to ppg256 to technical practices in boy culture and (via needlework) girl culture.
In one section near the beginning of the article, Mark relates a line of BASIC that I posted on his Critical Code Studies forum and notes (partly in jest, I think) the following:

I cannot include the full discussion here (over 5000 words) because as Montfort told me over the phone (in jest, I think), he is planning a book-length anthology of readings about the program.

Well, that’s more or less the project Mark and I, along with several others, are now embarked upon. However, we’re writing this book in a single voice rather than collecting articles about the program. More on that before too long; for now, go and enjoy the new Emerging Language Practices.
"

Reblog: The Geotagger's World Atlas #1: New York

The Geotaggers' World Atlas #1: New York, originally uploaded by Eric Fischer.


These beautiful, ephemeral maps by Eric Fisher are well worth a look.

Some Rough Notes - On reading Alexander Halavais’ "The Hyperlink as Organizing Principle"

I have just finished reading Alexander Halavais' article "The Hyperlink as Organising Principle" published in the recent collection edited by Turrow and Tsui The Hyperlinked Society. (The collection is most certainly worth a look and, as an added bonus, the full text is available free on line.) Halavais' essay offers an insightful account of the nature of the hyperlink and its influence in determining the structure of networked space, opening with the provocative question: "What does a hyperlink mean?" Halavais notes that "this meaning is neither unitary nor stable" before turning to the crux of his argument:

As hyperlink networks become more easily manipulated and reach farther into our social and physical lives, we will have a continuing need to understand the hyperlink as more than a way of automatically requesting documents from a Web server. (39)

The article functions as an exploration of this need rather than offering answers to the questions it poses. Originally Halavais offers a short history of the hyperlink, offering citation as a precursor, and using that as a springboard into his discussion. Halavais considers the meaning of a hyperlink as entirely dependent on the greater context it is in, the nodes it connects or the use it is put to. I would argue to the contrary - I think there is a case to be made for the hyperlink itself as the carrier of some meaning, be that as an add-on / mediator / determining factor to the more central and significant meanings of its greater context and use. This is what my research centers on: the hyperlink as site of signification in its own right. Even more applicable to my own research is his statement further on suggesting that

the ultimate trajectory of hyperlinks may indeed be invisibility, the blue-underlined text merging with light switches and voice commands to become one of a superset of links. (52)

I find this concept, the shift towards invisibility of the link, fascinating. In the past I have argued that hyperlinks necessarily need to be self revealing constructs in order to function. That while the link is naturalised and even disguised the user still needs to be made aware of its artifice to be able to make use of it – therefore links are concurrently masking and revealing their presence in order to create meaning. Halavias gestures towards this when he says that

as the hyperlink becomes more ubiquitous, it is also layered with more meaning. (52)

The article concludes rather abruptly, and I found myself wishing that Halavais had pursued some of his suggestions and allusions in greater detail. His final statement is a re-iteration of the need for a developed understanding of hyperlinks:

In understanding what a hyperlink means, we need to look at what a hyperlink does. Over time, it has come to do more and more. At present, it stands as the basic element of organization for the Web, and as more and more of our lives are conducted through the Web, it becomes increasingly important that we understand how hyperlinked structures are formed and change. (53)

Overall the article is very useful, well written and easily accessible it opens many areas for debate and future study, consistently pointing to the need for a more nuanced view of the hyperlink. A need I feel cannot be overemphasised.

The Hyperlink as a Mark of Transition

Abstract

For any regular Internet user, the hyperlink has become ubiquitous, almost rendered invisible through the frequency of their use. Trails in hypertext are meticulously laid out through the seemingly endless streams of data, connected by links imagined as points of intersection in the web. Links are used for reference, for navigation but also extensively in creative production, to fashion hypertextual narratives and images. This paper examines the hyperlink's function as an indicator of transition and site of transformation. It is a brief exploration of the hyperlink as a signifier, as well as a mark both on and in the 'surface' of the digital text.

These strange non-objects that connect information are loaded with meanings and assumptions. This paper considers the hyperlink as a node, a zone, or a mark in a text that indicates a possible point of transition. While masked by regular use and innovative design, the hyperlink is not by its nature transparent – for it to function is has to be a self revealing construct. Hyperlinks are imagined to connect data seamlessly, yet that is exactly what they cannot do, as for them to be usable and useful, they need to highlight transition as well as enable it. The link inhabits the imaginary space between two points of data, it is positioned to be neither an object nor an action, and it signifies without being fully indexical or fully symbolic. In this presentation I hope to briefly explore some of the characteristics of this strange liminal creature that inhabits our screens.

Key words: Hypertext, Hyperlink, Liminal Space, Transition, Mark, Neal von Flue

In this post I will be discussing Neal von Flue’s webcomic 'Halycon Redux' – Last Ditch. http://ape-law.com/hypercomics/images/halcyon/lastditch/redux/content.html Neal von Flue is a freelance artist, and well known comic creator, researcher and critic. He has written extensively on experimental webcomics for the online magazine The Webcomic Examiner, and has created several comics exploring his interests in this field (all of which are published on www.Ape-Law.com). He is possibly best known for the WCCA award winning collaboration with Alexander Danner 'Five Ways to Love a Cockroach'. 'Halcyon Redux' is an experimental online comic. The tile, like the comic itself, relies on layered meaning, conflating the mundane with the mythical. The comic is littered with road signs referring to ‘Halcyon Road’, and ‘Halcyon’ itself as an area or place. This is obviously not the only meaning of Halcyon: the Halcyon is a mythical bird, identified with the King Fisher, which has the ability to calm the sea and storms. Halcyon has come to mean tranquillity, and peace. The ‘Halcyon years’ refers to a prosperous time, a golden age. Halcyon Redux – Last ditch indicates a reliving or a reworking of such a golden age. Von Flue describes the project as “A redesign of my final Halcyon Years instalment, using the Infinite Canvas webcomic delivery system to create a non-linear interaction.” In a very condensed nutshell: the comic appears to be autobiographical, the author often refers to the work as ‘self indulgent’. The comic is highly self referential – it contains other older self contained works, both ones created digitally and ones pre-digital (in his career) and scanned in. It has a circular ‘flow’ - the eye leads viewer over page - from centre / bottom right as entrance point, then reverts to reading habits, comes in at the top left - but circles right. Vignette stories combined in larger narrative. Combination of printed text, handwritten text, drawings and photographs. Keywords describing the thematic concerns would be all the postmodern catchphrases – meta text, inter text, hyper text, and palimpsest. On opening the page the viewer is presented with a single panel view with simple ‘forward’ and ‘backward’ navigation buttons at the bottom. Underneath the comic’s title is the simple instruction “Mouse over the comic for hotspots”. Once the control has been activated, the reader can hover over the panel, causing ‘hotspots’ to appear. Thematically, this designates areas in the image as areas of significance; temporarily marking the image, and establishing hierarchical relationships between visual elements. This marking is however very subtle, and echoes the patterns and panels already visible at first glance, it also fades relatively quickly leading to a ghosting of possible transitional points – remembered but not seen – adding to the effect of the palimpsest. Technically these ‘hotspots’ designate starting points from which the reader is directed through the comic. Clicking on one will start the reader on a sequence – comparable to the traditional strip – but unlike in a traditional comic where the possibility of reading and rereading is central the readers direction is dictated by the flash sequence of zooms and scrolls that are triggered. The pace of the comic is also affected as the fast scrolling momentarily reveals and conceals elements of the work that fall outside the created ‘panel’. (Construction of ideas of ‘panel’ in this comic are quite complicated so I’m not going in to that at the moment.) While the navigation is largely automatic, it can also be over ridden to enable a manual click and drag navigation. All forms of navigation in the comic require active reader participation. The Navigation buttons, allows reader to go forward and back, when the screen moves too fast and something is intentionally sped past the reader, the back and forth process of trying to see it becomes important - frustration is used repeatedly as a strategy to encourage reader engagement with the work. This adds to the strong, but disjointed rhythm created in the comic by the repetition of imagery. In addition to the hotspot starting points, the comic is riddled with Easter eggs these include hyperlinks to other ‘separate’ comics that are part of the same work, external web-pages, and even trigger pop-ups. While the comic appears to be free-form, the reader is able to engage with the panels in any order, yet there is still a strong sense of structure in the work. – Will Eisner’s structure - guiding a reader through the comic by manipulating the movement of the eye over the page. This guiding is both subtle through visual cues etc, and overt, through actual movement of the page view. As von Flue mentioned, the comic was created using the ‘Infinite canvas application’. Named for the influential theory of the ‘infinite canvas’ posited by Scott McCloud in his book Re-Inventing Comics, the InfiniteCanvas application was developed by Markus Müller (as a computer science student) as practical training and final thesis project at the University of Technology Vienna. InfiniteCanvas is an attempt to implement an environment for an infinite canvas. The application was designed with Apple’s iApps in mind. It was envisioned as an easy to use and intuitive application to outline and design an infinite canvas. The application consists of two components, an editor implemented in Objective-C Cocoa (an Apple-Framework) and an online viewer written in Development started in February 2003 and a first public version was release 1 1/4 years later in early July 2004. The first versions featured a Java based viewer. This viewer was replaced by a Flash based viewer in IC version 1.3.