In 2001–2 SFMOMA commissioned the web project Agent Ruby (agentruby.sfmoma.org/) by San Francisco artist Lynn Hershman Leeson for its pioneering online platform e.space. Originally conceived in 1999 as a mobile application for the Palm Pilot, the project was part of Hershman's research for her 2002 film "Teknolust." In 2013, SFMOMA curated an exhibit dedicated to the history of the project entitled "Lynn Hershman Leeson: The Agent Ruby Files."
“Stromatolite” is a dream/delusion/poem/shallow grave of language. As I say by way of introduction:
I was carving up _Was_, Michael Joyce’s “novel of internet,” feeding phrases to Googlemena, savage goddess, to see what she might throw back. Results fell mainly in three piles: interesting resonance (e.g.,”the lost what was” evoking notes on circumcision); incestuous loops (quotations from the novel in reviews, etc.); and most marvelously… THESE REALLY WEIRD HEAPS OF WORDS
(Source: https://thenewriver.us/stromatolite/)
Magpiiie is a work of digital poetry that explores the pursuit of 'success' and other materialistic things.
Written and developed by Andy Campbell and Judi Alston, the piece uses photo-scanned twigs and branches fused with repeating lines of poetry and spoken word audio to create a tightly-woven 'nest' that can be explored using the mouse and your mouse’s scroll wheel. Uncover the shiny objects wedged into the surface of the nest to release the poem.
The piece also works on high-end mobile devices (phones, tablets) and Windows touch-enabled laptops/monitors.
How Flash rose and fell as the world's most ubiquitous yet divisive software platform, enabling the development and distribution of a world of creative content.
Adobe Flash began as a simple animation tool and grew into a multimedia platform that offered a generation of creators and innovators an astonishing range of opportunities to develop and distribute new kinds of digital content. For the better part of a decade, Flash was the de facto standard for dynamic online media, empowering amateur and professional developers to shape the future of the interactive Web. In this book, Anastasia Salter and John Murray trace the evolution of Flash into one of the engines of participatory culture.
Salter and Murray investigate Flash as both a fundamental force that shaped perceptions of the web and a key technology that enabled innovative interactive experiences and new forms of gaming. They examine a series of works that exemplify Flash's role in shaping the experience and expectations of web multimedia. Topics include Flash as a platform for developing animation (and the “Flashimation” aesthetic); its capacities for scripting and interactive design; games and genres enabled by the reconstruction of the browser as a games portal; forms and genres of media art that use Flash; and Flash's stance on openness and standards―including its platform-defining battle over the ability to participate in Apple's own proprietary platforms.
Flash's exit from the mobile environment in 2011 led some to declare that Flash was dead. But, as Salter and Murray show, not only does Flash live, but its role as a definitive cross-platform tool continues to influence web experience.