Published on the Web (online journal)

F2F might seem retro to you. It struck me as very 1991. The idea of a hypertext that is heavy on the text seemed to lose its charm as soon as images, moving animation, video and sound could also be included. One of the downsides to the speed of the evolution of hypertext, is that whole possible genres and subgenres were not given the chance to grow. What happened to the web-film-essay? Well, it never happened. Sure, there are some text-book-market CD-ROMs and the like that do something similar, but they use video more as mere illustration. What about a film essay that would incorporate the mystery the moving image rather than try to compete with it? What about utilizing images and sounds that potentially resist the text? What about playing with the clips like a video artist would?

F2F gravitates towards Deleuze's theories of framing and the face, and brings into alignment filmmakers who, unwittingly or not, deconstruct the face. But it also spins off into links on Robert Smithson, mirrors, Issey Miyake, creative urbanism, Max Ernst, romance . . . . One of the plusses about doing this essay in hypertext form, is that it allowed me to incorporate or even memorialize various ambivalences I had while writing these ideas down in linear form. There were clearly at least two essays that could come of it all. But, rather than pairing up with one and bumping the other off, we're all still here.

Conceived and produced by Judy Malloy, Making Art Online, a work of computer-mediated  Information art/narrative, is created with artists statements about making art in early telecommunications systems.Making Art Online includes words by Scot Art, John Coate, Anna Couey and  Lucia Grossberger Morales, Pavel Curtis, Robert Edgar, Kit Galloway and Sherrie Rabinowitz, Carolyn Guyer,  Michael Joyce, Roger Malina, Jeff Mann, Pauline Oliveros, Tim Perkis, John Quarterman, Howard Rheingold, Jim Rosenberg, Randy Ross, Sonya Rapoport, Fred Truck, and others.

As musician/composer Tim Perkis wrote  about "The Hub",  (created in 1986 with fellow composer John Bischoff)  "..The result is a really new kind of collective composition, a new social way of making music that didn't exist before. We have a good time." -Early versions of Making Art Online were exhibited in Reflux at the 1991 Sao Paulo Biennial, Brazil, 1991 and published in the November 1, 1991 issue of FineArt Forum. The final version was first implemented as a website for the Center for Image and Sound Research, (CSIR) Vancouver, B.C., Canada on their pioneeering ANIMA website in the early days of of the World Wide Web in January of 1994.  Making Art Online was included in the  2001 traveling exhibition Telematic Connections: The Virtual Embrace (San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, CA. Feb. 7-Mar. 21 among many other venues) and is currenlty published on the website of the Walker Art Center in conjunction with the documentation for Telematic Connections.

Like Stars in a Clear Night Sky takes advantage of an elegant interface to present the type of lore often passed from parents to children. A voice, speaking Arabic, is paired with text in English, asking readers if they would like to hear a series of stories. Clicking blue stars in the night sky gives access to sparse stories. The reader is able to access these stories by clicking on certain stars in the night sky that appear to be brighter than the rest. These stories, which read more like poems, have to do with personal experiences with Ezzat's life and most have an open ending suggesting that it is up to the subject of the poem to decide how it will end. The use of the night sky works to make a connection with the audience in that just as we share the stars we look up at every night, Ezzat wishes to share his stories and experiences.  

(Description from Electronic Literature Collection, Vol. 1)

Amor-mundo, ou a vida, esse sonho triste [World-love, or life, that sad dream] is an animated text which proposes generative schemes of both visual and audio animation. Building on metaphors and images from the works of the Portuguese poet Florbela Espanca, and using as its starting point the Actionscript code of Jared Tarbel, this work includes five poems: Part 1 - Deixa-me ser a tua mais triste mágoa; Part 2 - Eu queria ser o mar alto; Part 3 - Passo no mundo a ler o misterioso livro;  Part 4 - Sou o vento que geme e quer entrar; Part 5 - Horas mortas. The reader can add to these poems random spatial layers that allow the creation of multiple constellations of meaning.

Excerpts from the Chronicles of Pookie & JR is a short fiction by J. R. Carpenter about her adventures with Montreal-based artist Ingrid Bachmann's hermit crab Pookie during the month June of 2009. Pookie's website is: http://digitalhermit.ca/ Pookie is also known as Pookie 14.Excerpts from the Chronicles of Pookie & JR is generated by a Python script adapted (with permission) from a 1k story generator written by Nick Montfort. In July 2009, in a blog post, Nick Montfort wrote: "J. R. Carpenter, author of Words the Dog Knows, Entre Ville, The Cape, and other fine works of e-lit, print, and xerography, has delightfully re-purposed one of my 1k story generators to have it tell stories involving her and a hermit crab named Pookie. The program has grown to about 2k, but it uses the same simple (and surprisingly effective) method as my first generator does: It simply removes all but 5-9 sentences from a sequence, eliding some of what's been written. Sometimes the reader is left to wonder who the hermit is."In July 2009, NYC-based artist/programmer Ravi Rajakumar ported the Python script into Javascript to create a web browser friendly version of the Chronicles of Pookie & JR. http://luckysoap.com/pookieandjr/In December 2010, Excerpts from the Chronicles of Pookie & JR and three other generators adapted from scripts by Nick Montfort appeared in a print book called GENERATION[S] published by Vienna-based TRAUMAWIEN.In November 2011, Laura Borràs Castanyer translated Excerpts from the Chronicles of Pookie & JR into Spanish and Catalan.

A series of web pages with on every page a text/poem whose content and presentation changes under the influence of online available dynamic data about events that take place elsewhere in the world. The link between a text and a website is determined by the thematic affinity between website and text. That relationship is not unambiguous, not one-dimensional, the text does not directly link to the site’s subject. The reader of the text itself has no influence on the content and presentation of that text. The influence is exercised by fluctuations in the data the website deals with, or by the online behaviour of the visitors to that website. So far one data poem has been created, namely: #1 : Stemmingswisselkoers (Mood Exchange Rate). A text that follows fluctuations in the AEX-index. As the market goes up, the text becomes more optimistic; with negative developments the text follows that downfall. Under influence of the tendencies in the market certain keywords and sentences will be replaced by others. 

The poem ‘Jacques Brel op 8 april 1929 bij zijn geboorte Avenue du Diamant 138, Schaerbeek’ (‘Jacques Brel on the 8th of April 1929 at his birth Avenue du Diamant 138, Schaerbeek’) is a part of the cycle ‘Birth cry’. In this case the poet puts words the day of his birth into Jacques Brel’s mouth. Brel on his first day of life is speaking in words of a vision he has about hiscareer as a famous Belgian chansonnier.

Graphic designer Timo Pennings made from the lines of poetry a silent film where the words of Brel sing, jump and dance like he did in the theatre. He added piano music and the noise of the sea (Jacques Brel was an enthusiastic yachtsman).

A modern building. Everyone is present. Waiting for an experiment to start. A woman in a hospital bed is enjoying the paradisiacal atmosphere outside. Until she is rolled inside. Two nurses start a treatment in which injections are combined with language. 

A dictation exercise. Girls in an educational black & white setting. Sentences (well-pronounced but sloppily) read by a male voice at dictation speed. The reaction of the girl in focus colors the content. 

The poem ‘Ondertussen in Taylor, Nebraska’ (‘Meanwhile in Taylor, Nebraka’) from the dutch poet Frans Budé tells about a meeting between a man and a woman after bar cloting time in a dark street in Taylor. Graphic designer Dionne Lausberg plays with the words, the light in the night and an early bird in the morning.