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Overview:
What kind of
writing is this anyway?
Like
everything else connected with the internet, online writing is fast
creating its own history. So way back in 1998, when trAce and Alt-X
joined forces to launch their first International Hypertext Competition
the event marked a significant milestone in the development of this
new medium. It was, in effect, the coming together of two organizations
who had been at the forefront of new writing on the web since the
mid 90s, with Alt-X providing a lens for new web-based experimental
writing and trAce offering a meeting place and gallery for writers
working on the web. And it's also notable, in the contrary way the
web has of turning everything towards itself, that the founders
of both organizations are writers who first made their reputations
as literary novelists. Both Mark Amerika (Alt-X) and Sue Thomas
(trAce) continue to publish in print but now also create work for
and about the web and other digital media. Indeed, there is a revolutionary
artform shift happening here, with writers, programmers, designers
and visual artists learning each others' skills and meeting in new
kinds of collaboration.
In 98/99 there
were two joint winners of the trAce/Alt-X Competition http://trace.ntu.ac.uk/hypertext.
Jenny Weight's richly-pictorial Rice adhered to
a very different aesthetic to The Unknown's spoof
book tour hypertext, but both were doing what the web does so well:
combining images, sound and hypertext to produce sites of intelligent
complexity.
This time around, in 99/00, there have been some changes. Firstly,
the title of the competition was altered to reflect the fact that
these days hypertext represents only a small part of the palette
of the web-based writer/artist -- it is no longer the whole. Secondly,
in this atmosphere of cross-form experimentation, entrants were
asked to provide descriptive names both for the work they do and
for themselves as makers. They were also asked to submit a statement
explaining their creative intentions. The results were rich and
varied, with wide variations in the definitions provided by the
makers of what they felt they were doing.
Out of over
100 submissions, seven were filtered into a short-list for consideration
by overall judge Shelley Jackson. But of all the submissions, there
were wide variations in the definitions provided by the makers of
what they felt they were doing. Descriptive names for their work
included:
Hypertext : active text : web-specific
writing : new media work : new media writing : net literature : Net
Art : feminist hypermedia : poetry-multimedia installation : web
integrated writing : moving poetry : storytelling : multimedia :
hypertext poem : net-art-writing : Linguistic Aestheticism :
journalism : new horizon breakthrough idea exposition : internet
based narrative : net.art : Possible Art : hyperfiction :
Interactive Fiction : Hypertext Fiction : hypermedia : digital
literature : lit[art]ure : net.lit : Hypertext Art : post-ultra
modern digital art : public literature : Net-narrative : community
art : net-essays : cyberpoetry : Digital Exploration : mutations
:digital narrative : Net-specific hypermedia poetry : Hypermedia
Literature : revolutionary web-specific writing : hypermedia poetry
: interactive literature : randomly created web narrative :
interactive poetry : Art : Proximism : Theater of Consciousness :
Poetry : Confrontationalism : InterMedia Theater : Hyper-Essay :
Informational Sculpture : Transformationalistic : Self-generating
computer installation : hyperlinked : netArteFact : Web Poetry : Web
Art : Web projects : electronic literature : Organic hypertext :
poetry and prose : interactive artwork : hypermedia : byte-o-mania :
web animated visual poetry : A web-based poem : online
content.
Their definitions
of what they themselves might be called, as makers, were even more
complicated. Clearly, many entrants considered themselves to be
very much in a transition in this respect, and quite a few were
happy to stay that way. They called themselves:
- Artist
- Artist --
generally
- Artist and
writer
- Artist/theorist
- Artist/writer/thinker/designer,
editor
- Author and
futurist
- Both writer
and designer
- Conceptual
media artist
- Creative
human
- Cultural
worker
- Cybermancer
- Cyberpoet
- Designer
- Designwriter
or writedesigner
- Digital artist
- Digitizer
- During the
day, I am a games designer. I am not a regular artist, I'm just
playing with code in the next field... And sometimes my ball goes
over the fence. :)
- Even though
I can be categorized as artist, theorist, writer, designer, or
engineer, I almost always am in a position where the bounds of
only one field of inquiry fails to describe the work. My card
says, "Artist/Theorist/Information/Architect/designer/Engineer/Curator".
Probably the best description would be to call myself a transdisciplinary
technological artist.
- Fisherman
of Meanings
- For myself,
such labels mean less and less all the time.
- For this,
I am a writer. My job title changes with each project, though
and next week I could be a political astro-physicist. Who knows.
- Hacker/poet
- Hackwriter
- Hypermedia
novelist
- Hypermedia
poet
- Hypermedia
writer
- I (we) don't
like to label myself (ourself) but net artist is OK.
- I am a writer
for a living. My main push professionally is in bound, paper novels
for sale in bookstores, so I usually refer to myself as a "novelist"
when people ask.
- I call myself
a net.artist which for me encompasses the production and delivery
of an online experience which may include narrative, images, sound,
etc.. Its a category that is constantly reinventing itself.
- I like to
think of myself as a hypertextualist.
- I still call
myself a poet!
- I think I'm
a writer
- I'm a net.wurker.
- I'm a writer
when I'm writing, and usually an artist when I'm doing anything
else.
- I'm one-O-them
funny lookin' thinker types.
- In the context
of the website alone, I think of myself as a narraface artist,
but I gravitate towards the inclusive term "media artist."
- Information
Artist
- Intermediatist
- Journalist
- Lecturer
in cyberstudies
- Linguistic
Aestheticist
- Meta-Author
- Metaweb commentator
- Multi-media
artist and teacher
- Multimedia
Essayist
- New media
artist
- New media
artist or digital artist for grant applications
- New Media
Artist. I now use that term as shorthand, if detail is required
I would say artist/programmer/animator and independent multimedia
developer
- Novelist
- Obviously,
I am a transformationalist.
- Online content
provider
- Philosophical
and literary theorist still describes the activity even though
it is web based
- Poet
- Poet and
digital artist
- Poet still
works for me, because it means "maker." In practice I distinguish
between being a new media or hypertext poet, when I make works
designed to be
read online, and being a print poet when I write for print.
- Poet working
in new media, or sometimes interactive poet, though i am aware
of the fact
that all poets are interactive, its just that not all poetry is.
- Possible
Artist
- Professing
art is enough name.
- Regardless
of medium, I remain an artist
- Scriptor/Troubador
- Sculptor,
poet, new media designer/artist
- Though the
tendency is to try to put labels on things, I like to try to stay
unclassifiable
- Web Designer
- Whether I
work with music, images or text I consider myself mainly a "story
teller"
- Writer
- Writer and
a little bit of web programmer
- Writer and
Sound/Media Artist
- Writer and/or
artist describe what I do perfectly well.
- Writer is
fine. In the beginning was the word.
- Writer/multimedia
artist
It would be
unfeasible for us to feature the site descriptions of all the submissions.
However, full information is given on the shortlisted sites.
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