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The
Shortlist
Giselle
Beiguelman: <Content = No Cache>
http://www.desvirtual.com/nocache/
BRAZIL /details
Young-hae
Chang, Marc Voge: Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries
http://www.yhchang.com
SOUTH KOREA /details
NB: This site has grown and developed since it was judged as part
of the competition.
Alistair
Gentry: 100 Black Boxes
http://www.gentry.btinternet.co.uk/100black/home.htm UK /details
Yael
Kanarek: World of Awe
http://www.worldofawe.net
USA /details
Talan
Memmott: Lexia to Perplexia
http://trace.ntu.ac.uk/newmedia/lexia/index.htm
USA (Winner) /details
Nick
Montfort, William Gillespie, Dylan Meissner: The Ed Report
http://www.edreport.com
USA (Honourable Mention) /details
Sally
Pryor: As I may write
http://www.ozemail.com.au/~spryor/write.html AUSTRALIA /details
Shortlist
Details
<Content
= No Cache> http://www.desvirtual.com/nocache/
Giselle
Beiguelman Sao Paulo, Brazil, giselle@desvirtual.com
Type
of Artist: Multimedia Essayist
Type
of Site: net-art-writing
Submission
Statement: <Content= No Cache> is about the loss inscription.
It talks about error messages. Its point of departure is a curious
tag "content = no cache". Placed in the html code it updates the
contents of any on line page, erasing what was written before.
It announces a new condition of writing. From now on it does not
inscribe anymore. It just describes. Error Messages are emblematic
of that situation. They do not make sense clear, from a vernacular
point of view.. Maybe because they do not perform mental images,
like words. They just translate numeric references of a mathematical
language. This site, <Content=No Cache>, deals with the
letter new dimension. It inquires the paradoxes of on line writing
and questions the famous html publishing software slogan, the
acronym "wysiwyg" (what you see is what you get) by asking: is
it? Integrated to "The Book of Errors" (a guestbook that receives
error messages from other "webbys") it also documents the relationship
between webreaders and errors messages.
Using
different applets and dhtml resources, <Content = No Cache>
exhibits those errors in artistic screens. By doing this, it creates
a new context for them and inverts the relation between what is
seen and what is read. In a few words, here the author worked
as if it would be possible to operate in the limits between reading
and vision, aiming to explore the new dimensions of online literacy.
Young-Hae
Chang Heavy Industries
http://www.yhchang.com
Young-hae
Chang & Marc Voge Seoul, South Korea tfa@chollian.net
Type
of Artist: Artists
Type
of Site: Web art
Submission
Statement: It's essential to break rules and do things "wrong"
in art. But it's seemingly necessary to follow rules and do things
"right" in making Web art. This is the big problem confronting
the Web artist, for the technique --and not the art -- of making
Web art necessitates obeying strict rules the flouting of which
is punished by absolute failure to create image and sound. One
HTML misstep, and nothing works, nothing happens on the screen.
With this in mind our Web art tries to break as many rules as
possible. In our work there is: no interactivity; no graphics
or graphic design; no photos; no illustrations; no banners; no
millions-of-colors; no playful fonts; no fireworks. We have a
special dislike for interactivity. To us it's a paltry, laughable
thing, like getting a kick out of pulling the trigger of a gun:
click: bang. We don't get it. When we click on interactive art,
we get the feeling we're the rat in the Skinner box, except there's
only the miserable reward, not the shock. Art isn't reward, it's
shock, or something approaching it, something we would call beauty.
Our Web art tries to express the essence of the Internet: information
and disinformation. Strip away the interactivity, the graphics,
the design, the photos, the illustrations, the banners, the colors,
the fonts and the rest, and what's left? The text.
100
Black Boxes http://www.gentry.btinternet.co.uk/100black/home.htm
Alistair
Gentry Felixstowe, UK gentry@btinternet.com
Type
of Artist: I'm a writer when I'm writing, and usually an artist
when I'm doing anything else (mainly audio art, but recently digital
animation as well). I must be a writer and artist type of artist.
Type
of Site: The phrase I use on the site is "written for the
WWW", because I also write (differently in each case) for the
page and the stage. I never do things in a particular medium just
because I can; the medium for any given piece of work is something
that I consider carefully. I'm not happy with the term "new media".
How long will it have to be around before it isn't new? All media
were new at some point. And what about new media's successor?
What would we call that? It's 100 linked ultrashort stories. Somebody
recently called it a "choral novel". It's that, too.
Submission
Statement: 100 Black Boxes is constructed from 100 words each
by 100 different characters about the moment of their deaths.
It
is deliberately simple in design and execution, to make it available
to a reasonably wide cross section of users, and to maximise its
speed. For me the internet is a delivery system, not an end in
itself. When I'm reading a book, I'm not that interested in how
clever the paper is. There's nothing that irritates me more than
sites bloated with uneccessary Flash, Java, ludicrous and obtuse
navigation, millions of frames and all the other things that often
mask poor writing or art on the net.
The
idea behind the project is to make death into something normal
and accessible again. We are used to images and descriptions of
spectacular deaths, noble deaths, mass or industrial deaths, but
there is very little written about mundane deaths, everyday deaths.
Connected with this is the idea of writing about something that
everybody will experience, directly and indirectly, at some point
in their lives.
World
of Awe http://www.worldofawe.net
Yael
Kanarek New York, USA yael@treasurecrumbs.com
Type
of Artist: In the context of the website alone, I think of
myself as a narraface artist, but since World of Awe expands beyond
the web, I gravitate towards the inclusive term "media artist."
Type
of Site: World of Awe is a cross-media project in development
for the past 5 years. I more often talk about the website as net.art,
mostly because of my association with other net.artists. In this
context the tradition of visual art comes forth in the discourse.
With online writers the narrative steps into the center stage.
A different language of creative tradition is used to talk about
the work, which strangely offers a change in tone and temper.
I like these changes of perspectives. It allows me to think about
the narraface in different terms. The process remains fresh. How
about narraface art? Sounds like an "all-in-one" kind of a deal.
Knowledge of this form of web art/writing is so fragmented that
many a times I find myself adapting the language to my companion's
level of understanding, whether it's technically or creatively.
Submission
Statement: Synopsis: Click on the capsule, the desktop opens.
The narrative is hiding inside the application-like interface.
Through love letters, journal entries and descriptions of the
navigation tools, you'll uncover the fantastical story of the
traveler in search of a lost treasure.
World
of Awe synthesizes narrative with interface. It's a narraface.
Strategy:
The screen, it hurts my eyes. World of Awe wishes to deliver an
engaging story within the limits of one's "click & read" capacity.
To achieve that, two methods are applied to increase usability:
Hypertext
self control: Reduce distraction. Do not puncture my train of
thought. Therefore the texts are link free and each page is a
complete micro-tale, barely depended on the others.
Never
lost: The narraface relies on users to re-contextualize the standards
of graphical user interface. This navigation system allows access
to all the content on the site from any page. Nothing is hidden.
The site is practically flat, though the links are organized into
the pull-down menus, which create a hierarchy of meaning.
The
journal contains three types of textual objects:
1.The
love letters: Reminiscent of 19th century European ideologies
that considered such concepts as absolute love, beauty and truth.
2. Travel logs: This is what I did, this is what I thought.
3. Navigation tools: Product information & description.
Undercurrent
tracking system: Each time visitors click a link, a line of data
is written to a common log file, telling the story of their travel
through the narraface. These short data stories will be adapted
as a component in visual displays.
As for technique, hopefully, the design is so successful that
it becomes transparent during the experience. Cooper Griggs from
Binus (a design group in CA) wrote: "That is some of the coolest
DHTML sites I have ever seen. Great work."
WINNER
Lexia
to Perplexia http://www.uiowa.edu/~iareview/tirweb/hypermedia/talan_memmott
Talan
Memmott San Francisco, USA talan@percepticon.com
Type
of Artist: Meta-Author, artist...
Type
of Site: Rich.Lit, Theory/Fiction
Submission
Statement: Lexia to Perplexia is a deconstructive/grammatological
examination of the 'delivery machine'. The text of the work falls
into the gaps between theory and fiction.
The
work makes wide use of DHTML and Javascript. At times the interactive
features of the work override the source text, which leads to
a fragmentary experience in relation to the subjects of the text.
In essence, the text does what it says; in that, certain theoretical
attributes are not displayed as text but are incorporated into
the functionality of the work.
Additionally,
Lexia to Perplexia explores new terms for the processes and phenomena
of attachment. Terms such as 'metastrophe' and 'intertimacy' work
as sparks within the piece and are meant to inspire further thought
and exploration. There is also a play between the rigorous and
the frivolous in this 'exe.termination of terms'.
The
Lexia to Perplexia interface is designed as a diagrammatic metaphor,
emphasizing the local(user) and remote(server) poles of network
attachment while exploring the 'intertimate', hidden spaces of
the process.
HONOURABLE
MENTION
The
Ed Report http://www.edreport.com
Nick
Montfort, William Gillespie & Dylan Meissner Boston, USA
eds@edreport.com
Type
of Artist: Meissner is a visual artist. Gillespie and
Montfort are writers.
Type
of Site: We have called the Ed Report a "hypertext fiction,"
an "electronic epic," and a "fake government report."
Submission
Statement: The Ed Report is a hypertextual US government document,
describing the covert military exploits of a technical writer
named Ed. (The coincidentally-named Ed Commission produced this
once top-secret report.) Epic hero Ed leaves off his ordinary
life - in which he writes software documentation, takes care of
his autistic younger brother, and pursues early Near Eastern scholarship
- as he is pressed into service as an Akkadian code-talker during
an undercover operation in Colombia.
Of
course, The Ed Report is also fiction, constructed collaboratively
by Montfort, Gillespie, and Meissner. Written for the Web, it
was revealed serially in the summer of 2000. It has also been
read (in a press-conference sort of performance that borrowed
from oral epic poetry traditions) in New York City, Chicago, and
Bergen, Norway. The Ed Report exploits the novelty of the Web
by presenting itself, in deadpan fashion, as a genuine text. On
the Web, because of the gullibility of readers and the difficulty
in verifying textual authenticity, parodies are frequently mistaken
for reportage. The Ed Report was inspired, in part, by Orson Welles's
radio play based on the H.G. Wells novel "War of the Worlds,"
which caused panic in America as listeners mistook it for an authentic
news broadcast. It would be difficult to play such a splendid
prank on the radio today - but the Web is a different story. Another
influence was the Starr Report, which may have been, from the
standpoint of the United States, the most important Web-original
story yet published.
As
I may write http://www.ozemail.com.au/~spryor/write.html
Sally
Pryor Ballarat, Australia spryor@ozemail.com.au
Type
of Artist: I have been variously labeled a computer animator/programmer,
a computer artist (a term I dislike) and a digital artist over
the years. These days I would be called a New Media Artist. I
now use that term as shorthand, if detail is required I would
say "artist/programmer/animator and independent multimedia developer.
Type
of Site: I consider this an interactive artwork. Technically
it is a piece of hypermedia (a term not much used today) or interactive
multimedia. It is not strictly hypertext, as it integrates and
links audiovisual elements as well as written ('glottic') texts
Submission
Statement: "As I May Write" is a playful, open-ended artwork exploring
writing and the human-computer interface.
Many
assume that writing is technically about representing speech.
But a focus on 'glottic writing' excludes such forms of writing
as mathematical and musical texts. More importantly, it obscures
a profound understanding of writing and of the historical paradigm
shifts that have occurred in its invention(s). And it impoverishes
any study of the human-computer interface as a writing space.
My
work is close to the Derrida/Kristeva view, of writing being more
associated with drawing than with human speech. In particular,
it draws on Roy Harris's recent Integrational Linguistics. I explore
written communication and its histories, including contemporary
visual languages such as icons, logo(gram)s and Blissymbolics.
Picture Writing, long dismissed by an assumption that writing
has 'evolved' from primitive beginnings, emerges as a useful model
for the human-computer interface.
The
title, "As I May Write", refers to Vannevar Bush's landmark paper
on hypertext, "As We May Think". My work is an experimental, interactive
and audiovisual expression of my research and ideas. It speculates,
connects and uncovers (for example suggesting early "matriarchal"
marks/graphemes have the status of writing). More ambitiously,
it seeks to apply some of these ideas in the user interface of
the work.
I
make art in order to find out what I think/feel about a topic.
This time, the artwork is also complemented and cross-linked with
an academic paper I am writing at the same time.
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