HYPERTEXT: Well, I’ll be dipped…

October 20th, 2009 by susan

. . .nothing like feelin’ the fool once again.

Coming into hypertext and new media and having none of your friends (yes, I’ve many master-degreed friends and even relatives) know what hypertext is makes you cocky and swell with the glory of being in on something new. So, though you know it’s been around a while, you sort of believe that it needs a kickstart to find its place in the rapidly changing world of new media arts, literature, and communication. And, by gum, you’re willing to take on the job.

You start babbling ideas and concepts of marketing and directions and all that fancy schmancy stuff you know nothing about but are willing to dive into. Slowly, tediously, you dive. And a long time later, you find it’s all been done before only nobody bothered to tell you.

So you make some dumb statements and you turn around and mumble a bit like an Alzheimeric dwarf and go back in your cave and press buttons.

Posted in HYPERTEXT | 4 Comments »

4 Responses to “HYPERTEXT: Well, I’ll be dipped…”

  1. Chris Says:
    October 20th, 2009 at 6:28 pm

    I have had much the same experience — much of the history of this field is hidden away, or at least not easy to find for someone who isn’t already immersed in it. Have any pointers?

  2. susan Says:
    October 20th, 2009 at 8:10 pm

    It’s so frustrating sometimes; you’re chasing your tail and it seems folks who knew the answers could have set you on the trail and saved you loads of time and effort. I don’t mind finding things out on my own, but in this fast moving field, you’ll never catch up if you’re trying to harvest plowed fields.

    I think that I’m going to spend some time Googling. It was this today that opened up a lot for me, such as a wealth of online literary new media publishers, and made my “Oh wow! A new site!” sound rather silly as they’ve been publishing since 1996. “Stretchtext” found me a direct download. While many of the sites are long dead, many of the basic info is all there and worth a quick look into history.

  3. Chris Says:
    October 21st, 2009 at 9:58 am

    Mm, in my copious free time I have been going through http://www2.iath.virginia.edu/elab/, which is old old old, but is fairly comprehensive.

  4. susan Says:
    October 22nd, 2009 at 9:28 am

    Yep, that’s been one of my main hangouts as well as http://www.duke.edu/~mshumate/other.html, http://eastgate.com, and a few others that seem to have some live links and new offerings. You’ve brought to attention the need for updating as well as catching those long-lost links to essays and information that may be old, but to someone just stepping into this, give a good base.