The process of making a thing is certainly significant to what it is about.
(just like with paint)
I engage with a form/content relationship with the medium. I could say I am taking a painterly approach towards electronic media.
The process includes certain things I bring with me that I have adopted via my experience with a painting process.
the subject
The subject of this project is hypertext. So, I am engaging in building a hypertext structure. However the subject is linked to my internet oriented research about the subject. As hypertext rather than paper I am allowed the opportunity to link to the research material directly. This being the case it seems appropriate to structure my reflections and reactions to the research material in a way that is related to hypertext documents rather than paper documents. I do not have to paraphrase and explain what others have written about the subject. I don't even see the point in summarizing what others have written. It makes more sense to utilize the opportunity to link directly to the material.
In an attempt to allow my research and presentation about hypertext to exist of hypertext as well as simply in hypertext I have made several choice that are both stylistic and process oriented. The colored pages and font alterations (as well as the general attitude and content) are an attempt to engage an of-ness of hypertext.
For example I use lists of links identified by names and/or titles, selecting brief quotes and annotating with the use [of various combinations] of [brackets] bold and italic comments. Thus the research oriented blue pages diverge from a traditional method of lacing a research paper with paraphrase and footnotes. I am attempting to incorporate digital media and network structures with the process and presentation of research. So I am experimenting with a method of commentary that may be clumsy but is at least relevant. Recognizing hypertext as a different method of research goes back to Vannevar Bush's memex.
Hypertext also supports an indulgence in digressions and tangents that can spice up a project without deteriorating into incoherence. Stumbling on the gray pages does not necessarily disturb the continuity of the white pages. Occasionally I will also use text size, letter case, and/or altered alignment for brief interruptions. I am trying to sense a balance between comprehensibility and a complicated mess while using hypertext as a medium.
(just like with paint)
a complicated mess
The process includes the detail that I am writing these html pages in bits and pieces. The bits and pieces are all mixed up with notes and research. I am virtually making notes as I engage in research and contemplation regarding the subject. I am recording the notes in separate files on disorganized note files.
The process is a complicated mess that currently (the moment I write the first draft of this particular snippet) wouldn’t make much sense to show anyone. I will have to go into a phase of editing the notes and organizing the files before the document reaches the form that the reader will experience.
I see this as a painterly approach.
I am offering my perspective to be contemplated. Recognize validity or not, that’s up to you. This is true of anything I write, say, do and paint.
It would be more superficially efficient to write a continuous text then break it apart to put in hypertext form keeping an orderly control of the structure of the document. I have nothing against that method. Just as I have no problem accepting that a subject oriented, narrative painting is capable of being a successful painting.
What I have observed is that restricting paint to subject oriented narrative often, if not necessarily, inhibits an understanding of the medium. If successful it is more likely to be a good image and less likely to be a good painting.
What I am attempting to do here is allow the idea of my subject (hypertext) to be a guiding concept rather than a pre-defined topic. The content of the final project is in process of emerging. I am allowing the experience of the process to influence the process. This includes my skill and knowledge levels, it includes my desk and software, it includes conversations I had yesterday, and what I had for breakfast. Like with painting every element is influenced by a synthesis of all things filtered through a moment of action via a vehicle or node of consciousness.
I have no problem considering myself a self organizing database linked to a complex assortment of various collaborations with other databases in a relatively incomprehensible web of intra and internets ultimately connected as one ubiquitous cybernetic entity.
Engaging with a medium invites a different aspect of the production than the stylistic elements. The style is a far more contrived element. And the process is intentionally uncontrived.
The process is an immersion that holds a door open for emergence. It is an unstructured part of the structure. One never knows where it will go. And it doesn't end. Maybe it is like the heartbeat of a net.
The process is a relationship with the medium.
(just like with paint)
