I think this is the start of a beautiful friendship…

Posted on October 19, 2011 by Zoe Annabel

So, it’s the end of Semester 2 although I can hardly believe it and it’s time to wrap this thing up. I think if I had to choose one thing this year that I have enjoyed and gotten the most out of, blogging would definitely be up there in top two. I really like posting things on my blog as a way of documenting ideas, thoughts and processes and it’s kind of like a creative outlet that I can see evolving. Further, the whole ‘community’ that blogging creates is super cool and I have discovered so many great blogs which have served as inspiration for my own work and I feel really helped me in my own practice.

So, short but sweet I know, but bloggin, it’s pretty fly.

Tumblr_lnoqqoidfb1qmov16o1_500_large

The first entry i will mention is Tutorial Thinking (July 29th) which explores the idea of the internet as a Network, and how the web presents not only a space to ‘store’ information but to link ideas so your experience becomes more like a journey. This entry explores the implications of Networking and the way our interaction with the web is changing us a readers and writers. I think my early July posts show a limited range of texture and are extremely long in comparison to my later work. You can also see that in my July entries I didn’t understand the concept or importance of tagging posts. August was lovely Annotated Bibliography Time, so lots of my posts were dedicated to that, but you’ve already read those so I will mention some other notable entries. Tutorial #4…or not (August 11th) was my attempt to fulfil some of the participation goals I set for myself which ended up in me discovering a lot about digital identity – something I have become increasingly interested in. It’s all about having a voice and presence online and how it differs from the one we have in ‘real life’. CAPTCHA SUCKERS! ( August 18th) explains my process of installing a new plugin on my WordPress blog, it has accompanying images (I learnt that maintaing visual interest was important) and adopts a less formal style than other entries – this was when really began to understand blogging as being open to any kinds of entries. It was at this point in the course I began to open myself up to new programmes and online applications. The Julie/Julia Project (August 28th) responds to the idea of blogging and how, as a medium, it’s affordances help us in the Media and Communications industry to gather a network of followers. August was a good month, my entries were so much more varied in terms of content (videos, images, links) and texture/tone. Spring sprung and so did my flare for blogging, I began posting more and more non related yet highly relevant stuff to enhance the personality and voice of my blog. art for my rent (6th September) is a nice little heart warming story about how blogging enabled a struggling visual artist to pay her rent through doing what she loved. The post shows how the skills we learn Networked Media can be integral to our success after Uni. SoundCloud – Your Sound, at the Heart (18th September) relates to online communities via a review of Soundcloud. This post is one of many in a series of reviews of websites I did and this one in particular shows how important Networking, Tagging and being active online is. Have You Noticed? ( 22nd September) outlines the way that Facebook can be used as a forum to create a hype or excitement about an upcoming event, pretty much how we can use it, as a medium, to promote our work and gather a following of intrigued people. This post, like a lot of my writing relates to art, and the art world, which really is all about promotion and networking. Creative Socialism (September 28th) concerns our study of Copyright and Creative Commons via referencing an academic article I sourced online and discusses Creative Commons in a political context which I think differs from simply summing up the ideas behind the movement and takes an interesting view. Week #10 Tutorial (September 29th) outlines some difficulties I had with HTML and a step by step guide of how I resolved the issue. This entry provides some much needed specifics on my technical process and shows the progression of my HTML skills. RIP: A REMIX MANIFESTO (October 3rd) is my own personal response the documentary set as course material for WK11. In the post I assign my own individual examples of what I think a remix culture produces and how I can apply it my own context as an emerging artist. Occupying Twitter (October 13th) discusses the powers of social media occupied both by those who use them and those who control them. I use Occupy Wall Street as a example of how ideas can be spread so quickly through forums such as Twitter and also of how forums like this can be subject to potential manipulation.

It’s not all gags…

Posted on October 17, 2011 by Zoe Annabel

“Money in politics is the root of all political evil, its corruption at it’s worst and until we step up and kick that out of the park, its going to be the same system”.

Out of all the websites I often mention as widely accessed and used in social networking, Youtube is probably one I use the least – I only ever really use it to listen to music or watch funny videos that my friends post on Facebook. This morning though, Mike Rukus posted an explosive video concerning Occupy Wall Street, something i have blogged about previously and am exceedingly intrigued by.

I found the video to be really interesting and quite incredible in terms of it’s emotional power over audiences (could be due to the overly emotional sound track). However, what I found most interesting was the comments at the bottom – people REALLY get fired on up on good old Youtube; have a look at this, just a tiny selection of a long long debate concerning quite complex political arguments and perspectives:

@luckydimecaper FACT: Barack Obama took more Wall Street money than ANY CANDIDATE IN AMERICAN HISTORY. PERIOD.

But these protesting morons still think he’s their best shot at turning it all around. Are you fucking kidding me?

thevisualedge 6 minutes ago
@barnone11967 I’m not talking about the President, dipshit. I said “congressional representatives.” He kept saying, “bought Congress.”

Last I checked, our congressional representatives were still chosen by popular election. Would you like to disagree with me on that and continue sharing your ignorance with the world?

For the record, I get very, very little of my information from the mainstream. And if you think I’m basing anything I’ve said on emotion, you are sadly mistaken.

thevisualedge 7 minutes ago
@thevisualedge What?? Money wins elections. You should see that by now. Whatever your views are, money is what wins the election. Though I do agree that we need to wake up and start participating.

ILikeMusicTo0 10 minutes ago
@thevisualedge If you think the these people are “ELECTED” you have no clue how the system really works. Do some research and learn that presidents are SELECTED and not ELECTED. Don’t be another sheeple who basis information on just feelings , emotions and what you heard on main stream TV PROGRAMMING.

I think Youtube is actually a place (watch out for Trolls) where legitimate political discussion can occur, accompanied by videos and images which both spark arguments and substantiate certain postions.

Occupying Twitter…

Posted on October 13, 2011 by Zoe Annabel

I found this article to extremely relevant to the ideas we have been exploring in Networked Media this semester.

This article is based on the truism that social media has to the inherent ability to connect people and their ideas. This idea, that ideas can be instantly spread via social networking has led to it’s use as a political tool which has resulted in Facebook and Twitter becoming platforms for social movements, protests, collective action and even recently, revolutions.

Hashtags on Twitter have become an incredibly powerful tool in the proliferation of ideas targeted to a specific group. Ideas can literally be ‘spread’ by these hashtags which users can follow and receive second by second updates on the particular topic or event.

The recent Occupy Wall Street protests have been cited as potentially misplacing

Our trust of, and romance with, social media has been shaken by the #occupy protests…it’s almost as though social media might have cheated on us. But we can’t prove it – we can only dig for evidence

Hashtags are a user created phenomena a system for ad hoc organisation. They help groups assemble, and can be easily modified: #occupyeverywhere, #occupyfacebook, #occupySF, even #occupyramsaystreet have popped up.

Many Twitter users were outraged that #occupywallstreet, the official, and by far the most frequently used hashtag of the movement, never showed in the official Twitter ‘trending’ list (an aggregation of the most popular hash tags used on Twitter).

See the blog where these accusations and trend graphs are posted – it’s really interesting to see that the blog has taken the accusations outside of Twitter because it’s no longer ‘trusted’ as a platform which is free from government intervention and manipulation.

To really understand what happened, we need to look at the new rules of critical mass media:

1) Users provide Twitter, Facebook and Google with data: what we are thinking, saying, and doing: what we’ve done; what we plan to do; what we’re thinking about doing. Then, through a complex process, they tell “us” what they think we’re doing. It’s a conversation but in the end Twitter, Facebook, and Google still have the final word.

2) Twitter, as with other online social media, both disperses and attracts audience attention. It is collective yet ephemeral, fluctuating as people tune in and log out.

Regardless of what people think, we don’t know which Twitter topics will trend, why some do not, and how this is really determined. Just like Google’s search, it a complex, protected formula. The fact is, as Twitter’s spokespeople stated themselves, algorithms and full access to user’s activity data are not public. Nor do they want it to be. Twitter is a business that must protect its intellectual property.

Perhaps it’s time to leave Twitter and Facebook behind as vehicles for these kinds of movements, and accept them as mere platforms on which to launch ideas which we should take control in playing out through specifically crafted social networking sites. Social Media is transparent, and without its own politics and hierarchies.

This is exactly what Occupy Wall Street has done by launching a free Android app as well as Vibe, an anonymous, open version of Twitter.

For more info on the Occupy Wall Street Protests click here, or if you want to support New York this Saturday, come along to the protest at City Square.

Participation

Posted on October 12, 2011 by Zoe Annabel

par·tic·i·pa·tion

[pahr-tis-uh-pey-shuhn]

noun

1.

an act or instance of participating.

2.

the fact of taking part, as in some action or attempt:participation in a celebration.

3.

a sharing, as in benefits or profits

“This participation task is designed to get you to start becoming responsible and self-directed as a student in preparation for becoming a media and communication professional.”

In my first post on participation I defined what participation meant to me:

To me, participation means to take an active approach to your own learning, to be constantly self critical and perpetually open to new ideas and concepts.

I feel I have been super proactive in this course, probably more so than in any of my other classes. This is mainly due to the fact that I found it was increasingly impossible to live my life without being literally confronted with the ideas of the course and I was keen to build on them. If you engage in the Network, your engaging in the ideas of the course. I found this to be highly motivating (and convenient) and highly conducive to allowing me to be open to new ideas and concepts, which, much to my surprise, I found to be really quite exciting.

Participation means to fail spectacularly rather than to coast through along the safe path, and requires a degree of honesty and the ability to recognise own mistakes or misguided ideas.

I think it’s fair to say I haven’t experienced that rite of the ‘spectacular fail’ as of yet, sigh, will have to wait till second year. I managed to ‘get off’ the safe path in about week four, about the time I wrote my second participation entry. I changed the theme of my blog without breaking it, I started coding, I downloaded Dropbox and Cyberduck, learnt what a Googledoc was and popped my Tumblr cherry.

The second area of participation I identified was:

In a nut shell – part-icicpation means to take part in your own work, assess it constantly, measure it against other standards, revisit it, don’t be afraid to trial new ideas and be accountable for the result – just go for it.

I really focused on this area of my criteria, I was constantly seeking out work to find inspiration and foundations. I developed an earnest love for blogging and came across so many incredibly written, designed and maintained blogs that I was inspired to nurture mine and make it as pretty as I could and revisited ideas that I felt were constantly evolving. I exercised the art of ‘Just going for it’ especially in HTML where I felt totally confronted, confused and utterly scared. I decided to take quite a defiant, ‘fake it till you make it’ approach and try not to fret about the outcome too much. I looked at other websites for inspiration and sought advice from those around me, and I’m so so so lucky that the people in this course are so forthcoming with their knowledge and generous with their time (Thanks Jono)

So…

a. What do you think you have done better?

I’m really proud of my blog and I think it’s a complete show of my growth as a student this semester. In my initial posts, my trepidation and misunderstanding is so painfully evident, but as I read back through it, I’m surprised and slightly empowered by the voice I find and the texture I establish. In my blog I really tried to include posts with different kinds of voices/modes of writing via personal and course related posts. I was very wary that blogs need to visually interesting and provide a degree of diversity in terms of content and length. I therefore tried to include visual texture by including quotes, pictures, videos, interesting links etc and by writing in different styles on different topics such as critiquing software, news articles, art, ideas, academia, rambles/rants etc. I also learnt the importance of organisation via categorisation and tagging and now understand it makes my writing relevant in the Network and accesible to others.

b. What do you think you have learnt to do better?

I think I have learnt to participate more in the ideas of the course and reflect on my own ideas and my process and acquisition of knowledge. This has been facilitated by the blog. By learning the power blogs have in the online community, I have learnt to use my blog as an accessible record of my own learning process – kind of like the most organised notebook I have ever had. I have also learnt to solve my own problems via the plethora of forums on the internet – I no longer slam the lid of my laptop down or exit my browser when i’m confronted with an issue – I google it…duhhhhhh.

c. What do you think you could have done better?

I think I could have been more productive in learning code, although I’m super proud of my efforts in using it this semester. I have done all the required work, learnt how to use Cyberduck and actually taken the time to understand what it’s doing and constructed my own webpages for the Hypertext Essay. However, due to the abundance of tutorials/codes on the internet, I should have taken the time to invest in learning some more advanced stuff to enhance my work from beyond what it is. This is further explained in my third participation entry.

So, overall I feel I have been an active participant in tutorials and have attended all of them and a very reliable attendee of lectures (the online one’s were a struggle to get out of bed for…nooooooooot). I have been an joyful blogger, a supportive group member who participates in idea generation and problem solving and I feel I have completed both the Blogging and the Annotated Bibliography assessment tasks to a high standard. I have taken an active role in my own learning & feel I am more active in the Network because of that.

So cheers to participation, you served me well!

Wk 12 Lab – Hypertext Essay in Review

Posted on October 10, 2011 by Zoe Annabel

The role of HTML within this course is not to let you become de facto designers but is to introduce Web based writing as an academic literacy. To begin to explore new forms for the expression of knowledge, forms that treat the network as the place of writing, not just publication, and ways that look less to the history of print and more towards the new forms of ‘writing’ that will emerge as a result of these new technologies (the Web, blogs, facebook, twitter, networked and integrated media). Imagine if the Web was the original place for writing what you know, rather than the page. What would your writing become?

What has been the easiest aspects of the hypertext essay task for you, in relation to previous skills and knowledge that you already had?

The easiest aspect of the Hypertext Essay so far has been translating my own ideas from the Annotated Bibliography task into the essay. I focused on the Landow extract, I felt that the knowledge I gained from such a close study of his ideas enabled me not only to translate the actual words into the essay, but the concepts he foregrounds and proposes in terms of Hypertext and it’s affordances and effects on the way we read and write online. Miek’s lecture on web design really helped with the nuts and bolts of website design and the importance of creating an experience for viewers. The lecture was really helpful as it provided me with theoretical knowledge in an ordered way. The Adrian Miles Lecture really complemented Miek’s and helped in providing me with conceptual knowledge of how to apply the theories of Hypertext to the design of Websites, and how we can use design elements to impart new ideas, confront viewers and enrich our own writing.

What has been the most difficult aspects of this hypertext essay task?

The most difficult aspect of the assignment for me has without a doubt been learning the new and confronting language of coding. I had no previous knowledge of HTML and although I do find it rewarding, it’s not a medium I feel compelled to pursue after this course. It was also difficult to come up with an initial layout/pathway that made for compelling/unconventional but logical navigation. Within our group we struggled to find cohesion and as a result I don’t think our assignment has a strong sense of presence, I think it’s quite disjointed and sketchy.

What connections can you make between the hypertext essay task and the broader focus of the course on learning to read and write in the network, in regards to working in media/communication professions?

I think this task is completely an embodiment of industry we all hope to enter, having an online presence is imperative to becoming an artist in the creative landscape of today. The hypertext essay teaches us to go beyond expressing ourselves merely through text but via conventions of web design and pushes us to bring new textures, mediums and voices into our work. Everything is about not what you want to communicate but how you communicate it in a fresh and innovative way, and this task has definitely pushed us to question how we can use the online space as a forum to trial new ideas and concepts. In terms of skills which are marketable in the industry, being able to maintain an online presence in the form of a website/blog makes us increasingly employable both online and offline. Working in groups also reflects industry practice and the idea of collaboration. This can be via the physical group of people who share ideas and formulate one cohesive work, or the collaborative idea of hyperlinking to each others separate work in the online space. Both these forms of collaboration are highly relevant to the Media and Communications industry, as Networking and idea sharing is pretty much what defines it. Also, the task’s focus on incorporating visual material less of an accompaniment to text and more as a focus is in keeping with the movements in the industry.

Homeless_sign_9_large

or maybe I will end up like this guy…being able to code obviously didn’t do much for his employment options…

HTML-ing.

Posted on October 7, 2011 by Zoe Annabel

So, been doing a fair bit of work in HTML, and wanted to show of a few of my not so impressive but still worth celebrating skills. In my Hypertext essay, I have done a lot of linking. I wanted my page to show the links in a different visual style than the default purple underlined text. Instead, I wanted text in a range of colours and sizes which indicated hierarchy in links and was just a bit different visually. Here is an example of what I did, the link should take you to an example of one of the pages I have created.

Hypertext Essay

Posted on October 6, 2011 by Zoe Annabel

In today’s tutorial, Hugh emphasised how important keeping track of our development/processes/collaboration throughout the Hypertext Essay is.

Our group has been logging all our ideas link and development via a GoogleDoc which has been extremely useful as it allows us to collate everything in one place, edit and view each others work and chat online about problems we are having.

Below is an example of the kinds of things you might find in our GoogleDoc:

Scrapbook

HTML font/text generator
http://www.quackit.com/html/html_generators/html_text_generator.cfm

HTML color chart
http://immigration-usa.com/html_colors.html

https://bubbl.us/?h=a594b/13a4f6/67JcMz5UUlxeA
here is a link to the brainstorming exercise!

Today, Jono took us through how to each make our pages absolute links using Cyberduck, this is process I would not have otherwise known how to do, or even wehre to begin, so, here goes:

Connect to the RAWS server on Cyberduck
Create a new folder under public_html called HypertextEssay (NO SPACES!)
Drag your Textwrangler file (eg. textwithoutborders.html) into the HypertextEssay folder – don’t include any spaces or else it won’t work.
Ensure Cyberduck successfully uploads your page onto the server.
Right click on the file which should now be in the HypertextEssay folder and select the ‘Copy URL’ option in the drop down box and then select HTTP URL.
Paste the URL into your browser – it will appear like this - http://raws.adc.rmit.edu.au/Users/s3284718/public_html/HypertextEssay/TESTDEATHOFAUTHOR.html
However, this will not work, you need to delete some of the details in the URL.
Get rid of ‘Users’ and ‘public_html and include a ~ in front of your student number
It should look like this- http://raws.adc.rmit.edu.au/~s3284718//HypertextEssay/TESTDEATHOFAUTHOR.html

The link is now absolute and group members can copy the URL into their HTML to reference your pages!

BUILDING BEGINS!!

Adopt-a-Blog.

Posted on October 5, 2011 by Zoe Annabel

Throughout Networked Media this semester, I have gone from reading perhaps one or two blogs sporadically to consistently reading various blogs each week. I have found the site Bloglovin to be extremely valuable as I can simply log in and view all recent blog posts to every blog i follow.

My favorite and most visited blog would still have to be the Frankie Magazine blog which I think I like due to its texture in terms of both it’s content and voice. Frankie is all about promoting art, culture, photography, quirky collectables, fun recipes, inspiring people, fringe films and just general ‘hidden gems’.

Entries often link you to inspiring material/blogs/websites/artists/groups that you will continue to visit.
Frankie is updated daily, so it’s consistent and you can rely on fresh ideas and links and the content is never contrived or forced.
There are different bloggers, each bringing their own unique style and ideas to the blog which keeps it interesting and provides dynamic.
I especially like their links page which is a simple laundry list of categorised websites which they visit for inspiration
It’s nice to know that when I wake up in the morning and am faced with more doom and gloom headlines in the news that I can flick over to Frankie and find a little bit of cuteness or a little pearl of inspiration…

The other blog that I have been following and I think deserves a special mention is Live and Enliven. I love this blog – the writer describes it as ‘the art of living an inspired life’ so, it’s an assemblage of all things which are aesthetically pleasing and inspiring. It’s written from a single perspective and is a collection of both reflections and material the writer finds inspiring on themes such as fashion, travel, food, music, craft etc.

Also, just before I go, HAVE to make mention of this super cute lil number – eat, sleep, cuddle. I visit it purely for the regular ‘what I’m grateful for post’.

Blogger and out…

World on Wi-Fire

Posted on October 5, 2011 by Zoe Annabel

World on Wi-Fire

Niall Ferguson – 03/10/2011

“So my question for them is a real question, not some kind of Luddite rant: does the incredible network you have created, with its unprecedented scale and speed, not contain a vulnerability? I’m not talking here about the danger of its exploitation by Islamist extremists or its incapacitation by Chinese cyberwarriors, though I worry about those things too. No, I mean the possibility that the global computer network formed by technologically unified human minds is inherently unstable—and that it is ushering in an era of intolerable volatility.”

Ferguson is in no way suggesting that we as humans should take a ‘luddite’approach and smash computers, destroy the internet and go back to the pre industrial ways, but he is emphasising a need to control the beast we have created, or at least to recognise the profound effects it is having on our collective consciousness. Ferguson makes an interesting point by suggesting that these networks are making areas such as politics increasingly volatile.

“Computing power has grown exponentially. So has the human network. But the brain of Homo sapiens remains pretty much the same organ that evolved in the heads of African hunter-gatherers 200,000 years ago. And that brain has a tendency to swing in its mood, from greed to fear and from love to hate.

The reality may be that by joining us all together and deluging us with data, the Netlords have ushered in a new Age of Volatility, in which our primeval emotions are combined and amplified as never before.

We are LinkedIn, but StressedOut. And that “cloud” of downloadable data may yet turn out to be a thundercloud.”

I found this article to be quite different from the others that plague the newspapers complaining about the ubiquitous nature of technology, as if they are somehow above it all – i think it’s pretentious and self indulgent to write about technology in a critical fashion if you yourself are not engaged with it. I like that Ferguson deviates from this mode and more or less reflects on the role of technology as a party to it.

Week #11 Lecture

Posted on October 4, 2011 by Zoe Annabel

This week we will be looking at examples of Hypertext Essays. When viewing these examples it is important to remember that:

a hypertext work that demonstrates the concept of ‘writing in the network’, in most cases will be more random and less defined structurally. This means the work in many cases will not follow the type of narrative structure that you are used to.
the work will need to be experienced more that once with repeat visits. Through this repetition, the user over time will develop their own framework for interpretating the work, which may be about looking for patterns to follow in that work. This is about each user working out a way to interpret what is being presented.

WORK 1#- ‘New Literacy and the Great Age of Code’ - Stuart Moulthrow

I like the way he uses ‘invisible’ links in the form of images but then uses the images to create a linking pattern which makes it easy to navigate through the linear structure. He also uses consistent images which begin to act like a ‘next’ button as they as visually and ‘navigation-ally’ consistent.
The content is very easy to follow as it is broken up into clear ‘chunks’ of information, like a traditional essay with quotes and references from academia.
The pages are very uniformly structured, are not overcrowded and give the reader thinking space and breathing room, each has it’s own heading, signposting the ‘idea’ it will be discussing.
The absence of a menu or home button keeps the work interesting and does create a kind of ‘journey’ which could be never ending.
He has used pretty simple CSS style and utilizes tables/relative links.

WORK 2# Realism and a General Economy of the Link by Adrian Miles.

This is an example of a traditional written essay being translated into a hypertext essay.

By “academic hypertext essay” I mean scholarly work that can only be realised electronically and has been written with particular hypertext practices in mind. This includes, for example, multilinearity, repetition, mixed media, and multivocality. These are qualities that influence not only what I write, but also how I write. Once I begin to write in hypertext, from the page up as it were, a different writing practice appears to emerge.

I like that the heading and the image remain consistent throughout the navigation, I think that architecture gives readers a sense of stability in a work that does link to a lot of different pages – i like how the heading changes as to what page you have linked to as it gives single context to each page but in the same framework – it gives the reader a sense of orientation and location.
I really love the image which shows the entire pathway structure of the information architecture and the way you can click on each section to get there – it kind of reminds me of the map you have on screen when your playing Mario Kart, you can see where your going and things make more sense, you can anticipate what’s coming next and plan for it.
Aesthetically, im not so keen – I’m not a big fan of the yellow background – but hey, who am i to judge, I don’t even have a background on my page yet
Like the bibliography – it’s easy to link to via the direct links from quotes and sources.

WORK 3# hyperweb by Adrian Miles.

This page is a lot more abstract and less structured than the rest – it definatly takes away user control and expectation, throwing unsuspecting viewers into a world of chaos and potential frustration.
The theoretical concepts are contained in the design but are not made clear by the content
I like the way that you have to surrender control and let the essay guide you – but for many this would be a confronting experience and one which begs more questions than it answers – however, this is made clear in the opening statement as the work is defined as being experimental – provides a framework for viewers to engage with.
Site is purely constructed using HTML Code which is bloody impressive I think, and shows us a lot of really cool tricks we could use in our work.

WORK #4 - My Body: A Wunderkammer, Shelley Jackson.

I was instantly drawn to this work, as the homepage was kind of like a book cover and the image intrigued me as a book cover would to ‘open’ it. I love the whole structure of the page, the way that the reader can pave their own path through the story either by returning to the single image of the woman’s body or by the links in each individual page corresponding to each body part.
I like the style it is written in, although this is probably inappropriate for our work which should combine different styles to create texture.
I really admire the way she has used links such as the word ‘Kleenex’ to link to the ‘Nose’ Page – everything is so simple and easy to get to and it adds a kind of ‘guessing game’ – where will it link to next?
the writing on each page is designed to be self-contained, independent in terms of visiting that page in isolation from the others.

What is your favourite hypertext example?

My favourite one of the four examples would have to be My Body; A Wanderkummer but i also really admire the simplicity and structure of Realism and a general Economy of the Link.
Why is it your favourite?

I really love the emphasis placed on the central image almost as a navigational tool yet also as a metaphorical one – the body as a corpus of writing. I really like the way each piece of writing/each linked page is self contained yet also relevant to the piece as a whole. I really like the way you can navigate through the page either via the original image of the body, or by in text links.
What characteristics in this work would you adopt for your own hypertext essay?

I like the idea of having an unconventional ‘menu’ which encourages readers to navigate through the work in different ways each time they visit the page – which is why I made mention of Adrian Mile’s example as he embedded a wireframe structure of the website to give the readers a sense of orientation. This is something I would like to apply to my own essay as I feel giving readers some clarity in chaos is an important element of design as you don’t ever want to alienate audiences or turn readers off.

Mad Media Musings

Monthly Archives: October 2011