Reading Hypertext: Bill Kluba on Two Tables and Hypertext

At Tunxis we typically fall into interesting conversations in the halls. We often regret not having the recorder ready. And so we’ve begun to walk around with devices. We have an idea for a series called Gallery Talks.

The first talk is a fairly elaborate video/podcast of a conversation I had with William Kluba, Professor of Art at Tunxis Community College, where we pick up on the Confluence thesis, concentrating on his painting Two Tables and Mary-Kim Arnold’s hypertext, Lust. The movie is quite large so there may be some lag before it starts.

The second and third entries record a short snippet with Bill and then one of those office convos with John Timmons, called John on Blood and Motif.

Reading Hypertext: Hands

I laughed when the waitress tells Harley she needs her hand.

“God how I adore you,” Harley declared.

The waitress flushed and parked the pitcher with a deliberate slosh into Harley’s lap. “I need this,” she protested, extracting her hand.

See Victory Garden “Adoration.”

It is significant that we learn that the waitress is Veronica Runbird. She is a waitress. Then she becomes Veronica Runbird. She becomes what Harley “is not.”

Veronica Runbird appears elsewhere with Harley (at a different time and space in my reading). One reader might claim that “this is how Harley and Veronica meet.” Another reader will claim, “No, this is another time in the novel. Another present moment.”

Another angle on the human surface of hands and eroticism.

Veronica, Harley, Urquhart. Human surfaces.

Reading Hypertext: Method

This is a short clarifying post that extends my last essay Reading Hypertext: Developing Imperceptibility. In that essay I wrote:

In the modern world, science trumps theology because the scope of science is more massive and more tangible. Hubble’s deep field photographs inspire the sublime just as Bub feels what a Cathredral means not with his eyes but through more complex sensation. This is why science can be confused for theology. Science has tools for grasping the universe of the physical nature of the pot and a large part this universe is simply ungraspable. In my view, the methods of science and the methods of fiction (cannot painting be described as visual fiction?) are similar, but neither alone can build a complete and concrete pot.

The use of the term “trump” in its competitive sense is not a good use of the word in this context (revisions in the future will see some changes). The better approach is to leave religion out altogether and simply offer an observation about how fiction and science relate in terms of their methods: the method does not go to hypothesis/test, but to the scope of inquiry. The scope of fiction focuses on its development and illumination of character and point of view (See Fuentes, A Change of Skin, Moulthrop, Reagan Library, Iñárritu, Babel, and Deemer, Changing Key). In literary hypertext and variants of hypermedia, which can contain all known literary and visual genre–poetry, essay, drama, narrative, photography–the way we see, the way we observe, and the way we manipulate are extended via the link (but not only the link).

What will we learn from this extension? I don’t know where the confluence thesis (the multi-dimentionality of the human lifeworld) will lead (see links above). That’s the fun part.

Cliches

It’s now a cliche to write about the hypocrisy and irony of press coverage. It’s an issue now as dense as vapor in a glass jar.

Emptiness and irrelevance.

Link to what?

I’ve learned more from the novel (hypertext and traditional) than I have from reports. See Suttree.

I’m listening to some guy say that there’s much tension between Wright and Obama. Right. Back to Victory Garden, The Reprover, Extreme Conditions, and The Kite Runner.

Love Is . . .

Alan Bigelow’s new yarn is up at webyarns

“Love Is…” is an attempt at a definition, and as with all definitions that try to explain what love is, precision is not possible, and perhaps not even desirable. This piece moves toward a definition of love in three stages: first through a standard, accepted lexicon; then via a series of individual expressions of love; and finally, at the end of the piece, viewers can write their own definitions of love into the site. These definitions are saved in a database so the next visitor can view them as they are randomly displayed. “Love Is…” takes approximately five minutes to view.

Picture 1.jpg

Alan will be speaking at my workshop, Creating out of the Machine, at Hypertext 08.

Brimmer and Links

I have so many small projects going, it’s hard to know where to concentrate effort. One item to complete is Brimmer and Death, a story based on a world created by Neil Gaiman.

Two things to do: freshen up the dramatic pull of the story. It’s still a little dull.

The last is to work on the link structure. The link structure will help with the dramatic pull. The two are intertwined.

Lots of little editing issues too.

Game Building

An interesting night in new media. It was all about games. We reviewed a few interactive fictions considering ideas such as puzzle clues, description as a means of orienting the reader, and details as a means generating interest in world exploration. These require the art of poetry.

Then we built board games. The students split into groups and put together some interesting variations of chess. We’ll have those who weren’t in class do a little play next week before we hit Pong.

Silent Comedy

I’d love to see what this silent comedy is all about. From Deemer:

Actors are sitting on ready for the summer silent comedy. What a great
group. We’ll be doing this one a little differently, far more rehearsal
and concern for style and look.