[net]textualities
 works by Yvonne

In 1999, William H. Gass wrote in his “In Defense of the Book” that readers of books will become increasingly better readers as the net would be the end to ‘good’ reading. He also regretted the loss of browsing in the sense that you can browse the book shelves in a library and, by serendipity, find what you never would have looked for in the first place.

At the time I disagreed with him, I found browsing the net a series of serendipitous events - I discovered many texts I never would have come across otherwise - and I still basically do disagree. Yet today, I can see his point as the web interfaces increasingly are made for targeted clicking at the pace of the development of corporate industrial standard. The user is only made to focus / focused on finding a piece of information. What once promised to be the evolvement of some kind of hypertextual consciousness has today regressed into targeted infomania. This is also the point when reading stops.

response (0) | filed under: the new screen :: net architecture :: information or knowledge? :: net.textuality

Today’s newspaper (in Swedish) tells about the hard times net art faces at the present. The problem is that none of the sites/organizations mentioned work with net art - digital or electronic art, yes, but netbased art, no. Mez and a few others have exhibited at Electrohype but in physical space. The collective Splintermind use the net for webcasting and streaming in real time. It’s still physical space that counts and the net is nothing but a distribution channel of in-forma data.

response (0) | filed under: the new screen :: net architecture :: information or knowledge?