Below is a random, hodge-podge collection of links to a variety of web-based projects.
There is no categorical logic here. Some are organized under genre, some by medium.
Most are of the creative media type, but some toward the end are more informational. So,
just click around and see if you find anything interesting.
Hypertext:
1. Hypertext fiction
Hypertext fiction was big in the early to mid nineties but has fallen away a bit
because finding a readable hyper-style proved difficult (and consequently hypertext
poetry has become predominant). I think experimentation in this genre can still be fruitful
though. Here are some classic examples:
2. Hypertext poetry
George Landow argued that poetry was the most natural genre for the web because of
its short lines/stanzas and associative thought. There are tons of examples out there. Here
are two. Also see Born Magazine,
Drunken Boat, or
Bee Hive for other examples.
3. Photo essays
Nonfiction hypertexts aren't limited to the kinds of informational genres that
predominate in this class. Creative nonfiction can be enhanced through digital writing and
photo essays are a particularly wide spread genre. They aren't hard to do but you'll want to
spend a lot of time really nailing down the quality of the site.
4. Academic essays
Even academic essays work their way into the mix. Annotating a text (fiction, poetry, and nonfiction) was one of the early uses of
hypertext for academic work. Online academic journals are using hypertext and there are even some Flash-based academic essays out there,
as well as academic work that mixes genre.
Multimedia:
1. Media cut-up/criticism
Take corporate or media images and crop, cut, and paste to create a montage. This
can follow a Warholesque approach that sees corporate culture as content for art or can
find a way to do collage/montage as a form of criticism. This can be done with images or
sound (think sampling and mixing).
2. Textual Remix
Take clips of text out of prose, ads, or wherever and create a hypertext poem. Take a
traditional print based text and turn it into a PowerPoint presentation. There are lots of
possibilities here. The video below is essentailly a remix.
3. Photo collage
As the essay we'll read indicates, Dadaist collage/montage is an important rhetorical/aestehtic precursor to
the types of things we see on the web and in multimedia today. Consequently, it would be a good thing to
get in there and experiment with. You should find some examples here.
4. Videos
Videos are pretty easy to create, especially if you have iMovie on a Mac. Windows MovieMaker isn't
bad but I've heard it is a little quirky when it comes to getting it to do what you want. Though they aren't
hard, you will need to spend some time thinking through a good idea and making sure it is executed well.
Here's one I did rather quickly, but it will at least give you an idea of the possibilities.
5. Flash
We won't talk much about Flash in this course, but if you are already familiar with
or interested in learning Flash, this would be a great option. Flash is more difficult to learn than
a movie program, but the results are generally worth it.
Here are some pretty high-end examples, but I won't necessarily hold you to this level of work.
Blog:
1. Photo blog
Blogs can be pretty easy to create if you use server-side software. The key once you set it up
is to fill it with content. Can be a lto fo work. A photo blog is basically just a variation of the photo essay,
but the blog makes it easy to update and organize the photos. Usually they center on a certain topic, theme, or place.
2. Fiction blog
There aren't too many of these out there but this is a really interesting use of blogs. Blog can be written
by fictional characters. Flight Risk is an early one that kind of mixes fiction and nonfiction (from what I can tell)
and Schrute's blog is a major network attempt at marketing (but this one in particular seems to be attracting a lot of attention).
3. Issue blog
There are a number of academic blogs linked from the course resource page if you are interested in that approach, which focuses on
using blogs and a way to support research interests, creating a community of researchers, linking to what is out there on the web in
your field, or tracking an issue.