wheelhouse: (R)Evolution

the new issue of wheelhouse is online.
it inlcudes a virtual revolution... here:

(R)Evolution
a hypercosmos by D. Lang + K. Eisler + L. Eisler

this piece started as a visual poem, and then morphed into a poetic hypertext. one impulse for the step into hypertext came through Susan Gibb, who wrote about the fascination and the difficulties of hypertext in her blog. around that time, the blueprintreview (dis)comfort launched, which then lead to a blog entry about hypertext, here some quotes that also relate to (R)Evolution:

"..hypertext entertains the question of new media being metafictional by nature. We’ve gotten used to seeing text as thoughts and read them not as signs and sybolic marks upon a background (think of looking at a page of Chinese writing when you can’t read the language).. Even as I encourage others to try the hypertext form, I realize it’s out of comfort zone for many writers as well as readers." - link: elation + (dis)comfort: hypertext

needless to say, we were tempted to take the visual poetry pages we had, and see how this might evolve as hypertext.

hypertext structures + visual side-effects
also, we were curious about hypertext structures. and so mailed with Susan Gibb, and sent a hand-drawn sketch of what we had so far. she mailed back a structure suggestion - in one amazing image, done in Tinderbox. which then inspired some creative work with those hyper-notes on the process -- which lead to 2 visuals, published in Otoliths in May as collaborate work of the 3 of us: induction/deduction.

i think this is the first project with notes turning into an own collaboration. working on this was interesting on so many levels - (R)Evolution also connects to the multi-media piece Karyn and i created last year, "Pop Up Poptagon", published in Locus Novus.

Poptagon had a linear structure: every page leads to a defined next page.
(R)Evolution, in contrast, has "crossing"-pages that come with a choice, with options for the way to take. the curious thing is that there in fact is only 1 main "crossing", and 2 sub-"crossings" - it's really a simple hypertext form. yet when working on it, it took a sketch to be able to keep track of the structure, even though the whole thing consists of "only" 7 pages, plus title and ending pages.

a hyper-thanks to Susan for her input and help, and for keeping a hypertext blog with notes and diagrams - check it out here: hypercompendia.

more (R)Evolution:
Karyn's blog post: (R)evolution: Wheelhouse
Susan's blog post: Literature (&Hypertext): (R)Evolution