WRT: Writer Response Theory

Much has been made of the viral outbreak of Michael Wesch’s “Web 2.0…The Machine is Us/ing Us” (first noticed on Frank Gruber’s Somewhat Frank) Some of the reactions, including my initial one, have suggested that the piece is overly optimistic. However, we should not let the pulsing soundtrack, speed, and magically moving text and images distract us to miss his playfulness with these ideas, a montage of reactions to the notion of Web 2.0 more than a manifesto for it. Matt Kirschenbaum has commented on one of these moments, the use of the WayBack Machine. Below is a further analysis (or annotation) of the first 26 seconds or so of the film:

On the Polyphonic Method
A couple of months ago Micheal Benton approached us at Writer Response Theory to participate in the Reconstructions issue on blogging. We’re Really Thrilled about the idea — who wouldn’t want to blog about blogging?! But when the time came to write, we three researchers kept weaving in and out of approaches. Should we have a single voice? That is always a good approach, but a collaborative document isn’t written with a single voice in the first draft. It begins as a mixture of voices that synergise and become one (either with poetic ease or a crow-bar). We haven’t reached that chorus point yet. Don’t know if we ever will. And, to be frank, we like the idea of pulling back the curtain and revealing what a collaborative-text-in-formation looks like. Indeed, it is emblematic of our collaborative blogging at WRT.

So, why do we blog…together?

Hypertext literature?is ready for a new?tool and it’s name is Literatronica.

Pan Am Stewardess, uploaded by splorp
Begin with an old distinction: on the one hand, photographic images, which reflect the existence of real things in the real world. On the other hand, drawings, paintings, renderings, and other representations which may signify things, but do not testify to their reality. Digital camera files belong to the first […]

In 1980 (c1979), MAD Magazine featured a form of what Christy has been calling Quantum Writing. Amidst the pages of the magazine was a free record. Upon placing the needle on the record, you hear a song begin with a pre-Prozac, bright sunny intro about what a wonderful day it is going to be….