Okay, Mateas, Walker
I’m running a piece of software by Rebecca Ross called OkayNews. On a MacOS X machine, it brings up a Finder alert with a NYTimes headline every 20 minutes. You have to click “okay” to keep working with your computer. In a sense you have to approve the news — or at least acknowledge the official version of events — in order to go forward with whatever you’re doing. I like it conceptually, and in addition the currently news-obsessed part of me likes the mid-90s-retro “push media” aspect of the project.
Meanwhile, my electronic writing reading list has been expanding rapidly. Here are a couple things I’ve been meaning to blog for a month:
Michael Mateas’s thesis can now be found on his publications page. Michael’s doing some of the most important work happening in electronic writing (including the Facade collaboration with Andrew Stern that I’ve written about before). I’m looking forward to visiting Michael at Georgia Tech in the Fall and learning more about what he’s up to — and, of course, I’m looking forward to reading his dissertation before then.
How Latitudes Became Forms is a project from the Walker Art Center that includes several things I want to check out. For example, Translation Map by Warren Sack and Sawad Brooks is interesting in itself, and may also call out to be used as the platform for an ewriting project. Big [B]Other, on the other hand, is an ewriting project itself — rather than a potential platform for one.