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Navigation, Algorithms
This project seems to follow a standard/typical new media navigational format--break up the material into lexia (choose unit name of your choice), then offer the lexia in the traditional linear sequence as well as some sort of associative means. So then, does this format enhance the eight essays included? Following the linear path was difficult and rapidly undercut by the presence of topic lexia appearing in the associative clusters not included in the linear delivery. A question: what is the algorithm generating the "horizontal" pathways? Keyword associations? Random?- clown boy, Irvine, 08.16.2006
Why do we have this drive to discover the algorithm creating the horizontal associations? This makes a statement about our own mechanism of learning, that we may need connections that aren't immediately evident to us spelled out. Part of the goal of this piece may be that the connections are random, but learning occurs by trying to map some sort of sense onto it. Of course where does authorial intent enter in here? If it is different every time is the purpose for a succession of user-based interpretations which lacks, by definition, authorial intention?- Kylie Prymus, Duke University, 08.16.2006
OMS is not a body of 'lexia' linked via simple string matching. The horizontal sequence is the product of careful reading, editing, and interconnecting of eight individually authored essays over the course of months by the project's curator, Amelie Hastie. In my humble opinion, a shortcoming of this project is that it demands thoughtful and patient readership. It's pretty to look at yet textually dense, and any cursory attempt to de-code the structure without allowing oneself to read and absorb each essay, hopefully allowing the editor's sequencing to yield associative fruit, will inspire little beyond speculation. It may be that the form (or, the screen?) necessitates content delivery in bite size morsels. This project in particular sets the reader up for a cinematic experience then requires him or her to hunker down and read, and perhaps the abruption is just too great. These are criticisms I'm willing to internalize, but know that the essays themselves and their sequencing are the result of much work, intellectual forethought and human intention. -- raegan- Raegan Kelly, Philadelphia, 10.14.2006
