Assignment: Hypermediated Construction

Using only techniques as introduced in the first lab session, create a one page web document that consists of appropriated material downloaded from the web.

Post-modernist aesthetics are defined, in a simplified way, by the notion that there is no one "true" or "definitive" answer or resolution to a problem, artwork, concept. Unlike modernist aesthetics, when artists attempted to construct idealized creations that reached the essence of "meaning" and "truth," the contemporary world is often defined by its ambiguity and multiplicity of meanings.

It has been said that the personal computer, and even more so, the network and its hypermedia capabilities, is a direct outgrowth or embodiment of the post-modernist aesthetic. The Web's ability to demonstrate that multiplicity through hyperlinks that allow alternate routes through ideas and concepts makes it an ideal vehicle to explore contemporary approaches.

This project is an entrée to these ideas. Through this assignment, choose a topic you want to describe, perhaps taken from the David Ross article, go out onto the web and download any number of images and textual statements that shed light on your topic. Topics might be certain keywords drawn from the article (or of your own choosing) such as hierarchy, transformation, network, social structures, aesthetic practice, design, art world, politics, etc.

You will be surprised at how many diverse results you obtain when you use a search engine such as Yahoo or Altavista to search your topic. Download material from pages that result from your searches, and then reconstruct them, both literally and in terms of meaning, on your own page.

Keep it very simple: the assignment is due in two weeks, 2/7/01.