100 Days: Checking In

Carianne Mack Garside, Day 55: presence

With the 100 days project just over halfway done, the participants are still going strong, and so far we’ve seen some really exciting work.

John Timmons is leading the project this year with a daily film clip. The production on these clips has been astonishingly good; many offer intriguing visual effects coupled with great sound overlays. The pieces tend to evoke a vague, indistinct but real emotion—the perfect starting point from which the other works can draw inspiration.

Steve Ersinghaus is writing short stories, and I find that his work most directly correlates to Timmons’ clips (of course, the links help too). Since he is not leading each day this year, I’ve found it fascinating to read his work after watching Timmons’ clips to examine how the piece was influenced. I picture the creative process that went into translating the clip to a story, fully aware that my version might be somewhat romanticized.

Many of our favorites from last year are back. Susan Gibb, who did hypertext fiction pieces last year, is doing flash fictions, and some of them are very good. Carianne Mack Garside returns with her excellent watercolors.

J. Nathan Matias, Day 23: Nick Lowe’s summary of Aristotle’s Poetics

There are some interesting new projects this year as well. Nathan Matias is posting 100 summaries, most of which are expressed through Tinderbox and then shared online through Emberlight . Nathan writes, “Summary is the cornerstone of intellectual life […] Some day, I plan to teach students how to think and write. Their future will depend on my explanations of summary, and my ability to assign grades to their work. Their education and life prospects may well depend on my understanding of the simple summary.” His approach to demonstrate these arguments through spatial hypertext showcases the form’s ability to draw connections and correlations, and some of the ways spatial metaphors have organized themselves into a kind of grammar.

The most recents entries have been many artists’ best work. If this trend continues, I can’t wait to see what the rest of the summer brings.

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