2. Brief Information about the Poet/Artist
American Poet who has worked in several pieces of literature who fit in the category of hypertext fiction, magic realism,
informational art and new media literature.
She was one of the first creators of online interactive back in the 1980’s.
Has been the editor and leader for books and web projects.
Her literary works have been exhibited worldwide and read to this day. (Uncle Roger is 26 years old!)
Real name is Judith Ann Powers
Born & raised in Boston, Massachusetts.
She Inherited her skills from her mother, who was also a writer and editor.
As a child she seemed interested in the visual arts and therefore began painting and sketching.
Graduated from MIddlebury College with two degrees: Literature and Work in Studio & Art History.
Worked at the Library of Congress and as a technical information specialist at NASA
In the early 1970’s she started developing a series of narratives driven by words and images.
Her first online hyperfiction, considered the pioneer of hypertext literature, was called “Uncle Roger” where there were several
storylines depending on the readers choice.
During her transcending years she worked with narratives such as “Its Name Was Penelope”, “Brown House Kitchen”,
“l0ve0ne” and “Notes on an Exchange between Intersecting Lives”.
3. Uncle Roger
The three files of the pioneering electronic hyperfiction, Uncle Roger, originally appeared from 1986-1987 on the Art Com
Electronic Network. The publication of File II: The Blue Notebook was funded by the California Arts Council and Art
Matters.
Uncle Roger is a work of comedic narrative poetry. In the years that this story was created, the writer – who had also lived in
the locale of the Silicon Valley semiconductor industry -- was immersed in an early online environment which included
many people from Silicon Valley and the computer culture. The work is mainly set at a series of parties that are observed
by a narrator, who in telling the story intertwines elements of magic realism with Silicon Valley culture and semiconductor
industry lore.
Uncle Roger was first told online in serial form (in the order in which it was written) on Art Com Electronic Network, beginning in
1986. Beginning in 1987, it was published online as a working hypernarrative on the seminal ACEN Datanet, that also
included the work of John Cage, Jim Rosenberg, and Sonya Rapoport. It was also self-published as computer software for
both Apple and IBM-compatible computers.
The web version, first implemented in 1995 and thus redolent of the early web, is somewhat different than the original Uncle
Roger, Malloy programmed using UNIX shell scripts and for the floppy disk version and was also programmed in BASIC.
These original Uncle Rogers offered the reader a collection of programmed keyword links that produced chains of linked
lexias, often displayed on the black and green or black and yellow text-based monitors of the era.
In 2011, the 25th anniversary year of Uncle Roger, new material was added, including more of the original lexias in Terminals,
(originally there were 100) and an opening menu for A Party in Woodside that approximates the original menu. In addition,
the linking scheme of A Party in Woodside is being augemented so that it more closely approximates the original version,
where it was possible to follow one chain of links through the entire work, while at the same time it also retains some of the
more diffuse linking strategies expected on the Web.
4. Uncle Roger: Analysis
While reading one the worlds first ever hypertext narratives, we notice some elements Judy Malloy uses to write her story. First
of all we can see how descriptive she gets when it comes to describing the people and environment she mentions within
her story.
Malloy focuses a lot on what color and type of clothes the characters are wearing, where exactly they are sitting or walking and
even who is next to who. She also likes to mention where they live and what occupation they have. Another thing is that
she tells this story in a narrative point-of-view and not 1st person as one would probably imagine while reading the story for
the first time.
Thirdly, even though it’s a hypertext narrative, the sequences in the first file are never in order and the reader has to make a
mental map of each hypertext in order to make sense of the story.
Some things we notice while reading file one and file two is the repetition of the phrase ‘men in tan suits’.
The three files in Uncle Rogers reading were published between the years of 1986-1987.
Uncle Roger is classified as a comedic narrative poetry.
Originally, Uncle Roger was told online in the same order it was written (wouln’t be really fit in the category of hypertext on the
count that it seemed more as a concrete story & we don’t get to chose the order).
When published, it was compatible for Windows and Mac computers.
Critics mention how the web version (1995) is slightly different from te original version.
In 2011, Uncle Roger celebrated it’s 25th year since being published and people today still read it. Since then more material
have been added on File 3: Terminals.
Uncle Roger was built was built on ideas developed in her early works in experimental narrative structures.
5. You!
YOU! is an interactively created, computer program with generated data structure that simulates an intimate relationship
between two people.
Participants were asked to "think about someone you might be in love with, are in love with or are no longer in love with and
write a *short* sentence addressed to that person."
Contributions were immediately sorted out by a computer program in no particular order, written in BASIC for IBM compatible
computers -- which made judgments about the length and the content of the sentences and inserted them into an array.
The program placed short sentences that it "thought" were indicative of the first flowering of a relationship at the beginning.
It considered all long sentences to be indicative of the full communication that takes place in an established relationship
and placed them in the middle. Short sentences that it thought indicated disintegration of the relationship were placed at
the bottom of the structure. The program also contained a Jesse Helms filter which generated word substitutions.
After each new entry, the program printed the array on the computer screen with the new sentence included. If the author of the
new sentence chose to be credited, the computer also added his or her name to the array.
YOU! was created in 1991 on usenet; at T.A.P.E. at Dominican College; at the Sao Paulo Biennial; and at the New York
University Interactive Telecommunications Program. A printout of YOU! was exhibited at the exhibition Internet at A's in
New York City in 1995. And You! is included on the CD accompanying The New Media Reader.