[ISEA97] Panel: Mark Amerika – Panel Statement

Panel Statement

Panel: Literature, Journalism, and the Telematic Society 2: Fact, Fiction, Faction; Converging Styles in Literature and Journalism in On-line Publications

GRAMMATRON is an elaborate, multi-media hypertext created for the World Wide Web. The project presently consists of over 1000 text spaces, 1700 links, 40+ minutes of original soundtrack delivered via Real Audio 3.0, unique hyper-link structures by way of specially-coded Javascripts, a virtual gallery featuring scores of animated and still life images, and more storyworld development than any other narrative created exclusively for the Web. A story about cyberspace, Jewish mysticism, digicash paracurrencies and the evolution of virtual sex in a society afraid to go outside and get in touch with its own nature, GRAMMATRON depicts a near-future world where stories are no longer conceived for book production but are instead created for a more immersive networked-narrative environment that, taking place on the Net, calls into question how a narrative is composed, published and distributed in the age of digital dissemination.   grammatron.com

  • Mark Amerika (U.S.A.) is the author of many books including the novels Sexual Blood (1995) and The Kafka Chronicles (1993). In 1993, he started The Alt-X Online Publishing Network. In June of 1997 he launched the GRAMMATRON hypermedia narrative project . Exhibitions of his work have appeared or are forthcoming at the Ars Electronica Center,The Museum of Contemporary Art in Skopje, Macedonia and the Portraits In Cyberspace on-line exhibi­tion, celebrating the 10-year anniversary of the M.I.T. Media Lab. Recent festivals/ conferences he’s participated in include the Duke University Assault: Radicalism In Aesthetics and Politics conference, the Brown University Unspeakable Practices Vanguard Narrative Festival, the Crossings: American Authors Festival in Cologne, and the German Association of American Studies conference on Technology and American Culture in Freiburg. He has an MFA from Brown University where he recently helped design a course called Cyberspace, Virtual Reality and Critical Theory.          altx.com