Every project has a conception phase. The pre-planning and proposal phase that often stays hidden because subsequent events make it look ill-conceived, ill-informed or just plain silly. However, when recording process it is often quite important to know where one has come from ( if for no other reason than knowing that you have gone somewhere...even if that is just round in circles). The first post of this blog is, therefore, my research proposal which I drafted first in late August-September 2006. It has been modified more recently and I believe that it sets out what it is that I am trying to achieve with this project.

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Writing(s): Not for WIMPs? - Proposed Research Scheme
Gavin Stewart - Researcher in New Media Writing - RIMAD September 2006

Context of Research and Practice

The research programme described in this proposal builds directly on my PhD studies at the University of Bedfordshire 2001-2006.

My doctoral thesis described contemporary practice in the area of computer-mediated textual art; an emergent art practice that encompasses elements of programming, writing, visual art, sound art and animation. It argued that the unusual addressivity of some examples of computer-mediated textual art are valuable because they facilitate an awareness of participation in the act of meaning-making. The practice element of my PhD illustrated the value of this unusual mode of address by developing ‘Homecoming’, an Internet-based work that investigated my understanding of the aesthetics of these texts.

‘Homecoming’ and other examples of my practice , such as ‘choice/cuts’, from this period were developed in Macromedia Flash and used standard control elements known as WIMPs (windows, icons, mouse and pointers) to interact with the reader-participant. This technology was deployed because it facilitated the distribution of the work to a widely-dispersed audience via the World Wide Web. However, the theoretical element of my research also identified a much wider range of modes of address. This research programme aims, therefore, to investigate the aspects of the addressivity of computer-mediated textual art by focussing on the role played by technical mechanisms other than the WIMPs controls.


Elements of the Research

The research programme described by this proposal has two complementary elements:

The first element involves researching examples of ‘computer-mediated textual art’ created for demonstration and exhibition spaces (an environment that generally requires modifications to assumptions underpinning the standard WIMPs systems); and

The second element involves developing a new work that will deploy a non-WIMPs-based technology (for example RFID tag detection, motion detection with video cameras or some combination of these technologies) in a reflexive manner.



Research Activities

The research programme described by this proposal will involve the following research activity:-

The creation of a research blog dedicated to recording the process and to exploring some of the issues that arise out of this research opportunity;

The development of a strand within the research blog dedicated to exploring the issues facing a writer developing a non-WIMPs based artwork within a gallery/public space;

The selection of an appropriate technology for my own work; and

The development of a new work of computer-mediated textual art.



Research Outcomes

The research programme will aim to deliver:-

1. A new work of computer-mediated textual art; and
2. A research resource that critiques and contexts 1 above.