This video montage brings a single tear to my eye

This youtube video is the moving-image equivalent to the book History of the Internet: A Chronology, 1843-present I just read. The present, in this book, was 1999. So full of hope.

I always recently finished Internet Art by Rachel Greene, from the World of Art series. Having never read much about the history of net.art (and its subsequent name iterations), it provided a good basis and some context to my interests in work that currently resides on (and around) line. The book came out in 2006...right around the introduction (and the proliferation) of Youtube. It's unbelievable how much has changed in Internet art in this short amount of time. Youtube (with all its confessional videos, mash-ups, remixes, screenings, etc), Street View of google maps, Skype with video...all these things have made a huge impact on net-based art. Much of the work that interests me uses Youtube and other user-generated content that is easily available and simple to use. I can only imagine that at one point, Rachel Greene had to just give up, and put a close to the book, knowing that the next day, something new would be popping up on our computers.

1984

New York City, New York State

I'm currently in Syracuse, NY taking advantage of this sleepy, snowy city by reading, reading, reading.

Prior to Syracuse, we were in NYC where I picked up a new book at the New Museum entitled Web Aesthetics: How Digital Media Affect Culture and Society by Vito Campanelli. After hours and hours of reading History of the Internet and Typography on the Web (which were both written in the late 90s), I think this hot-off-the-press book could be of great value. It's been really interesting reading outdated information, especially when the authors predict the future of the internet, and its capabilities. There is something really endearing about it.

I find that I'm getting caught in an information overload and can't get out of it. I can't put History of the Internet down, and I'm reading about things that, although somewhat related to my research, isn't taking my into the milieu that I should be in. That being said, I am getting a clearer sense of the history, language and origins of the internet and web design. Two little tidbits:


1- Talking about computers in biological terms (like when we talk about our computer's memory) stems from a 1945 report on the design for the EDVAC (Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer). The EDVAC was finally built in 1952 and became the model for modern computer technology.

2- The term computer 'bug' is popularized in 1947 when mathematician Grace Murray Hopper (yes, a woman...and yes, one of the few female names I have come across so far in my research) finds that a moth got caught in MARK II (another early computing system) causes a malfunction.


More soon...about how Sputnik (poor, poor dog), Grad students gone wild and Hippies helped start the internet.

Amiga

In researching early computing, I haven't gotten to the Amiga yet (I'm still at the ENIAC...) but this will definitely be on my list of things to research.

One Terabyte of Kilobyte Age

The past few weeks have been very productive in my research, and oddly enough, much of it was done reading from paper and then transcribing it onto other pieces of paper. I'm a bit more comfortable making my first drafts, notes, thoughts, and comments with a pen, and then consolidating them through type.

I'm currently organizing and compiling my reading list for the term. I'm breaking it down into topics that all come together in the end to paint a larger picture of my research.

I'm starting at the beginning with readings on the history of the Internet. Just finished a reading in 'Electronic Media: Then, Now and Later which I will write more about after I look over my notes.

My partner sent me a link today that I consider to be one of the missing links into the research of Internet aesthetics. Not Internet Art aesthetics, but more the aesthetics adopted and perpetuated by the common 2.0 user.

Funnily enough, this gem of a website I found is created by Net artists and theorists Olia Lialina & Dragan Espenschied who edited DIGITAL FOLKLORE, a book I'm trying to get my hands on (and will have access to in a few weeks).

On Nov 1, 2010, Olia and Dragan bought a 2 TB disk of Geocities pages from a group that archived Geocities sites when, in fall 2009, Yahoo shut it down.

The website/blog: http://contemporary-home-computing.org/1tb/ is an inventory of the duo's findings. It's a sort of archeological dig of a time before (and a little bit during) "Having a page on there became a synonym for dilettantism and bad taste. Furthermore, the time of personal home pages was counted, being replaced with profiles on social networks." (website).

Google Doodles

A Google screen capture circa 1999:




The first Google Doodle (ie a 'zany' or holiday-themed design) circa 1998:





Yep, it's a Burning Man Doodle. So 1998.

Web Design Overview, 2010

I spotted this link of someone's facebook page the other week, and thought it was pretty clever. The headline on their facebook post had something to do with this site representing web design for the year 2010. Sadly, the site has changed slightly, and now there is an ugly audio box on the top left-hand-side. I love the simplicity of this format, even though my work tends to swing the other way.

http://brianlovesthings.com/

Some insight into a font I don't like

I really don't care for Verdana. When called to defend my stance by my partner, I didn't have the words to describe my distaste. My partner uses Verdana for everything (printed and online), and as we are currently applying for residencies as a collaborative team, we have (much to my chagrin and horror) submitted our proposals ala Verdana.

Thought I'd do a quick search on the WWW to give Verdana the attention it deserves.

I came across this: http://johndberry.com/blog/2009/09/08/ikea-verdanarama/.

Good points, all in all. Still not convinced, but we'll get to that later.

How Friend(group)s has changed technology, or How Technology has changed Friend(group)s

This is a VHS tape that was given to me by a friend after I told her about a project I'm working on about how technology has changed friend groups as evidenced in the television show Friends. I will be doing an educational lecture on said topic, using examples from the hit 90s show to further prove my theories. When my friend heard about this, she couldn't believe how specific my topic was, because she in fact, had just the thing. The thing is this educational video guide to Windows 95 hosted by none other than Jennifer Aniston and Matthew Perry.

I can't wait to watch this video (I just got it today). Not only will thie video benefit my research for the Friends, it will also no doubt come in handy here.

One-Liners and Blog Names

I've fretted for the last hour on what to call this blog. Because my artistic practice often takes interest in the format of the 'one-liner', I approach the naming of this blog with a self-imposed pressure that has only been lifted due to time constraints.

I could very well focus my research on what to call a blog about fonts, the internet, and my interest in them.

Why do I like one-liners so much? One-liners get to the point. One-liners can sum up an entire story, feeling and movement in an instance, and catch the essence of something with an immediacy and 'spot on-ness' that I admire and aspire for in my daily life.

In looking at my work, my fondness for the one-liner format is no secret. One-liner, two-liners, short blurbs, lists, etc, is how much of my work comes to being.

My interest in typography, specifically the typography used in desktop computing and the Internet comes from both curiosity, and guilt. Over the past few years, my work has shifted from video and animation to well, words, sentences, paragraphs, and more words. As the written/typed word has taken a front seat, I have begun to realize how little I know about the choices I make surrounding the aesthetics of these words. While I tend to rely on default settings (such as this blog here) that are chosen for me, I want to know more about the tools I use. To me, (and probably to thesis juries, advisors, and critics), this is not enough. If I'm going to use typography (default fonts or otherwise), I'd better not only know why I use them, but also how I can use them to my advantage, and go beyond the surface.

Also...If I'm going to use one-liners, they better look pretty damned good.

In the end, I decided to go for the blog title 'Fonts and Folkore' because when I really think about what I want out of this blog, research, etc, is to gain a better understanding of how communities exist and work with language, interface, structures and everything else that allows for communication on the WWW. (Well, okay, that might not be as articulate as I'd like it to be, but again, I'd prefer to work with one-liners, and let the world assume what I mean).

The following is a list of blog titles that didn't make it (and thank God, they are awful, except for the Omar Serif one....)

http://comicicecreamsanswich.blogspot.com
http://courieranewhope.blogspot.com
http://omarserif.blogspot.com
http://verdanarama.blogspot.com
http://verdanaletsmebreathe.blogspot.com
http://doesmyfontlookfatinthis.blogspot.com
http://enfontterrible.blogspot.com
http://theserifsheriff.blogspot.com