Message-Id: <v03007802b0832a9d69d2@[208.155.1.118]>
Date: Mon, 3 Nov 1997 01:36:06 -0600
To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
From: Andy Waschick <yeti@ncsi.net>
Subject: Experimental Memetics Project
Hello Memetics,
I an new to the Memetics list, so please excuse me if I am unaware of any
sort of protocol which I should be following, I will try to not blather on
too terribly long...
My name is Andy Waschick, and I have been a student in the fine arts and
communicaitons departments at Southwest Missouri State University for
several years. For most of that time, I have been striving to attain some
sort of truth or better understanding of the way things concerning art and
knowledge interrelate and put themselves together.
Until recently, my research had gathered together many diverse sources and
ideas in multiple disciplines to form a rough outline of what it was I was
chasing after. Not until I discovered the concept of Memetics and this
group of interested people did I have a name to attach to my work, or an
idea which I could cement together the many disparate concepts I have
researched.
Around a year ago, I ran across a document by Johan Bollen, located at
http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/papers/namurart.html. At that time, it was not
linked to the Memetics group- only a site called Principia Cybernetica Web,
which was interesting but didn't help me that much. Bollen's paper,
however, was extremely interesting in that it described an adaptive
hypertext network and described its function in relation to the World Wide
Web. As I was also working on such research, I attempeted to contact Johan
Bollen but never got a response.
My project, however, continued- and today I am happy to say that I have
succeeded in constructing an adaptive hypertext network similar to the
experiment described in Johan Bollen's document and other descriptions
strewn all about the internet and other media.
My project, called Link Cloud Project (the name I have been using for some
time) or Memetic Collage (newly coined with the discovery of Memetics) is a
web-based system which begins as a random sampling of a collection of
elements and gradually refines its organization to the point where
information on the site is configured in the most logical or efficient
manner for the audience who explores it. In a sense, it is a web site that
is "grown" or "taught", not "built".
You can see Link Cloud Project in its currenly embryonic state by visiting
http://cloud.yermom.com. (The current domain name is tentative and exists
for my own personal amusement.) I am currently looking into registering a
dedicated domain name for this project, and would appreciate any
suggestions.
Please take a look at Link Cloud, and let me know how I may improve upon my
idea. Thanks!
Andy
______________________________________________________________
"I just don't understand the appeal of hairless pets."
Andy Waschick, Web Design
Network Communication Systems, Inc.
webmaster@ncsi.net http://www.ncsi.net
===============================================================
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