Originally
published
on
06/23/03
Alternative
ways
for
viewing
web
pages
have
been
part
of
net
culture
since
the
beginning
of
the
web.
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Rhizome houses some well-known browsing interfaces such as Spiral, Starry Night, Ada 1852, Context Breeder, and Troika--all exclusively providing access to the Rhizome database. [ top ] next>>
Other interfaces such as The Boxplorer by Andy Deck, Goodworld by Lew Baldwin, and Revelation1.0 by Mark Tribe focus on reformatting web pages into Mondrian-like abstractions. [ top ] next>>
And
then
came
Epic
Tales
by
Carlo
Zanni,
which
reformats
web
pages
not
into
allegorical
modern
compositions
but,
instead,
leaves
the
layout
intact
and
reinterprets
the
text
into
a
combination
of
Modern
English
and
'Anglo-Saxon
of
an
ancient
warrior
culture'
text-types.
[
top
]
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The result is disconcerting layouts. Unlike the alternative interfaces previously described, Epic Tales lets the user reevaluate the actual content in relation to a particular history that is not immediately connected to net technology. [ top ] next>>
The
reasons
behind
this
rhetorical
strategy
become
evident
when
reading
the
project
description,
where
Borges'
addiction
to
studying
languages
to
find
his
cultural
roots
is
cited
as
an
inspiration.
Borges
states:
[
top
]
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"Each
one
of
the
words
stood
out
as
though
it
had
been
carved,
as
though
it
were
a
talisman.
For
that
reason
the
poems
of
a
foreign
language
have
a
prestige
they
do
not
enjoy
in
their
own
language,
for
one
hears,
one
sees,
each
one
of
the
words
individually.
We
think
of
the
beauty,
of
the
power,
or
simply
of
the
strangeness.
Originally
published
on
06/23/03
Each
one
of
the
words
stood
out
as
though
it
had
been
carved,
as
though
it
were
a
talisman.
For
that
reason
the
poems
of
a
foreign
language
have
a
prestige
they
do
not
enjoy
in
their
own
language,
for
one
hears,
one
sees,
each
one
of
the
words
individually.
We
think
of
the
beauty,
of
the
power,
or
simply
of
the
strangeness.