A Visit to Randy Adam's New Media Studio at trAce
("http://trace.ntu.ac.uk/studio/radams/ind...")
Randy Adams is one of the rising young stars of Lit[art]ure, the new media writing that combines animation, visual art, interactivity, and avant-garde writing practices to forge a new art form that is becoming more and more prevalent as the web's power increases.
Hailing from Edmonton, Canada, Adams has been working in a new media format since 1997, and his work in this genre has appeared in a variety of online journals dedicated to the form, including Riding the Meridian("http://www.heelstone.com/meridian/writin..."). He is the first new media artist to be granted an online studio by the prestigious trAce online writing centre.
The index page to Randy's studio is also the parent page; all links open in new windows. The page is sparse, exhibiting an almost zen-like minimalism: white space cushions a small table; on the left side of this table, a modest illustration of a grainy face, interspersed amid a beige, black and off-white grid, with headings running along the sides of the image as if they served as a frame (this icon may have been thought of originally as an image-map, harboring links to the site's contents; instead, it serves to anchor the text links, in a skinny dark gray sans-serif to the right of the image).
Of the studio's offerings, the first is the "Imaginary Post Office" project. This project asks users to send messages "from imaginary places. Maybe a place you have always wanted to visit, or maybe some place that could never possibly exist. " On the left of this window a small navigation bar offers vistors the option to view stamps (which can be submitted by the user by emailing the post-office with a gif attachment--Randy asks that these attachments be kept uncder 20k), view postcards already "sent" (the users of Randy's post office must be poets themselves, primarily, for the postcards bristle with the ambiguity and emotional examination common to good poetry. This one, from a user called "Gizzy Zygote" is addressed to "THE ESTABLISHMENT: Everywhere but here" and reads " No wonder little gets done in this establishment. The dust is thick and all she has for dinner are thick slices of newly roasted leg of lamb between slices of bread. Torn now between this screen and the tube--she is about to go down it for today is Sunday and the time is nearly on nigh" ). The most recent postcard at this viewing is from August 2000.
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