| meta-matic theoretical Studies 1 2 3 4 | |||
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Alternative Browsers (&Plug-ins) |
Alternative browsers range from stripped down versions of the two popular ones (usability oriented alternatives) to browsers which due to their unique and critical presentation of the web are not considered suitable for popular use; they can be categorized under the rubric of browser.art. In addition to alternative browsers plug-ins exist
which like the alt.browser alters the web experience (to a lesser effect
yet) significantly enough - add dimensionality beyond the regular browsers
capability - to be considered relevant for this research. These plug-ins
can be considered to be "cultural" strategies aimed at the biases
of the web and especially the web as presented by the regular browsers.
Plug-ins alone do not allow the user to experience
all of the web - they are an addition or a patch to the current browser.
The next versions of Netscape and IE will natively support the most common
"extra" formats such as Macromedia Flash.. The strategies utilised by the browsers range from
usability oriented to artistic. The artistic strategies defamiliarize
the web. These types of browsers challenge the current notions of web,
content ownership, the page metaphor, the role of links and multimedia
etc... they present or reveal a web which is very much different from
the one people are used to. The strategies used are cultural. They range
from manipulation, to reinterpretation, to composing and mixing, to filtering.
They act as critique on the web as a media, or they expand the capabilities
of the web media (as it is "defined" by the regular.browsers),
they visualize structure and navigation more effectively, they are more
concerned with the meta browsing experience than navigation from one page
of information to another. In addition to redefining the web alternative browsers
which employ cultural strategies are also defining the concept of web.art
and related to it the notions of digital aesthetics and user experience
of interactive media (new media rhetorics) The most radical of alternative browsers neglect the different forms of media on the net. The experience they offer is not conditioned on the viewability of a particular media format (e.g. shockwave, real audio, etc...) |
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| Examples of Alternative Browsers |
Alternative browsers and alternative browser misuse have been proposed by artists, programmers, architects and fanatical gamers. Some are just proposals; many are working applications. They are developments of the idea that the experience of web space can be driven not just on the design level, but also, or instead, on that of software. (Altena, 1999). "We believe that the computer, like everything else, is composed in conflict," explains Matt. "Within interactive media there is a tension between the universal development of metaphors, systems and devices and the commercial need to publish software that is at best 'less-similar' to that of competitors." Universal metaphors - the visual grammar and behavioural logic of multimedia - render the interface transparent. Belinda Barnet 1998 Numerous alternative browsers exist. www.browser.com lists 146 different types of browsers. This figure includes different versions of the big two, Netscape and Microsoft Internet Explorer. The following links have been picked for this research because they are the most radical examples of alternative browsers. The following browsers do what is traditionally considered to be the function of art: they defamiliarize the familiar inorder to create awareness. For this reason they are referred to as browser.art. |
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| alt.browser Strategies & Tactics |
Software Design Browser design is software design. Ambulator, netomat, Web Stalker, and <earshot> are all stand-alone applications. Netomat is another indication that digital artists are increasingly focusing their energies on the technology underlying what is displayed on the computer screen. The medium, not the content, is sparking their creative endeavors. Software forges modalities of experience - sensoriums through which the world is made and known. - Matthew Fuller Traditionally web artist have worked on providing content for websites. These sites have been bound by the conventions enforced by browser-type software. The browser rendering the content has been the most determing factor of the aesthetic of the work.
Open Source The makers of Web Stalker and Netomat are supporters of the open-source movement. Wisniewski plans on making Netomat's components available as open-source software so a whole new generation of anti-browsers might be born. <earshot> is a tool that releases the creativity of its users. It explores the web as a network of simultaneous and parallel spaces, where every composition and performance produced by <earshot> is also a collective cultural production of the web. <earshot> plugs into these collective energies that form the net.
Deconstruction refers to the tactic of separating
form and content. Ambulator, netomat, Web Stalker, Riot and <earshot>
all deconstruct web pages, rendering the concept of a static page irrelevant. The 6 tiers of information & meaning on the web: stripping sites of all content and design, showing a skeletal map of how the web is linked together.Separating form and content allows superimposition and simultaneity.
The strategy of deconstruction allows the superimposition of the smallest elements. Netomat, Shredder and Riot are alternative web browsers that challenge the notion of a permanent web by merging web pages into collages, the dynamic fusion often leading to unimaginable views, each a unique user interface. Showing contents taken out of their own contexts (the
content separated from the structure of the page). It reminds us that
nothing on the web is fixed, things can be separated and joint up again,
space has no meaning. There is no experience or transmission of any information architecture. Ambulator is a flat surface with pictures that light up. The spatial metaphor does not completely disappear, but becomes irrelevant. * Creating associations between nodes. <earshot> reveals how the web is under constant
construction; a space which can be endlessly remixed, where every sound
path that <earshot> creates is both a unique performance and composition. Using <earshot>, the web is transformed into
a vast sound machine. This develops the practise of sampling, processing
and mixing sound which has
Narrative contexts ...But because Ambulator works in this random way,
improbable combinations can also appear on the screen. And that very randomness
of images sets fantasy in motion: a story, strange connections, a short
daydream or the invention of a joke - at least for those who let themselves
be enchanted by the images appearing and disappearing in the black hole
of the screen. Ambulator stops searching only when it ceases to find. It keeps scanning the Web and HTML for the desired words and the IMG URLs. New pictures are loaded on the screen and those that have been there too long disappear. There is no experience or transmission of any information architecture. Ambulator is a flat surface with pictures that light up. The spatial metaphor does not completely disappear, but becomes irrelevant.
Alt.browsers exploit the potential of HTML to be reinterpreted;
there is nothing to force adherence to the design instructions written
into it. The alt.browsers consider HTML commands a loci for negotiations
of other potential behaviors or processes. The possibilities of this strategy are multiple. The
HTML stream received by the browser becomes a realm of possibility outside
of the browser. This opens up the possibilities of programming - the power
of synthesis. It is the very nature of HTML that opens the Internet
up for means of mutation (Fuller, 1998).
Generative Design (Randomness) Is the infusion of chance and chaos into the rendering
of information conducive to a more insightful way of processing information?
What are the user interface design possibilities of presenting information
as art in the form of dynamic collages? Can the aesthetics of the generated
information collages be formalized? What can be learned of the biases
in information spaces when viewed through one of these "filters"? The Generative User Interface -the users of the netomat
spawn different user interfaces..
Supporting User Autonomy User autonomy is protected by giving the user control
over the right things at the right time. Web S talker and Third Voice
protect user autonomy. *Customization of user interface The Web Stalker
is an example of a browser where the user is able to construct their own
browser. Netomatics are XML files which the netomat uses to spawn a user
interface. Users can write their own netomatics, consequently they have
complete autonomy over the user interface. *Filtering of content and sites The Web Stalker
allows the user to exclude specific hosts, parts of a site, individual
URLS and specific file types. *Editing of Web Content Leaving traces of visits
on pages
Supporting User Collaboration The Gooey software transforms any website into an
agora, a place for debate and discussion. It allows users to chat, and
to see who else is surfing on Whereas the beauty of most existing hypertext and
hypermedia art is supposed to reside in the masterful interplay of prospective
narratives, wired in by the author; the allure of malleable aesthetics
is the potential digression toward and development of almost any direction.
Visualization of Information Spaces Our conceptual definitions of the spatial environment
are influenced by the interplay of attention and memory (Trumbo, 1998).
What are the strategies for building spatial memory? "Once information is purposively plotted or
visualized in reference to other information and once one learns to read
such a rendering, the redered information becomes knowledge" Playing
with Search Engines, Richard Rogers (MediaMatic VOL 9#2/3)
Browser.art Browser.art - Browser.art is not simply the acceptance
of a tech *aesthetic* (like an ASCII picture would be), but a focus on
technology itself as an object - Rhizome "Web art should accommodate an unpredictable
data source... Today the data set is only part of the art. The machine
to traverse it is also built by the artist and to be beautiful must transcend
the data set." No other style of net.art reflects so directly on
the nature of the web as a medium. - browser.art "It's nice to take the browser out of the usual
software context," "To have Netomat shown in an art context provokes
a different way of thinking about the Web, software, and the network concept.
All of these things are now cultural phenomena. I'm asking, 'how do we
deal with these things now?'" Like usability design browser art is also concerned
with user experience but on much more emotional, political, ideological
and narrative scale, (hence the term "browser.art"). Browser.art
reaveals the nature of the web as a medium. In general browser.art is concerned with the aesthetics of navigation. In browser.art the form/body of the web is questioned by attacking the bias of the "web page" . |
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