Judy Malloy
Notes on the Creation of
its name was Penelope

Like a photos in a photo album, each lexia represents an image from Anne's memory --- so that the
work is the equivalent of a pack of small paintings or photographs that the computer continuously shuffles.
The reader sees things as she sees them, observes her memories come and go in a natural, yet
nonsequential manner that creates a constantly changing order -- like the weaving
and reweaving of Penelopeia's web.

Crafted like poetry, the cadence and tone of each paragraph/stanza in this hypernarrative was carefully
constructed so that in whatever order it was seen the reading experience would appear natural,
and in the same process, I created a radically innovative computer-mediated interface
that seamlessly immersed the reader in a work of literature where you might be reading a poetry
chapbook, yet the "pages" are magically brought up at the will of the computer and the seductive
repetition situates you in a place of remembered narrative. Poetic narrative is shuffled,
continuously changes order, submerges, resurfaces, repeats, and the reader is like a traveler on
the merging and diverging paths of a densely wooded forest.

In later works I desired some sequence in the narrative and returned to the hypertextual
structures I had pioneered in the first two "files" of Uncle Roger.[1] But in 1988,
when I began its name was Penelope, it was my vision to create an entire work that the
reader would experience in an unpredictable manner. I thought of this in terms of approximating
memory -- particularly early memories which surface in one's mind when keyed by certain
events but are not sequential. With this in mind I decided to fictionally retell childhood
memories and to intertwine them with memories of the California alternative art world in
the era of classic performance art and conceptual art. [2] As is the practice of many writers,
I began with my own memories, but usually I changed them; the work is fiction not autobiography.
Furthermore, these fictionalized memories were sometimes selected and/or differently retold
for their challenging nature. [3]

To a certain extent I was thinking of James Joyce's Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man
and The Dubliners when I began this work about an artist's memories and the looking
at life through past memories and seemingly small incidents that are formulative.

In the tradition of visual writing -- such as Dorothy Richardson's Pilgrimage
that strove to be the writing equivalent of impressionist painting -- I selected a photographer
as the narrator. Because my composition process was based on the creation of a series of
word pictures that could be combined in many different ways, the narrator's very visual way
of expressing her memories was important in shaping the work as a whole.

Thus, I began with a photographer narrator who would write about her life as if each lexia
was a photograph, and the photographs would be combined by the reader in various ways. "The
combination of reader choice and the constantly changing order (like the raveling and
unraveling of Penelopeia's web) makes it highly unlikely that the same story will ever appear
twice," I stated in the "Notes". [4]

It was the childhood memory of my father reading The Odyssey -- how entranced I was by
the story -- that began the idea of using The Odyssey as a way to give its name was Penelope
some structure. Additionally, because I had been telling Uncle Roger in a Homeric town square
fashion on the Internet, I had been revisiting Homer's effective storytelling devices, studied in depth
with Professor William Harris at Middlebury College. The Odyssey was also significant in that a
woman artist, Penelopeia, whose weaving is central to her life and the story, is a primary character.

I envisioned that The Odyssey's sophisticated ordering of poetic narrative
-- so that the reader moves backwards and forwards in time -- would work well for the narrative
I wished to create. Thus in its name was Penelope, the reader moves between six "files"
that are loosely based on sections of The Odyssey: "Dawn", "A Gathering of
Shades", "That Far Off Island", "Fine Work and Wide Across", "Rock and Hard Place", and "Song".

I reread The Odyssey in several versions -- primarily Rouse [5] and Fitzgerald [6] -- before
I began to create its name was Penelope. But I wasn't rewriting Homer's timeless story,
nor did I desire to do so. The work was inspired by The Odyssey but was a different story.
Consequently, the main character was named Anne, not Penelope. However, I wanted to key the work
in such a way that the comparison would be made by the reader, so I used the image of a toy boat
that Anne played with as a child as a primarily image, and gave this boat the name "Penelope".

In its name was Penelope, Anne's setting this toy boat sailing is a metaphor for a life in
which an artist's explorations are akin to those of an explorer. As I wrote in my "Notes",
"But in these times, (in most times) following the path of personal vision requires equivalent courage
and resourcefulness." [7]

Uncle Roger, my/the first electronic hyperfiction, originally appeared from 1986-1987 on
Art Com Electronic Network on the WELL. The narrative was set at a series of parties that were
observed by a narrator, who in telling the story intertwined elements of magic realism with
Silicon Valley culture and semiconductor industry lore.

In the course of creating Uncle Roger, I began with a hypertextual structure
that was based on following parallel chains of links. It had been my vision to create
a work of non-sequential literature, and in fact this was something I had been trying
to do for many years, initially with a series of artist books that were created using card
catalog trays, so that they could be accessed at any place and later using electro-mechanical
address books that accessed screen displayed pages by pushing buttons.

Uncle Roger was created on the Internet using UNIX shell scripts and for Apple computers using
BASIC. In programming this work, I used database code approaches that I was familiar with, having
designed and programmed early library computer databases using FORTRAN.

It was my observation that what I had created in the first two files of Uncle Roger
-- "A Party in Woodside" and "The Blue Notebook" -- was not a work that was non-sequential
but rather a work that was experienced in parallel sequential threads of text. However,
because the reader could easily move back and forth between these threads, the effect was
somewhat non-sequential. (Note that I was not seeking to create a meaningless work, but rather
what I meant to achieve was an approximation of thought processes, where life is not experienced
in the way the structure of the novel usually presents it.)

Although I liked the experience of reading the first two parts of Uncle Roger,
I was interested in trying to create a less sequential approach. Thus in "Terminals",
the third section of Uncle Roger, I used a random number generator (technically
a pseudo-random number generator) to produce screen sized units of text (now called lexias)
at the will of the computer.

As noted, it was my intent that the experience would be meaningful. Thus
each lexia had to work well with the other lexias in whatever way it was encountered.
I had already been working in somewhat this way in the first two files of Uncle Roger.
I did not know how the reader would encounter each lexia, so each lexia had to have meaning
by itself, as well as be an interchangeable part of a larger whole.

"Terminals", the third file of Uncle Roger, has a very fluid structure. The original
version -- that ran on the WELL and was written with UNIX shell scripts -- presented the reader
with a screen of text and then randomly presented the next screen. The web version does not use
a random number generator, but rather approximates this by imitating the electromechanical
address books that I had used to create artists books, ie the reader chooses unlabeled
buttons under the screen, so the effect has random qualities.

Although the interface is somewhat different, it was the authoring software that I
created for "Terminals" that I used to write its name was Penelope. Designed
in the years before the Web, the interface does not have the now expected "back"
button. In fact, at that time, I made a conscious decision not to emphasize a return
to the childhood memories in the interface, but rather to make them a begin again or
new beginning experience. The poetry chapbook look and feel of the current version
interjects an element of the reading of poetry into the experience of computer-mediated
text. However, the similarity to a poetry chapbook is deceptive in that in Penelope,
the nonsequential presentation of literary text is continually dynamic.

Its name was Penelope was created as an artists book in 1989. This original version
used yellow text on a black background and had a look and feel that reflected its Greek epic
origins and sweep. In the course of an installation that I did at the Richmond Art Center in 1989
-- for which each screen of text was made into a small text painting -- I extensively rewrote each
lexia, and in 1990, I self-published a small press Narrabase Press version with a new cover and
the edited text.

Then in 1993, Mark Bernstein at Eastgate, the primary publisher of literary hypertext, published
its name was Penelope with an excellent introduction by Carolyn Guyer in which she wrote:

"...In this work of computer fiction, Judy Malloy has created something very akin to the mélange
of snapshots most of us have shut away somewhere in a cabinet on the back shelf. Here, in this
work, the reader finds these same sort of casual, almost meaningless -- and thereby potentially
most meaningful -- images of people meandering in a park, of tightly knotted skate laces, plates
of food, or toy sailboats at the beach. Indeed the visual imagery is strikingly vivid, as clear
and lucid as one might expect from a visual artist, which Malloy is. At times the descriptions are
almost cinematic, at other times, especially in the Dawn section, they are so concrete I
expect to see a color illustration immediately next to the text in the manner of children's books..." [8]

Eastgate retooled my BASIC program in a Storyspace look and feel design -- more clearly placing my
work in the school of the other early classics of literary electronic fiction that included the works
of Michael Joyce, Carolyn Guyer, and Stuart Moulthrop, all of whom were published
by Eastgate.

1. Judy Malloy, Uncle Roger, for Apple II and IBM computers, Berkeley, CA,
Bad Information, 1986-1988 (was also available as online on Art Com Electronic Network)
partially funded by the California Arts Council and Art Matters 2003 Web version -- http://www.well.com/user/jmalloy/uncleroger/unclerog.html

2. In the 1970's and 1980's, my conceptual art, information art, artists books and
performance art were included in many Bay Area and National exhibitions. Brief
documentation of my work of this era is available on the web at
http://www.judymalloy.net/artistsbooks/artbooks.html

3. Having subsequently been an arts advocate who also celebrated New York's central
role in American art, I observed with some chagrin, on re-reading my Introduction
to its name was Penelope that the contrast between New York and California artists was
very pro-California. It should be noted that, as in other works, my initial writing
about the work often takes on the views of the main character and that in this case they
were somewhat shaped by the observation that California artists -- and indeed artists
from many other locals in this country are not as celebrated as they should be. Later,
in covering New York artists and artists from all regions, it became apparent that most
artists are not as celebrated as they should be. Furthermore, I came to admire the work
and lives of New York artists, as well as New York's value of and financial support of
the arts and to strongly advocate that it be emulated in more places.

4. Judy Malloy, "its name was Penelope: Notes" in its name was Penelope,
Eastgate Systems, Cambridge, MA, 1993. p.14

5. Homer, The Odyssey, translated by W.H.D. Rouse. New York, New American Library, 1937.

6. Homer, The Odyssey, translated by Robert Fitzgerald, New York: New Anchor Books, 1963.

7. Judy Malloy, Op. cit., p. 13

8. Carolyn Guyer, "Introduction", in its name was Penelope, Eastgate Systems,
Cambridge, MA, 1993. p.7