In 1989, in the centennial issue of the
The Wall Street Journal, Michael Miller's
"A Brave New World: Streams of 1s and 0s"
reviewed the computer accomplishments of the era.
"One new genre is the 'database novel' the creation
of Berkeley, Calif. conceptual artist
Judy Malloy," he wrote. "In her free-form work
'Uncle Roger' readers decide the order in
which paragraphs appear on their PC screens. They
can scroll through from beginning to end, or they
can pick a word or phrase and follow it through the
text. (A recent excerpt in the Whole Earth Review
consists of a string of scenes that all feature
the phrase 'men in tan suits')." [1]
The three files of the pioneering electronic hyperfiction,
Uncle Roger, originally appeared from 1986-1987
on Art Com Electronic Network on the WELL. [2]
The publication of File II: The Blue Notebook
was funded by the California Arts Council and Art Matters.
Uncle Roger is a work of comedic narrative poetry.
In the years that this story was created, the writer --
who had also lived in the locale of the Silicon
Valley semiconductor industry -- was immersed in
an early online environment which included many people
from Silicon Valley and the computer culture. The work is
mainly set at a series of parties that are observed by a narrator,
who in telling the story intertwines elements of magic realism
with Silicon Valley culture and semiconductor industry lore.
Uncle Roger was first told online in serial form (in the order in
which it was written) on Art Com Electronic Network, beginning in 1986.
Beginning in 1987, it was published online as a working hypernarrative
on the seminal ACEN Datanet, that also included the work of John Cage,
Jim Rosenberg, and Sonya Rapoport. It was also self-published as computer software
for both Apple and IBM-compatible computers and exhibited by contemporary
art critic, curator. and ACEN founder Carl Loeffler [3] as part of Art Com
Software, as well as distributed by the Art Com Catalog, a video and small press
distributor.
The web version, first implemented in 1995 and thus redolent of the
early web, is somewhat different than the original Uncle Roger
that for ACEN Datanet, I programmed in UNIX shell scripts and
for the floppy disk version, I programmed in BASIC. These original
Uncle Rogers offered the reader a collection of programmed keyword
links that produced chains of linked lexias, often displayed on the black
and green or black and yellow text-based monitors of the era.
In 2011, the 25th anniversary year of Uncle Roger, new material
has been added, including more of the original lexias in Terminals,
(originally there were 100) and an opening menu for A Party in Woodside
that approximates the original menu on ACEN Datanet. In addition,
the linking scheme of A Party in Woodside is being augemented so
that it more closely approximates the original version, where it was
possible to follow one chain of links through the entire work, while at
the same time it also retains some of the more diffuse linking strategies
expected on the Web.
Some editing of the narrative was done in the course of creating the web
version, and the text here is now the authorized version of this work.
Uncle Roger, one of the first, if not the first
hyperfiction, was built on ideas developed in my early work
in experimental narrative structures. [4]
It is still being read online twenty-five years since it was written!
- Judy Malloy
more notes on Uncle Roger, including the original documentation
References
1. Michael Miller, "A Brave New World: Streams of 1s and
0s" Wall Street Journal Centennial Issue, June 23, 1989
2. Judy Malloy, "Uncle Roger, an Online Narrabase", Leonardo 24:2, 1991, pp.195-202.)
3. Memories of Art Com and La Mamelle
4. Judy Malloy,
Artists Books
File 1: A Party in Woodside
File 2: The Blue Notebook
File 3: Terminals
Notes on Uncle Roger