Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Ted and the Edge


Ted Nelson has the following quote from Orson Welles on his web page: "Everybody's waiting for me to die so they can say how much they appreciated my work. But nobody will back me."

I reviewed a section of Nelson's Computer Lib/Dream Machines. (available from a link here) with my class the other day. I don't think they new what to make of it. In a couple dozen pages, he comments on the computing "priest hood", challenges the nature of traditional education, and gives the foundations of a hypertext like system called Fantics. Additionally, his self published books from the seventies can be seen as one of the early examples of desktop publishing.

Nelson discounts and distances himself from the epic Wired magazine article from 1995 describing Xanadu, a vision for a computer system that has a lot of similarities with what the web became. It was a commercial entity that could not be scaled like what the web became. Ultimately, his Xanadu, like the one in Welles' Citizen Kane did not bring him happiness, but in Nelson's case, not riches either.

A side bar of Nelsons in the reading on his premises on teaching provided us with a couple interesting departures: "Everything is interesting, until ruined for us. Nothing in the universe is intrinsically uninteresting. Schooling systematically ruins things for us, wiping out these interests; the last thing to be ruined determines your profession." and then there was "There are no “subjects.” The division of the universe into “subjects” for teaching is a matter of tradition and administrative convenience."

I was pleased that my class saw some of Nelson's statements as provocateurs. One student quoted Nietzche "All generalizations are false." in regards to some of Nelson's grander pronouncements.

The point of this post is not to even try to give analysis or perspective to Nelson, his genius, or the woes it brought him. I just wanted to record a recent encounter with his work again and how it was a reminder to me to always look at the art, ideas, and folks on the edges. They are those most likely to intrigue, beguile, or inspire.
posted by well-executed buffet at 8:03 PM
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