From jcj@cityscape.co.uk Mon Oct 23 15:03:46 1995
Date: Mon, 23 Oct 1995 15:03:38 +0100
X-Sender: gy20@cityscape.co.uk
Mime-Version: 1.0
To: ellipsis@cityscape.co.uk
From: jcj@cityscape.co.uk (john chris jones)
Subject: hermeneutic homepage for my work
Status: R

good morning gentlemen

yesterday before jonathan arrived i woke to find myself dreaming of this,
an hemeneutic hompage in which linkwords connect to other screens which
link to topics which are revealed to be each inclusive of the homepage.
thus the homepage becomes not the stable source of what follows from it but
the ever-changing edge or horizon of my thought as i compose and as others
may read.

the diagram which led me to this consisted of homepage H and elements e1 e2
e3 etc (eg softopia,archive, imaginary rock).

the linkwords in the element e1, softopia,for instance, reveal that H is
itself a possible imaginary software such as softopia invites people to
mail in.

similarly the element e2, archive, links to design on another screen where
one finds that H is one of my designs, presently in process, a 'design
without a product'.

it seems to me this morning that this enclosure by opening, if i can call
it that, is perhaps a new step or genre in the traditions of glossing and
re-interpretation that we discussed briefly last night, jonathan. with a
bow to Jacques Derrida, Annetta Pedretti, and other theorists of
everything.

here's how i described this in my journal:

'just to record gratefully soon after waking from productive or
constructive dream that my brain and nervous system is automatically or
spontaneously composing the long-attempted homepage (H) . . . what i found
myself dream is already becoming a self-referentially nested net of
elements (e1-eN) some (or even all) of which are of greater 'generality'
than H . . .  ie H is an example or element of each! . . . and so on . . .
this principle seeming to permit H to be the roughest and livliest part
(the emerging and changing perimeter of my actual moment to moment on line
real time living-by-designing process!

'probably, i sense, this move alone sufices to launch the whole thing as a
non-hiearchical, or non-evaluated, non-verified, whole,

'NOT IDENTIFIED WITH OBJECTIVE TRUTH (E1-EN ARE SEEMINGLY THAT) BUT
SELF-REFERRING SELF-CONSISTENTLY, AND SUCH,TO "THE PRESENT".

'(could that, "the present", be the name of H? - as Design Methods 1 was
meant as goodbye present to design, could H be present to everyone (or only
me))

'(perhaps the  SECRET NAME, OF SELF, OR OF SELF/OTHER,OR OF SELF-|-OTHER)?
 . . . SUCH "incidental" QUESTIONS/PROCESSES AS THAT BEING ADMITTED TOO 
 (WHICH IS WHY THIS MUST NOT BE IN PRIVATE NOTES BUT RAW MATERIAL FOR HTML?)'

WELL, I GUESS THAT'S THE CUE TO SEND THIS TO YOU AND SEE WHAT HAPPENS.

AND THAT'S AS MUCH AS I CAN TYPE TODAY WITH THIS DEFECTIVE KEYBOARD.

YRS

JOHN CHRIS