Revision

Revisions conducted at every stage of the project provide a lens for looking at performancemergence. Two aspects of the use of file structures bear note. First, the original decision to open HTML files from folders was spontaneous. After starting the YouTube clip, I decided to display some of my projects archived on my hard drive. I knew I wanted to show the “hybrid://” project, but was not sure where it was located. While the music played and the screen recorder captured, I poked through files. This process meshed with the personal focus and emergent feel of the video.

But as I looked at early captures, I felt like too much time was needed to locate all of the files. I revised the approach by staging browser windows for the performance. I retained one instance of browsing to open a file to sustain the sense of serendipity that bubbled up with the move in the earlier performance. At some point, I realized that the file and folder names carried conceptual meaning and that I could compose with the labels for the files and folders. This realization carried a heavy emergent flow; it was a thought bubble, really. And the opportunity pulled from earlier writing performances when I decided to incorporate something from my journal sketches into the folder structure.

A related holdover from the initial spontaneous recording of the screen was the use of the comment form that was present in the “hybrid://” project. The annotatable and writable nature of that project in 1998 was of note, but by opening the file from the folders on the hard drive, the ability to save the comments was lost. Much of the disposable typing in captures 11-16 can be attributed to this inability to save the material I created in the performances. To address this in the closing takes, I switched the typing move to a contemporary Web site with comment functionality. This move had a number of consequences. One, I chose to open my personal Web space, shifting the focus of the piece again toward memoir. The move also necessitated adjustments to the layout of the browsers in the recording space. The “hybrid://” comment form loaded in a small window. In the first take using the personal Web space (capture 21), I loaded the page and created a comment and composed the text. During the composition, I realized that the default size of the Web window would make it difficult (in postrecording work) to zoom into the text field for visibility. I finished the recording to create a complete capture, but knew I would need to resize the browser. For capture 22, I resized the window, getting closer to a workable arrangement. For capture 23, I increased the display size of the Web browser and adjusted the window yet again to come up with an optimal typing space.

(Video Transcript for Composing with Folders)