The Color of Television

"The Color of Television" is, according to its creators, "a collage or collusion of words and images telling several stories, or perhaps one story in particular, in a carefully arranged random sequence.

It is hypertext of a certain low sort. Ted Nelson once memorably insisted that hypertext afford 'free AND KNOWING user movement' -- suggesting that works in this line might pose a direct challenge to Western consumerism, this life of linear reductiveness, and among other things, television. Because in hypertext and hypermedia, as Nelson still dreams them, you would know where you're going, instead of bouncing up and down on 'divingboards into the darkness," which is Nelson's gloss on most Web pages.

Well, boing-boing, your experience here will be neither free nor knowing, and it may feel more like cliff diving than a casual moonlight swim. Freedom's just another word / For product we must move, as Kristofferson maybe should have said. This hypertext made with pride in U.S.A. Still, there may be some justification even for efforts in the lower mode. As we write, the marvelous year nineteen-ninety-six is drawing toward its end. The World Wide Web as we (briefly) knew it may not last much longer, changed beyond recognition by swelling bandwidth, cable modems, and... WEBTEEVEE." -- From the work's description

1 COPY IN THE NEXT

The Stuart Moulthrop Collection

An unpublished copy.

Stuart Moulthrop gave the files for this copy to Dene Grigar in 2022.

COPY MEDIA FORMAT

Web

ORIGINAL URL

https://smoulthrop.com/lit/cotv/COTV_splash.html