Chain saws for sculptural Hypertext

ABSTRACT

The term "Sculptural Hypertext", coined by Mark Bernstein in his Hypertext '01 paper "Card Shark and Thespis," refers to a style of writing hypertext where the document author starts with a massively connected structure, and the task of authoring links consists of cutting away those links that are not wanted, much as someone sculpting in stone in the traditional way starts with a block of stone and forms an image by cutting away the "excess" material. The opposing term, "Calligraphic Hypertext," refers to the more familiar method of finely authoring each link. This panel seeks to address questions pertaining to authorship and tools for the sculptural approach to hypertext. Among the questions we want to address are: How does one write a sculptural hypertext? How does this concept scale - or is it only suited to small works? What differences are there for the reader of a sculptural hypertext vs. a calligraphic hypertext? How does the "subtractive" concept work with other models of hypertext than the node-link model, e.g. spatial hypertext? What are the differences in requirements for tool designers of sculptural vs. calligraphic hypertext systems.