gutenberg-galaxis hypertext-commonplace multimedia-madness? Electronic Poetry Center inter-textual links poetic of links? xchange textual surfaces switching Machines of Text interfacing imaginary library chunks of information forming rhizomes HYPER-Media-Culture on-screen-thinking textual surfaces

MEMEX

The scientific advisor to President Roosevelt and co-ordinator of American scientists, Vannevar Bush, published his visions on the use of computers for a scientific information system "MEMEX" as early as 1945 in the article "As We May Think" (Bush, 1945, 101-108): in contrast to the hierarchical and abstract indexing of previous (relational) data banks, which only allowed numerical or alphabetical sorting, MEMEX was intended as an on-line text and retrieval system with associative access to texts, photos, drawings and personal notes.

The search paths, so called "Knowledge Trails" of the different users were to weave Networks which recorded the knowledge trails of the users out of the unstructured existing data, by associatively linking the chosen passages to graphics or other texts. Liner notes, addenda, comments are always possible, as well as the transferral of knowledge trails to other users.