Works on Screen, 1998-2016
Introduction: New Features of This Exhibition
This exhibition of Talan Memmott’s works at The NEXT builds on the previous version that showcased 13 of his net art pieces and launched in March 2026 at Winona State University and online via Zoom. Visitors to this new exhibition now can find many added features organized logically in an updated and innovative interface intended to evoke Memmott’s visual style.
The original 13 works found at the previous exhibition site has now expanded to 21 and are accessed via an interactive icon resembling a swirl. Clicking on the Introduction icon takes visitors to a video of Memmott talking about his work and career. Criticism offers three critical writings about Memmott’s work, one published in 2001 in BeeHive and two others commissioned for this exhibition. Ephemera contains physical media digitized for this exhibition, such announcement cards, event programs, booklets, and the cover of his book, “Lexia to Perplexia.” Visitors will also find video clips of Memmott’s performances and readings at events such as the ELO 2002 State of the Arts Cabaret in the category, Recordings. In Testimonials scholars N. Katherine Hayles, Scott Rettberg, and Davin Heckman provide an understanding of Memmott’s contributions to the field. A biography of the artist is now also included in the exhibition. This newly collected material aims to provide a more robust historical account of Memmott’s contributions to electronic literature and position him as a pioneer whose work continues to evolve in pursuit experimental design and language.
Curatorial Approach
From a curatorial perspective, this approach to an online exhibition where so much contextual material is included along with a body of an artist’s work seeks to provide a richer record of their contribution and impact. Due to the fragility of the art and the growing problem of digital content disappearing from the Web, not to mention the easy access to incorrect information generating from the media and AI systems, this strategy will be one I take in the future for exhibitions. The physical media held at The NEXT and digitized for this exhibition and the recordings stored on CD-ROMS in “The ELO Collection” at The NEXT––both included in the exhibition––especially establish dates, times, and events that cannot be disputed. In effect, what I am saying is that in this day of “truthiness,” fake media, and outright lying accepted by segments of the population, the job of a curator is not only to care for a work of art but also to the facts of its existence.
About the Exhibition
The title “Talan Memmott: Works on Screen, 1998-2016,” directly borrows from titles used to describe the mediums on which fine art is produced, such as “works on paper.” A trained artist who was the first graduate fellow in electronic writing at Brown University and received an MFA from the university in Literary Arts and Electronic Writing in 2004, Memmott established himself, early on, as a net artist whose medium of production is the computer. Put simply, the screen serves as his canvas, and the area of the monitor outlining it, his frame. One can get a sense of this concept when looking at the landing screen of “Lexia to Perplexia” where he states that the work is intended for a screen resolution of 1024 x 768. In 2000 a viewer using a standard 15” Apple Studio Display would, indeed, experience the work in the way he had developed it. However, those accessing it on the 17” Apple Cinema display that was also available at the time whose resolution is 1280 x 1024 (and higher) or any of us today looking at it on a display with a 1768 x 1117 resolution would experience a work that looks smaller than he had intended it. Thus, like water colorists who use 100% cotton paper because of its strength, absorption, and other desirable features and avoid printer paper due to buckling, sizing constraints, and other undesirable features, net artists like Memmott take advantage of the medium’s affordances, such as screen properties, when producing their art. His art is “for the screen.”
Because Memmott’s works in The NEXT belong to seven of its collections and not contained in a collection of their own, we thought the best way to honor his contributions and vision was to mount one of our “Treasures” exhibitions, featuring all his works we are currently holding in our collections. This approach means that visitors will find 13 works that explore the aesthetic of code, language, and code language, starting in 1998 with “Bread.Crumbs” and “Jilt; a Romance,” both published in BeeHive. Also showcased are “Delimited Meshings,” “Minute,” and “Trimalchio’s Diet,” which appear in Cauldron & Net and BeeHive in 1999. “Reasoned Metagoria,” “LUX: Bronzino 1540,” and “Translucidity” were published in 2000 in frAme and Riding the Meridian. “Lexia to Perplexia” and “Self Portrait(s) [as Others(s)]” in 2000, both in Riding the Meridian. The last two works, “Toy Garbage” and “Dérivepedia” were published a decade or more later in 2011 and 2016 in the Electronic Literature Collection 3 and The New River, respectively. Know that we are in the process of locating more of his works so that we can fill the missing gaps in our collection.
Scholars interested in digital culture and digital publishing should also find the exhibition compelling from the standpoint of the journals in which Talan presented his work. For example, BeeHive, edited by Memmott, published the greatest number of works of all 10 journals collected in The NEXT––a total of 272. It was active for six years, and, along with The New River (1996) and Cauldron & Net (1997), marks one of the earliest. Likewise, frAme, the first documented online journal from the UK, was founded by Sue Thomas and supported through the organization she directed, the trAce Online Writing Centre. Memmott published three works during that journal’s three-year history. Also important to point out is that the oldest journal in The NEXT’s collection, The New River, remains its longest lived, publishing from 1996 to the present day. Memmott’s most recent work, “Dérivepedia,” appears in it in 2016.
We are fortunate that Memmott created most of his works in the open Web languages, HTML and JavaScript (JS). This means that net art, like “Jilt; A Romance,” have endured over time. He did, however, experiment with DHMTL with six pieces––“Lexia to Perplexia,” “LUX: Bronzino 1540,” “Reasoned Metagoria,” “Lolli’s Apartment,” “Delimited Meshings,” and “Bread.Crumbs.” Though not a separate language from HTML, DHTML combined HTML, CSS, and JS in a way that made early interactivity possible for browsers like Internet Explorer and Netscape. Updates to browsers over the years, due to security issues and the browser wars, have rendered works produced with DHTML partially or completely inaccessible. With the support of a grant from the Society of American Archivists (SAA), the lab was able to document them via formal Traversals with Memmott performing the work through video recordings. Finally, Memmott also experimented with Flash for one work we have in The NEXT, “Translucidity.” Because this platform is no longer supported on browsers, the lab preserved it using Ruffle, a now common method for making Flash works accessible on the Web.
Speaking about Traversals produced for Memmott’s work, it is important to note that the lab followed the process laid out by Stuart Moulthrop and me for the Pathfinders methodology developed in 2013, onward. This process requires that the work is documented through a video recording of the author or a reader performing it on hardware and with the software that would have been used to experience it when it was first made available to the public. In the case of Memmott’s works, the lab used two different computers for the Traversals: the Apple G4 Flat Panel, released in 2002 and running MacOS 10.3.9; and the G4 “Mirrored Drive Door” (MDD) Tower, released in 2002 and running Mac OS 10.4.6. Both computers were originally shipped with IE 5.0, but we needed to use the earlier 4.5 version because of the substantial changes from 4.5 to 5.0 affected the work, namely to its text size and resolution. “Lexia to Perplexia,” which is still found online but only partially functional today on the contemporary browser, can be experienced more fully on the G4 Tower running this software locally.
Onward to a Collection
The creation of the first iteration of Memmott’s exhibition had as its goal to honor the artist in a way that aligned with archival practices. As mentioned previously, all of the works featured in that version of the exhibition are held in The NEXT in collections belonging to journals. None came directly from the artist. “Reasoned Metagoria” (2000), for example, can be accessed via Issue 3 of Frame, while “Minute” (1999), is found in Cauldron & Net, volume 1. This meant at the time we could not build a collection for him directly, but we could build an exhibition that drew from these collections. Since that time, however, Memmott has provided us with seven works himself.
As I also wrote in the curatorial statement for the first iteration of this exhibition, I learned during the Traversals of Memmott’s net art pieces that took place in summer 2025 that out all of his prodigious output over the years The NEXT held only 13 works and that the artist himself had not maintained a full archive of it. Those of us who cut our teeth on pioneering works produced for the Web in the late 1990s and early 2000s, replete with their ingenious programming and ground-breaking design, know their contributions to art and digital culture and understand the impetus for holding on to Talan’s works and showcasing them for later audiences to explore and enjoy. Criticism by N. Katherine Hayles, Lisa Swanstrom, Mark Marino, and others who mark the genius of Memmott’s art and establish his output as canonical for the field drive us even more resolutely toward holding on to them.
In light of the seven new pieces Memmott has shared for this exhibition, we can now produce a collection of his work. This exhibition therefore has served another important purpose: a catalyst for long-term preservation of his work at The NEXT featuring these newly added works he shared with us for this exhibition.
Acknowledgements
Thanks and appreciation need to be given to the Society of American Archivists, which allowed for the lab to use the remaining funds from our grant in support of this exhibition. To the artist for working so closely with us to document his work via the Traversals last summer and his guidance in mounting both versions of the exhibition. To Holly Slocum, the Electronic Literature Lab’s Senior Designer, who produced the gorgeous exhibition site and updated interface and coded the HTML for it. To James Lesperance, the lab’s Programmer and Preservationist who provided site’s JS and made sure works were accessible to the public. To Evan Leyden, the lab’s 2D Animator and Junior Designer who produced the background for the exhibition site for The NEXT and the gif used for it. To Greg Philbrook, the lab’s Tech Guru who ensured the site functioned in The NEXT and is stored for long-term access. Finally, we thank Washington State University Vancouver for its support of the lab, The NEXT, and my research.
