Lexia to Perplexia, was developed for the trAce Online Writing Community's INCUBATION Conference (July, 2000 Nottingham Trent University).
The piece appears online at the Iowa Review Web.

Lexia to Perplexia began as an observation of the fluctuating and ever-evolving protocols and prefixes of internet technology as applied to literary hypermedia. As well, Lexia to Perplexia was originally meant as a critique of both the Author and User/Reader positions in relation to web-based literary content.

Though remnants of this scholarly intent may remain within the piece, I believe that what is present in the final work is more fictive than critical, and more an example than a critique. All resources are obfuscated by a process which began with severe pre|medi(t)ation. The collection of various sources are merged to form a single analect then edited, parsed, encoded... These fragments are further mediated through my own writing, merged and entirely rewritten. Some fragments of text have converted into functionality concepts and removed from the superficial textual body of the work. The method, the process for the creation of this work is implied in the title -- as I moved from lexical, authorial texts (see bibliograph) into a melange of disparate media and intentions. From focus to foci...

If there is consistency between the screens and fragments of Lexia to Perplexia it is perhaps a frivolously critical play of terms coupled with repeated, recontextualized quasi-narrative sequences of the User attaching to the Network.

Lexia to Perplexia makes wide use of suspect neologisms, which are a byproduct of this substitutive practice -- temporary terminology that may only carry a use value within a specific context. I believe that some terms, however, may have resonance beyond this particular piece, and I am sure I will return to them again in future work. I find terms such as metastrophe and intertimacy to be intriguing and already have intentions of exploring these further.

The User/Reader of this piece encounters a number of screens that appear simple upon access. As the User/Reader interacts with the presented objects -- images, textual fragments, various UI permutations -- the screens are made more. This is perhaps the fundamental narra(c)tive process of attachment to all remote media. In general the piece locates and terminates various territories of apparatus through generative terminology, or termitorialism. I have used trans|missive agents for the transformed, digitized fragments of "I" that passes through the network. The developed termintories are challenge both through the pre|medi(t)ation of the analect and the hypermediation of the produce piece. And, the remediation of the User/Reader...

Please, explore!

Talan Memmott lives in San Francisco California where he works as Production Director for the web development firm PERCEPTICON and serves as Creative Director for the literary journal BeeHive. Since its inception, BeeHive has published over 40 content pieces and has earned Talan a seat on the Internet Literary Editors Fellowship's Board of Directors. His own hypermedia work has appeared widely on the internet, with published work in Big Bridge, Riding the Meridian, and frAme -- among others. He has performed artist chats with Defib, the Electronic Literature Organization, and trAce.