The Impermanence Agent
The Impermanence Agent (1998 - 2002) was an electronic literature piece that provided a web agent that used each user's browsers to present a story based on that browsing.[1] Noah Wardrip Fruin, Brion Moss, a.c. chapman, and Duane Whitehurst created this work in 1998.
Description
[edit]The agent added a small browser window to display the original story. When users browsed, the window would add details gained from each page to which the users went.[1] However, the agent also alters the pages that the user browses. Nick Montfort gives the example that a funeral image might appear in The New York Times.[2]
Noah Wardrip-Fruin, one of the authors, explains that "The browser is approached as a daily computer tool, in which the artwork becomes part of the daily browsing experience."[3]
Publications, exhibitions, and education
[edit]The agent was first in the 1998 project "Omnizone: Mapping Perspectives of Digital Culture," organized by Plexus International. Later versions were published and exhibited in School of Visual Arts (SVA)'s New York Digital Salon, the New Museum's Z Media Lounge, and the Guggenheim Museum's Brave New Word.[1]
After the initial agent was ended in 2002, a new version, The Agent's Story, was developed for the Whitney Museum's Airport.[1] This new edition featured stories developed from featured browsers, including Stuart Moulthrop, Nick Montfort, Jullia Flanders, and Joseph Tabbi.[4]
The work was shown at ACMSIGGRAPH.[5]
Raine Koskimaa described ways to incorporate the Agent into digital literature studies.[6]
References
[edit]- ^ a b c d "the impermanence agent - noah wardrip-fruin". www.hyperfiction.org. Retrieved 2025-07-06.
- ^ "Digital Decay". MIT Technology Review. Retrieved 2025-07-06.
- ^ Wardrip-Fruin, Noah; Moss, Brion (2002). "The Impermanence Agent: Project and Context". PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art. 24 (1): 52–83. ISSN 1537-9477.
- ^ "The Impermanence Agent". artport.whitney.org. Retrieved 2025-07-06.
- ^ "connection – ACM SIGGRAPH ART SHOW ARCHIVES". digitalartarchive.siggraph.org. Retrieved 2025-07-06.
- ^ Koskimaa, Raine (2007). "Cybertext Challenge: Teaching Literature in the Digital World". Arts and Humanities in Higher Education: An International Journal of Theory, Research and Practice. 6 (2): 169–185. doi:10.1177/1474022207076826. ISSN 1474-0222.
External Sites
[edit]- "The Impermanence Agent". www.impermanenceagent.org. Retrieved 2025-07-06.
