They said the Internet would change the way we read and write fiction…

They said that hypertext was the genre of the future…

They said that contemporary culture was becoming a simulation of the
real…

And they were right…

Announcing the much-anticipated Internet release of novelist and
electronic publisher Mark Amerika's web-based hypermedia project
GRAMMATRON (http://www.grammatron.com)!

From the introduction:

The GRAMMATRON project is a "public domain narrative environment"
developed by virtual artist Mark Amerika in conjunction with the Alt-X
Online Publishing Network (http://www.altx.com), the Brown University
Graduate Creative Writing Program and the National Science Foundation's
(NSF) Graphics and Visualization Center as well as with the support of
many individuals without whom none of this would be possible.

The project consists of over 1000 text spaces, 1700 links, 40+ minutes
of original soundtrack delivered via Real Audio 3.0, unique hyperlink
structures by way of specially-coded Javascripts, a virtual gallery
featuring scores of animated and still life images, and more storyworld
development than any other narrative created exclusively for the Web.
Future versions will integrate state-of-the-art Virtual Reality
languages for a more immersive, collaborative experience…

The GRAMMATRON site, which was featured in the M.I.T. Media Lab's
"Portraits In Cyberspace" juried exhibition as part of their 10-year
anniversary, also includes a companion theory-guide called Hypertextual
Consciousness 1.0 and soon there will be available a downloadable text
called *Work-In-Progress: The Making of GRAMMATRON*, an elaborate
critifiction of 135 pages with 70 footnotes, many of which are narrative
digressions detailing Amerika's involvement with the Black Ice Books
series, the Alt-X Online Publishing Network, the Brown University
Graduate Creative Writing Program, and the National Science Foundation's
Graphics and Visualization Center located at the Brown University
Computer Science Graphics Laboratory.

The GRAMMATRON World Tour has already taken Amerika to various
conferences, festivals and universities including the Brown University
Freedom To Write conference, the Softmodern(e) Festival in Berlin, The
Word Bombs Conference in London, the Duke University "Assault:
Radicalism In Aesthetics and Politics" Conference, the Northwestern
University Center for Writing Arts Lecture Series on "Electronic
Publishing" and Rutgers University.

Starting May 19th, Amerika will be taking the Alt-X/GRAMMATRON tour to
Europe with stops at the German Association for American Studies
conference on "Technology and American Culture" in Frieburg, The
University of Kassel, the inauguration of the New Media Library in
Cologne, The University of Dortmund, The Free University in Berlin, the
Cafe Le Bit in Leipzig, the Rhine region's New Media Industry Forum in
Cologne, as well as stops in Munich, Vienna, Budapest, and Novi Sad
(Serbia).

Upcoming presentations in the summer and fall of 1997 will take place
throughout North America, Australia and Europe.

For more information or to contact the artist, send inquiries to:

The GRAMMATRON Project
POB 241
Boulder, CO 80306-0241
USA

vox/fax: 303-499-2507

email: x@altx.com