(Rescheduled from April 2nd)

Medieval Hypertext

catalyzed by Michael Staunton.

You could say that the medieval illuminated manuscripts from back-in-the-day were as saturated with ‘distractions’ as the web pages of today:

“The medieval books we admire so much today are distinguished by the remarkable visual images, in the body of a text and in the margins, that scholars have frequently compared to hypertexted images on internet “pages.”

The function of these images in illuminated manuscripts has no small bearing on the hypertext analogy. These “miniatures” (so named not because they were small—often they were not—but because they used red ink, or vermillion, the Latin word for which is minium) did not generally function as illustrations of something in the written text, but in reference to something beyond it.”

Elizabeth Drescher, Medieval Multi-tasking: Did we Ever Focus?, July 2012

Teasing out connections between medieval and contemporary writing and reading practices, this session of Engineering Fictions will drop us unceremoniously into the world of ‘glosses’ and ‘feeds’.

Come equipped with scribing materials of ink, digital or otherwise!