David Millard

In 2019 I acted as the co-programme chair for ACM Hypertext 2020, it was the 30th anniversary of conference, and the last event I attended in person what with one thing and another. As part of the programme we arranged for some of the best papers at the conference to by published in the New Review of Hypermedia, and this edition has finally come out – and is available here.

There are some great papers here – most close to my own work is probably Mark Berstein and Stacy Mason’s ‘On links: exercises in style’ which is a wonderful deconstruction of the ways in which links are used by authors, in the mode of Bernstein’s (now classic) 1998 paper on hypertext patterns. There is also Sam Brooker’s exploration of Barthe’s notion of The Death of the Author, where Sam argues that rumours of the authors death are much exaggerated.

Claus Aztenbeck (et al.) also present an extended version of their paper suggesting that while hypertext is most commonly seen as a type of system, it can also be seen as a way of looking at systems – a method of inquiry, which they then apply to the area of AI. When I saw the presentation in 2019 I was inspired to think about how that perspective might help us in the field of Interactive Digital Narrative, leading to my own paper at the ICIDS conference this year, so I am particularly pleased to see this extended version.

The special issue is published by Taylor Francis, and is available online now.