orienting myself a little, reviewin'

I also just thought I’d review some stuff we talked about and say a little bit about where I’m starting to narrow myself. I need help with/ideas for that, still—so this is for my benefit, mostly.
One question—should we post stuff we’ve already talked about? I’m a little confused about the uses of this blog. Is this just to have a place to store all our thoughts, pre-writing, etc? To keep Wendy updated? Sometimes I don’t know how to filter info for this blog because I’m not sure whether I should exclude or make sure TO include what the three of us have already gone over or mentioned. We can talk about this next Monday.

I think I’d like to look at the material metaphors that construct users’ relationships with virtual pages, looking at two or several web sites in which users are imagined to have varying levels of web expertise (i.e. knowledge of the specific workings that the computer does to create the surface page).
I’ve been reading more descriptions of hypertext than hypertext itself. The language used to evoke and imagine a) the virtual space created by complex, for-all-intents-and-purposes immaterial processes, and b) the emergent virtual spaces that users actually interact with, is not only fascinatingly varied, but the two avenues are often conflated.
Just the verb “interact” is loaded with ambiguity (as Landow has pointed out, and as I am instantly observing in my own instantiation above…). What is the user interacting with? Obviously, it is both the complex digital processes of the computer and the resulting interface. It seems to me that writing on hypertext and digital media is, as a whole, unclear and uncertain about which level of interaction (virtual surface or their digital inner workings) really constitutes the ontological essence of the users’ relationship with hypertext. I’d like to look at the way varying levels of understanding about actual computer processing and programming affects the way the interface is conceptualized as a virtual space.

SO WHAT WEBSITES AM I GOING TO USE????

Also: we noticed in our meeting that mine and Adrian’s interests (and I’m sure Nick’s) constitute an interesting inverse: for him, virtual/digital/internet mapping and systems of space construction as they pertain to an unimaginable, man-made, physically existent no-place (Great Pacific Garbage Patch) VS. the imagining of virtuality as a physical place.

And lastly, I also wanted to mention the way our “Objective Facebook” discussion played into/led me to some of the things I’ve been thinking about. Just the fact of our coming up with endless ways to make the computer interface behave like other materials points to the elusivity of the virtual as a material in its own right. What are we “actually” working with? Does it matter?