In fall 2023 we gave the coding-beginner-workshop “Hypertextual Readings” at HfK Bremen. We explored hypertexts using analog approaches, resulting in a digital intertwining of linked documents and thought processes within HTML documents. As participants took on both the roles of the reader and the author, they engaged in writing, reading, editing, and curating a non-linear, proliferating narratives with links, functions, and interactions. Throughout this process, we introduced the students to the basics of HTML, CSS, and JS.

I generally have four or five books open around the house—I live alone; I can do this—and they are not books on the same subject. They don’t relate to each other in any particular way, and the ideas they present bounce off one another. And I like this effect. I also listen to audio-books, and I’ll go out for my morning walk with tapes from two very different audio-books, and let those ideas bounce off each other, simmer, reproduce in some odd way, so that I come up with ideas that I might not have come up with if I had simply stuck to one book until I was done with it and then gone and picked up another. So, I guess, in that way, I’m using a kind of primitive hypertext.

– Ocativa Butler