In August 2000, Jason Nelson has completed his Master of Fine Arts with a focus on multimedia forms. Nelson is an artist, who is experienced in poetry, fiction writings, and hypermedia projects. The rapid technological development has
stimulated the artist’s interest in producing some cross-genre artworks, which are considered as hypermedia poetry. According to Nelson, hypermedia poetry is derived from “Chinese scrolls [that are] overlaid and reformed to create new poems”*. By “[recreating] poetry in new ways with the new technology”*, Nelson has produced various hypermedia poems. However, one of the difficulties Nelson encountered when working on these cross-genre artworks is “to create with all the elements at once, where the sounds, images, texts, interactivity all become the words of a poem”*. But how do these elements function as a whole in conveying messages?

The ways through which the elements serve to comment on the issues dealing with the Internet and/or technological movements are evident in the Net art piece, entitled “this will be the end of you: play4: within, within”. The artwork allows users to interact with the layers of text, numbers and images that comprise the piece. The contents and their movement with respect to the position of the mouse and the user, who interacts with the piece via the mouse, not only makes the piece interesting, but also add complexity. Besides moving in opposite direction to the position of the mouse, the contents move towards the user when the user holds down the left click of the mouse. When the user releases the mouse, the contents move away from the user. Although the contents are designed to move in a linear fashion in a particular direction according to
the behaviour of the mouse, the contents do not demonstrate any patterns and are not arranged in any sequential order. The texts, numbers and images represent some “scattered [imaginations, some] oddly organized fire of thoughts and incomplete ideas”*, as described by Nelson. These components of the piece reflect on and/or contribute to the users’ understanding of the hypertextuality, or the non-linear form of communication that is obvious on the Internet.

Additionally, the numbers appear to correspond with the associated texts. For instance, it may be obvious that “1. Zero ends” refers to people’s perception of the “end”. Undoubtedly, technologies are time-based devices. Their “ends” are determined by their values and usefulness, which are in turned defined by people’s needs and desire. “Technology may start out as a new means to an old end, but its developmentturns out to have serious implications for our conception of the end of itself.” (Graham, 2001)This Net art piece revolves around the idea about “the means and end of technology” as proposed by Graham. For example, the last phrase, “591. a bright blue end”, suggests an end to a particular technological movement, and the idea is further elaborated in the rest of the texts. They describe the functions of various inventions or the inventions themselves that are popular in our current society. For instance, “a walking distance to everything” represents the World Wide Web that connects people from all around the World together, diminishing the distance among people; creating a Global Village. Although Nelson made this piece “with the idea that new ones will come”*, the artwork does not provide any clues as to how the movement will unfold.

Sound, another element of this piece, is very powerful in holding the entire piece together and passing on the messages. Nelson intends to hypnotize users into exploring. This is cleverly done through the use of music. Due to “file size constraints”*, the four monophonic, repetitive sequences, used to constitute the background music, loops continuously. With a narrow range, the music has successfully created a hypnotizing effect. In addition, the contradiction in the music parallels the contradiction of people’s perception of technology. Being repetitive, the music fixes the messages in people’s mind
while satisfying their desire for familiarity. However, the drum rhythm that enters during the last repeat of each loop creates a contrast that stimulates the users’ interest and pleases people’s desire for change. Also, a religious implication is created by sustaining the first note of every measure. However, unlike religious or chamber music, which are presumably warm and light hearted, the chosen intervals, second and minor third, of the background music creates a hopeless tone. The tone of the music together with the title of the piece, this will be the end of you, emphasizes the idea of the “end”.