The collection is for those who like web art and other imaginative uses of the internet. So far there are 18 websites and all are (to my mind) imaginative and inspiring.

Supposing that the makers of such websites might like to communicate with each other, I have sent send each a (private) list of their email addresses.

I have now added a contents list and links so that one can jump quickly from any website to any other.

The latest website to be added to this list is marked (latest)

A virtual landscape in which you can place a moveable figure (an avatar) representing yourself. You can negotiate with the avatars of other players to acquire land and to build and develop almost-realistic forms of urban and rural living. Players communicate by speech bubbles.

It takes many minutes to download - so far I've only tried the tutorial. There are thousands of players and the site has been active since about 1995. It operates in the manner of commercialised living - bereft of ideals but nevertheless it is the best attempt I know at 'an imaginary world' created by its (real) inhabitants.

Richard F Noll, who was the initiator of Alphaworld, is President and CEO of Activeworlds.

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Ursula Huws' extensive writings on such notions as globalisation and telework (a term she invented). Research and new thinking about the future of work.

There is a restful alternative path called 'take a break' - photographic visits to scenes in many countries and to Ursula's garden:

http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/town/parade/hg54/break.htm

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Website of the anarchic harmony foundation, inspired by the work of John Cage and initiated by Andrew Culver (who wrote the computer programs for much of John Cage's music). It includes Andrew Culver's thoughts re anarchic economy and unconducted orchestras, Joan Retallack's operatic and poetic works and Esther Ferrer's inspiring letter to John Cage re the future of anarchy (in which she quotes a Spanish poet, Machado: Walker, there is no road, the road is made by walking).

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The face of a tall building in Germany became a public message board - you could type-in your own design, message or love letter. You could even play Pong using a mobile phone. Björn Barnekow and a team of enthusiasts ( chaos computer club) remain in existence for further projects like this. I am chaos. I am the substance from which your artists and scientists build rhythms. I am the spirit with which your children and clowns laugh in happy anarchy. I am chaos. I am alive, and tell you that you are free. Eris, Goddess Of Chaos, Discord & Confusion

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A new kind of literary website, or world, inhabited and written by scores of characters imagined by August Highland in San Diego, California, but now existing independently... A serious attempt at refashioning the literary tradition so that classic or canonical writers can share literary space with new and unknown ones... thus 'the old' supports (rather than rejects, marginalises or appropriates) 'the new'... and vice versa. This somewhat staggering move is explained with clarity and humour in Andrew Shelley's interview with August Highland. The new writing on this website is generated by mixtures of intuition and random process and is without plot or narrative. There's more to it than this and I've yet to visit, or to grasp, the whole of it.

9 June 2003: CybErg is only partly visible, or not at all, at present.

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James Stevens and others combine (in ways that are as yet beyond my primitive acquaintance with the net) to make ever extending otherworlds more lively and far less commercial than the net has become... perhaps talkaoke (invented by Mikey Weincove) is the liveliest bit (see also BLINK, Work, CONSUME, X, SPC)... I don't yet understand the terminology but I like the feel of what is happening in these attempts at decentral communication that may be more coherent than is anything else on the net... Boldly clicking you can encounter worlds from which you may not wish to return... I imagine that the early days of the internet were like this, and life continues... newly.

This site is a successor to James Stevens' backspace which can still be visited for the quality of its 200 or so contributors a few of whose works appear each time you visit.

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Adrianne Wortzel's imagined news of the present seen as archaeology. The most fictional and humourous website I know of. Also profound. See also her robotic works.

Edwin Schlossberg Incorporated: interactive designs for museums, theme parks, networks and other public spaces. And interviews with Edwin Schlossberg about his book, Interactive Excellence (see epigraph at foot of softopia webpage).

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Pete Gomes (who was one of the voices of 'backspace') has recently made this beautifully simple website that reveals the who, the why and the when of his films - which are greatly influenced, he says, 'by the cybernetic and expanded cinema of the 60s and 70s'... for instance 'scape', a 40-minute pan of the London skyline from Greenwich, reminds me of films by Michael Snow and that period of independent film making that still inspires me also. I've yet to see Pete's films but his website is a pleasure.

Ted Warnell is one of several people who have recognised the internet and computer codes as poetic in themselves. His website (which requires Internet Explorer 6+) is a collection of web poetry by Nari (binary?) and many others. I found it difficult to grasp until i came to an essay by Rita Raley. Within the essay are links to the work of Mez (Mary-Anne Breeze) which for me opens windows. Ted Warnell surprised and pleased me by recoding the index of the internet and everyone into a visual poem (which he calls keywords and i call found poem) and by accepting this website as poetry.

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Ebon Fisher's website - consisting of the newcreaturely worlds of OlulO, Zoacodes and Wigglism - humourous and interventive - is online again... indescribable... 'WIGGLISM: TO NURTURE THAT WHICH WIGGLES - transmuting art into a zoology of spirit' or 'virtual morality'... the language reminds me of William Blake and of non-dualism - a social version of genius perhaps?

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The lifework of Christopher Alexander and his colleagues at the Centre for Environmental Structure, Berkeley, California, 'the timeless way of building' based of personal reactions to place and form instead of on abstract theory and technological imperatives. A vast website addressed to different categories of visitors and with daily thoughts and writings by Christopher Alexander. See also the nature of order a four volume book in which he extends his theory beyond building to philosophy and to the forms of nature, software, and perhaps everything?

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Maggie Ellenby's shop window gallery with comments by passers-by. It makes 'the art gallery' into a truly public place!

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Alan Sondheim's internet writing - he describes it as a meditation on the philosophy, psychology, political economy, and psychoanalytics of Internet (computer) communication. It focuses on virtual subjectivity, sexuality, community, and all aspects of computer interfacing... I tried in my digital diary of 18 july 2002 to grasp and convey some of its poetic and vulgar profusion and intellectual shock... There is an older version at
http://lists.village.virginia.edu/~spoons/internet_txt.html

See also:
http://www.asondheim.org/
http://www.asondheim.org/portal/
Trace projects http://trace.ntu.ac.uk/writers/sondheim/index.htm

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Computer artworks, webworks and textworks by Simon Biggs, some of which react to people's movements. When I first encountered Simon's computerworks I thought they were the most poetic I'd seen and I still think so.

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Nick Routledge's monumental exploration of the morality, and even the theology, of the internet. It is in eighteen parts - you have to click to get from one to the next.

See also his world3 which is about 'how to use space to communicate'. A collection of thoughts by many people about the design of the internet.

These websites were composed about 1995-1996. They were rescued and given space on the server of jon@scribble.com who writes: 'I am proud to help my friend Nick live on in the virtual realm that he so gently reigned over so many moons ago.' (both websites are from i+e)

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This is the site of Paul Granjon's experiments with low tech electronic art - for instance electronic 'birds' to inhabit real or virtual forests. To me his work has the humanity, modesty and charm that most attempts at artificial intelligence lack... As a French person working in Wales he was chosen to represent Wales at the Venice Biennale in 2005.

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