This page was created by Anonymous. The last update was by Dene Grigar.
History of Judy Malloy's Uncle Roger
This information has been adapted from the timeline Malloy provided Grigar about the production of Uncle Roger. None of the information has been changed; it has simply been put into a narrative format and in 3rd person.
History of Uncle Roger's Production
Uncle Roger began in April 1986, when at Carl Loeffler’s invitation, Malloy went online on Art Com Electronic Network (ACEN) on The WELL (Whole Earth ‘Lectric Link). By August she began writing the text and designing the structure of File I of "Uncle Roger: A Party in Woodside." Programming for "A Party in Woodside" started in the fall 1986 and was undertaken in in BASIC. At that time Malloy created the authoring software BASIC Narrabase. On December 1 1986, using the BBS topic form as a story telling vehicle, Malloy put "A Party in Woodside" on the net on ACEN as an online serial narrative. Keywords are included so that users can use any database software to create their own version of the work.
On January 29, 1987 the telling of "A Party in Woodside" on ACEN was completed. Malloy began work on programming "A Party in Woodside" with UNIX shell scripts, and ACEN published it as an interactive hyperfiction on ACEN Datanet, which also published works by John Cage and Jim Rosenberg. In July 1987 she began telling the next part of the story, "The Blue Notebook," File 2 of Uncle Roger on ACEN. Her essay, “Information as an Artists Material,” was published in Whole Earth Review no. 57:48-49, Winter, 1987. It included Uncle Roger. Also that year Malloy created the first BASIC artists’ book disk version of "A Party in Woodside," and this version was distributed by Art Com. The disk version of "A Party in Woodside" was exhibited at Ultimatum II, Exhibition, Images du Futur ’87, Montreal, Canada, September 1987.
Throughout 1987-1988 Malloy programmed "The Blue Notebook" with UNIX shell scripts with funding from The California Arts Council and Art Matters. The interactive version of "The Blue Notebook" was published online on ACEN Datanet.
In 1988 Malloy expanded the Narrabase system for file 3 of Uncle Roger to include a generative function implemented with both UNIX shell scripts and BASIC. File 3 of Uncle Roger, "Terminals," was published on ACEN Datanet as an interactive generative hypertext, programmed with UNIX shell scripts. During this time, all three files of Uncle Roger were implemented in BASIC Narrabase, self-published on disk with packaging and documentation, and distributed internationally by Art Com. Based on her Card Catalog HOME, (circa 1978) Molasses (for MacIntosh Computers/HyperCard), one of the first HyperCard hyperfictions, was produced at the Whole Earth Review under sponsorship of Apple and self-published in 1988 on disk with packaging.
In November 1988 both Uncle Roger and Molasses were included in the traveling exhibition, Art Com Software: Digital Concepts and Expressions, held at the Tisch School of the Arts and New York University, in New York City, from November 4 – 22. The show also traveled to San Jose State University, University of Colorado, Ars Electronica (Linz, Austria), and Carnegie Melon University. The show was reviewed by High Performance and Art Week. Malloy began writing and programming its name was Penelope, based on the program for file 3 of Uncle Roger.
In 1989 the artist book version of its name was Penelope was implemented in BASIC Narrabase and exhibited at the Richmond Art Center in an installation with painted text on the wall and the work running on a computer. (See: Revealing Conversations, Richmond Art Center, CA, Oct. 3 – Nov. 19, 1989. Catalog). "A Party in Woodside" was exhibited in ARTWARE at A Space, in Toronto, Canada, from April 6 – May 6, 1989. That year Uncle Roger was listed as a new genre in the Wall Street Journal’s Centennial Issue. (See Michael Miller, “A Brave New World: Streams of 1s and 0s” Wall Street Journal Centennial Issue, June 23, 1989.)
Malloy's essay, “Uncle Roger, an online narrabase” was published in 1991 in Leonardo 24(2):195-202, 199, a special issue entitled “Connectivity: Art and Interactive Telecommunications” and edited by Roy Ascott and Carl Eugene Loeffler.
