Aleph Null (2011) marks Jim Andrews’ return to open source work since he shifted to Macromedia (now Adobe) Director in 2000. His earliest works were written in DHTML between 1997-2000, a highly creative period in which he found his “voice” as a poet and programmer of electronic literature with works like “Seattle Drift” and the “Stir Fry Texts.” The limitations of DHTML at the time prompted his move to Director, which allowed him to develop highly musical and visual pieces, such as “Nio,” “Arteroids,” and “Jig Sound.”
During his Director period, Andrews started creating works as artistic tools rather than as end products (as was the case in his early visual poetry), as seen in “A Pen” and “dbCinema,” both of which are artistic predecessors to Aleph Null. “A Pen” is a software pen with four simultaneous nibs that offers simple tools that encourage both active play and contemplation to allow a textual and visual poem to unfold. “dbCinema” uses diverse shapes as nibs, the results of an image search as “ink,” a random path and rotation for the nibs, and highly elaborate tools to shape the results as they are generated in real time. Aleph Null continues in this tradition by creating a digital tool that allows users to create “color music” and still images, or simply step back and allow it to unfold as “painterly cinema.”
Aleph Null is many things. It’s an exploration of JavaScript and HTML5. It’s a record of a creative process. It’s a set of digital tools created to produce artistic pieces and made available for audiences to explore their own creativity. But tools shape their users in subtle ways. To use Aleph Null is to enter Andrews’ thought process, poetics, and vision.
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