View a demo of how to use tags to navigate in a single essay and across the mesh (opens in a new window).
Feb 2nd — This text is from the publication Permanence Through Change: The Variable Media Approach, published in 2003 by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and the Daniel Langlois Foundation for Art, Science, and Technology.This <continued> 
Jan 31st — This essay was the first examination of the variable media paradigm to appear in print.Originally published in Jon Ippolito's Cross Talk column, Artbyte (New York) 1, no. 2 (June-July 1998), pp. 18-19.
Jan 31st — This essay looks at the "synthetic ethics" raised by human behavior toward avatars and other virtual creatures. Since it was published, there have been a number of court cases on the topic of pornography involving <continued>
Jan 22nd — Originally delivered as the keynote address for Preserving the Immaterial: A Conference on Variable Media at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum on March 30, 2001, this bellwether on the vulnerability of digital media to <continued> 
Dec 22nd — Essay which is going to be published on the DOCAM Proceedings, 2010 
Dec 22nd — Author's note from 2009: This essay was originally published in the 1991 catalogue for Deep Storage, Haus der Kunst, Munich, Ingrid Schaffner and Matthias Winzen, curators. Many of the projects and links are now dead, <continued>
Oct 24th —
Oct 19th — Originally published in Jon Ippolito's Cross Talk column, Artbyte (New York) 2, no. 2 (Summer 1999), pp. 26-27(Post-script from 2009: Convergence fever seems to have died down, probably due to the fact that the computer <continued>
Sep 15th — This essay examines the case for censoring participatory or algorithmic works of software art.Originally published in Jon Ippolito's Cross Talk, Artbyte (New York) 2, no. 5 (January-February <continued>
Sep 8th — This is a compilation of references, web links and other resources related to the topics being discussed at the Oct 22/23/24 2009 Conference in Aix/Marseille France on The Arts within the Context of Darwinian Theory of <continued> ThoughtMesh is an unusual model for publishing and discovering scholarly papers online. It gives readers a tag-based navigation system that uses keywords to connect excerpts of essays published on different Web sites.
Add your essay to the mesh, and ThoughtMesh gives you a traditional navigation menu plus a tag cloud that enables nonlinear access to text excerpts. You can navigate across excerpts both within the original essay and from related essays distributed across the mesh. More...
So let's say you are reading an essay on Modern art. You can pick a single word out of that essay's tag cloud- -say Picasso- -and view a list of all the sections from that essay that relate to Picasso. Or you can view a list of sections of other articles tagged with Picasso, and jump right to one of those sections. You can also combine tags to narrow your search, such as Picasso + Cubism + 1900.
As an author, you can choose to post your essay in a central repository hosted by the Vectors program at USC, the sponsor of this project. Or you can self-archive your essay on your own Web site. (That's the "distributed publication" part.)
Firefox 2+ on Linux, OSX, or Windows
Safari should function correctly.
Internet Explorer 7+ users will be able to use most of the features.
Your essay should be divided into sections of (optimally) 2-5 paragraphs apiece, with headings.
Subsections and subheadings are fine--ThoughtMesh's navigation menu can accommodate up to two levels of headings. You can have a top-level heading without text, and you can have one without any subsections.
This is the text for the first section. This is the text for the first section. This is the text for the first section. This is the text for the first section. This is the text for the first section. This is the text for the first section. This is the text for the first section. This is the text for the first section. This is the text for the first section.
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This is the text for the second section. This is the text for the second section. This is the text for the second section. This is the text for the second section. This is the text for the second section. This is the text for the second section. This is the text for the second section. This is the text for the second section. This is the text for the second section.
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This is the text for the third section. This is the text for the third section. This is the text for the third section. This is the text for the third section. This is the text for the third section. This is the text for the third section. This is the text for the third section. This is the text for the third section. This is the text for the third section.
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This is the text for the third section. This is the text for the third section. This is the text for the third section. This is the text for the third section. This is the text for the third section. This is the text for the third section. This is the text for the third section. This is the text for the third section. This is the text for the third section...
This is the text for the first section. This is the text for the first section. This is the text for the first section. This is the text for the first section. This is the text for the first section. This is the text for the first section.
This is the text for a sub-section. This is the text for a sub-section. This is the text for a sub-section. This is the text for a sub-section. This is the text for a sub-section. This is the text for a sub-section. This is the text for a sub-section. This is the text for a sub-section. This is the text for a sub-section.
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This is the text for the second section. This is the text for the second section. This is the text for the second section. This is the text for the second section. This is the text for the second section. This is the text for the second section. This is the text for the second section. This is the text for the second section. This is the text for the second section.
This is the text for the third section. This is the text for the third section. This is the text for the third section. This is the text for the third section.
This is the text for a sub-section. This is the text for a sub-section. This is the text for a sub-section. This is the text for a sub-section. This is the text for a sub-section. This is the text for a sub-section. This is the text for a sub-section. This is the text for a sub-section. This is the text for a sub-section.
This is the text for a sub-section. This is the text for a sub-section. This is the text for a sub-section. This is the text for a sub-section. This is the text for a sub-section. This is the text for a sub-section. This is the text for a sub-section. This is the text for a sub-section. This is the text for a sub-section...
You can also type an essay directly into ThoughtMesh, but this is not recommended unless you are an ace writer or just editing.
ThoughtMesh offers limited support for hyperlinks, italics, and other HTML markup.
ThoughtMesh supports essay illustrations in Firefox and Safari; we are working to include support for Internet Explorer in a future release.
We are still working out the maximum size for a ThoughtMesh essay--for now, try whatever you want.
It's a good idea to aim for 3-8 tags per excerpt--ThoughtMesh will tell you when you have too many.
Check the Frequently Asked Questions for answers to common questions, including:
You can also watch these screencasts if you prefer step-by-step video instructions:
Conceptual architect, client-side designer, and client-side engineer.
Designer and server-side engineer.
Engineer of remote scripting (Telamon.js) and commenting (Re:Poste) software.
ThoughtMesh uses Mehta's Tagline software.
ThoughtMesh was developed with support from USC's Vectors Journal of Culture and Technology in a Dynamic Vernacular and is featured in the Difference Issue (Fall 2007).
To learn more or get help using ThoughtMesh, contact us at ude.eniam.timu@erutluc.loop.
