(Photo: Me as a toddler...)

"Traveling With Toddlers to Artsy Countries" illustrates my first attempt at writing on complex surfaces using new media. This project explores the often bizarre, sometimes histrionic rhetoric used in childcare advertising via engagement with found language. As the series evolves, the language and intelligibility of each post gradually disintegrates.

The first posting originated within the framework of craigslist's online posting form in fall 2008, when I crafted an original, ambiguously worded advertisement for childcare services. This piece of writing was posted to providence.craigslist.org's childcare section. Perhapsp alarmingly, I received several replies to the original posting. Thereafter, I intended to expand "Toddlers..." as a public writing project on craigslist.org; however, in late fall 2008, craigslist altered its classifieds posting policy in an attempt to prohibit anonymous individuals from posting childcare ads. As a result, I had to find another means by which to expand the project. I thus decided to continue composing and revising "Toddlers..." in Dreamweaver, writing and re-writing on top of the craigslist HTML template from my original post.

This installation of "Toddlers..." represents a small range of experimentation(s) with the craigslist template; I also created screen capture videos for performances. As the project developed, I revisited ideas that I worked with in earlier posts (e.g. developing the character's voice and emphasizing themes of potentially insidious childcare services). I have also retained and refined some of the earlier posts' formal and content-driven ideas, and modified the craigslist template itself.

John Cayley writes, "Time is arguably the most important, necessary, and most neglected property of textuality. A complex surface for writing allows time to be reinstated as integral to all processes of writing and reading." Via my modified process of composition and revision within Dreamweaver, my originally public writing (one-time) project morphed into an (extended) private writing process.


Selections from Traveling with Toddlers to Artsy Countries

(click on each image to enlarge)