Submit to the Open Call: “[Hypertext](Hyperlink)” Exhibition, CCAM ISOVIST Gallery, Fall 2024

An opportunity for Yale students and alumni!

Submit your work to the Open Call for the Fall 2024 ISOVIST show “[Hypertext](Hyperlink),” curated by CCAM ISOVIST Guest Curator Alvin Ashiatey (Lecturer, Yale School of Art).

Established by the Center for Collaborative Arts and Media (CCAM) in 2024, ISOVIST is Yale’s interdisciplinary art gallery, inspired by the concept of the isovist as a way to represent the volume of space visible from a given vantage point.

Hypertext has been a foundational concept in how the web operates, connecting relational pages through hyperlinks to create a constellation of interconnected documents. The term “hypertext” was coined by Theodor Nelson, who described it as “non-sequential writing – text that branches and allows choices to the reader.” This concept is evident in HTML (HyperText Markup Language), the markup language used for creating websites, where the anchor tag links HTML documents together.

However, hypertext isn’t confined to web or digital interfaces alone. In an interview, Octavia Butler described her idea-generation process as akin to hypertext. She often had several unrelated books open around her house, allowing their ideas to interact, mix, and inspire new thoughts. Butler described this process as a primitive form of hypertext.

Through this node of referential threads and connections, this Open Call serves as an invitation—not only to individuals creating experimental works on the web, but also to practitioners who invoke the “primitive hypertext” within their practice.