Marjorie Coverley Luesebrink, The Quaker Oat Box – Infinite Regress

By the end of the nineties, technology was allowing more elaborate graphics, real sound (rather than just midi files), and more sophisticated screen vocabulary.  Pieces such as Reiner Strasser’s *The Doorman Passing*, Talan Memmott’s *Lexia to Perplexia*, and Caitlin Fisher’s *These Waves of Girls* look remarkably recent. 

To some extent, the authors of these pieces have been responsible for re-framing and keeping these pieces available – but the works of the turn of the century (ha!) – are now more than 12 years old – a long time in tech-dog-years;  they not only entice, but look as though they could have been created this year.

What was clear in reviewing two dozen or so pieces is that it might not be the visual/design aspects of any of the early e-lit that imparts an exaggerated nostalgia – but rather, those pieces may look aged which have been most constrained by the hardware or the authoring software with which they were created.  Just to take a quick swing back – the hardware from a few years ago looks much more distant in our rear-view mirror than does the actual work. 

Reiner Strasser's *The Doorman Passing*

 

Talan Memmott's *Lexia to Perplexia*

 

Caitlin Fisher's *These Waves of Girls*

 

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