In choosing a New Media piece to analyze, I settled on “Liquidity Issues” for a number of things it is and a number of things it isn’t. Looking at what it isn’t, it is clearly not hypertext, but neither does it fully realize hypermedia. It is certainly beautiful, both the presentation as a whole as well as the text and images. But is it more than the sum of its parts? That’s the overarching question to be answered in this hypermedia analysis of “Liquidity Issues.”

To begin, I will look at the question of how close, for better or for worse, do the authors get to hypermedia and what that effect has on the audience. As already mentioned, they are nowhere near hypertext, and they are not at new media – so where precisely does that put this piece?

Which leads to the next section questioning whether the piece is merely a remediation rather than a wholly new, fully realized new media piece and how does that matter? The piece is a collaboration between two people whose roles are indeterminate, but can be assumed from their brief bios. Does that piece of information color an overall analysis of the page?

After poking at and prodding the text, we finally cut it apart looking at its multimedia ingredients that function together. What works, what does not work so well, and why? The title of this section specifically mentions the background noise that plays whenever the page is loaded. The noise itself plays a fairly complex role in the presentation of the entire piece, but, rather unfortunately, it is unceasing and after a while can get more than a little irritating.

Finally, after looking at where the project locates itself within new media, how it accomplishes this, and what makes it tick, we can do the math – what does it all add up to? The answer brings us back around to the beginning of this introduction in terms of what “Liquidity Issues” is and is not.

One final note: The order I describe above is the logical order I have conceived of in my head. However, my head is not your head, and you certainly are in control of your mouse and where you click – should you choose to read this piece in an order other than what I’ve specified, feel free.