"Brave New Word" is derived from Aldous Huxley's novel Brave New World. Huxley's hi-tech society is smooth and efficient but, ironically, is also totalitarian, a dystopia akin to that represented in George Orwell's 1984. Our website, however, hopes to turn this dystopia around: we are solely concerned with the aesthetic applications of digital technology, particularly with the exploration of digital functions that can enhance the visual apprehension of language. Our contributors offer their work to be circulated for free on the Internet towards the goal of engendering a truly BRAVE NEW WORLD of words.
This website springs from a joint effort between Shuen-shing Lee (a.k.a. Poseidon) and Shao-lien Su (a.k.a. Milo Caso) to construct a literary platform wholly devoted to works done with Macromedia Flash. Animation and interactivity have brought a brand new look to literature; Flash easily encompasses both avenues of expression. This project began at the end of 1999, when Lee and Su began uploading their Flash works. It is hoped that this flagship demonstration will persuade more Chinese writers into this hyperworld of words.
Shao-lien Su was born in 1949 in Taichung, Taiwan. He graduated from Taichung Normal College and now teaches at the Shalu Elementary School in his hometown. Su was a founding member of celebrated poetic societies such as "New Wave," "Dragon People," and "Taiwan Poetics Quarterly." He has published more than fifteen books of poetry. His hypertext
writings debuted on "The Garden of Forking Paths" in 1998. Currently he is the webmaster of "The Isle of Modern Poetry." [more]
Shuen-shing Lee was born in 1963 in Changhua, Taiwan. He is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, National Chung Hsing University. Lee has published two novels, and has contributed hypertext reviews to the China Times' column, "The Net Reading District," since 1997. In 1998 he created one of the first Taiwanese websites devoted to Chinese hypertext literature. One year later he initiated "Hypertext Literature" and "Literature and Hypermedia Arts," new courses in the undergraduate and graduate curricula of his university. [more]