"GeneralArts" is an interactive meta-browser which substitutes in real-time the words of the website "Media Art Net". The substitutions may be synonym, abstract or more specific than the original expressions. By these variations new interpretations of artworks and interpretations of new artworks are created.

With a slider the user can change the level of abstraction and investigate the emerging possibility spaces around a text.

• Synonyms preserve the original meaning more or less and indicate the variety of linguistic expressions.
• Abstractions (hypernyms) allow generalizations and possibly open a big picture. In the extreme they trivialize the content.
• Specifications (hyponyms) create similar but alternative worlds to the original text.

The systems relies on the electronic lexicon WordNet from Princeton University, which contains the various kinds of words, such as synonyms, hyper- and hyponyms. These entries are displayed in a Detail Mode. The system analyzes the average level of abstraction for each original text and indicates its value on the scale.

This application requires standard Web technologies (JavaScript, DOM, and CSS) to be reasonably supported by the browser.

It runs in Internet Explorer > 5.5 under Windows and in Mozilla > 1.3. It does not run in Netscape 4.x.

It may run in other browsers depending on their level of support for said web technologies.

Select a link from the list of favourites or enter a new address:

www.medienkunstnetz.de (deutsch)
www.mediaartnet.org (english)