Book (Ph.D. dissertation)

Hypertext’s non-linearity has critical implications for scholarly discourse and argumentation, where it is commonly considered important to control the reader’s exposure to the line of reasoning in order to communicate complex ideas and maximise rhetorical impact. Hypertext’s non-linearity has been seen to threaten authors ’ control over discourse order and the coherence of their argumentative discourse. Existing hypertext paradigms offer different solutions to the problem of preserving user-defined navigation whilst maintaining coherence: pagebased hypertext relies on the expressiveness of linear associative writing; semantic hypertext relies on the expressiveness of link taxonomies; spatial hypertext relies on the expressiveness of hypertext’s visual features. This research combines elements of these with new theoretical insights, to investigate a fourth paradigm referred to as Cinematic Hypertext. The problem of maintaining coherence is framed as the problem of representing

This study explores the ways in which ethnographic data might be represented within a hypertext format. It begins with an analysis of the historical roots of the technology to determine key characteristics that differentiate it from other media. Three characteristics surface through this analysis: multilinearity, multivocality, and multimodality. The current study examines these characteristics from a more critical stance to determine what is possible in practice. To this end, three ethnographic hypertexts are analyzed to determine strengths and weaknesses. From this analysis, a set of design implications emerge that provides a framework for a case study entitled The Congo Prototype . The Congo Prototype is built from an extensive study of a museum located in Belgium, The Royal Museum for Central Africa (RMCA), along with interviews with colonial veterans who served in the Congo up until Independence. This work offers the reader specific techniques that might be incorporated into future works, and at the same time, provides a stand alone ethnographic study of numerous narratives revolving around the Belgian Congo. In the final sections of this dissertation, several suggestions are outlined for future research. It is suggested that practitioners might consider database driven ethnographies as a means of creating a more dynamic reading experience; cross linked studies to achieve a higher degree of multivocality; and integration of a "play around" feature that would allow readers to determine the amount of data that could be viewed in support of specific claims. The study concludes with a brief discussion of some of the intractable issues that cannot be solved through technological means, such as the crisis of representation, the importance of being in the field, and the politics of web publishing.Source: Author's Dissertation Abstract

[Note from ELMCIP KB editors: the most relevant references to the field of electronic literature have been included, but the list of references given in this database entry is not complete.]

The subject of the dissertation is the text represented on the World Wide Web, it’s problems, dilemmas, premises and possible ways of development. This text, which is recorded only in binary code, and the questions it rises is in the dissertation called the new literacy. At the end of the 20th century, the literary critic taged all the new phenomenons, forms and medias as postmodern. The aim of my work is to show, the text on the World Wide Web, and eventually the hypertext is not anymore part of postmodern. The World Wide Web, CD-roms, binary recorded text, and the hypertext raised multiple questions: what are the characteristics of new texts, who is the author, what is the purpose of literary critic, how can the documents be catalogised, etc. The materials used in dissertation are mostly written in English and Hungarian. The hypertext provides a connection between visual, oral and written communication, so the World Wide Web is a space where the arts are molded. The literery content on the World Wide Web has serious ties to matematics, filosophy more then anything ever before. The changes generated by the new literacy are simillar as we could all of a sudden write in space, instead of paper, but there is an obvious question: why cannot a common reader feel these changes. The answer is simple: There is a small quantity of works written in hypertext, and even smaller in Hungarian, and the group of people reading literery text on the World Wide Web is even smaller. This is the reason why we do not witness a literary revolution. One of the aims of dissertation is to gather the new phenomenons, works, tendencies, experiments. These sometimes come out of nowhere, and the vanish in same way. Nowadays new expressions emerge: Gutenberg-galaxy, copy, paste, e-mail, document, chat, blog, hypertext, hyperlink, blog, icon, information highway, rss, gopher, html, docuverse (already disappearing). The first discussion on the digital age and hypertext was about difficulties of reading from the screen and the death of the written word (paper). The first important publication on the topic in Hungarian was the Artpools Hypertext – hypermedia. It is important to define the concept of World Wide Web. Popular error is to make it equal to Internet. Whilst the Internet is the system made of physical components, the World Wide Web is it’s biggest application. The hypertext the reader can see is defined by the html which can be the latin of 21st century. The computers browser then translates it and hypertext appears. To understand the changes started by the networked computers, it is necessary to examine the first global revolution in communication and the scientific revolution which started by invention of the printing press. McLuhan calls this Gutenberg-galaxy. It is important to see the paralels between the changes generated by the printing press and by the networked computers. The best reference of this problem is James A. Dewar’s The Information Age and the Printing Press: Looking Backward to See Ahead. Using this material I try to make some statements. The second chapter of the dissertation deals with the filosophy of the network and it”s characteristics. This leads to the idea of Internet, first introduced as Memex and Xanadu, or Vannevar Bush As we may think, the text about a machine which is something like todays World Wide Web. Dissertation is looking for answers, how is it possible, that a basicly military and scientific network evolved into a Library of Babel. The second chapter of the dissertation deals with the filosophy of the network and it”s characteristics. This leads to the idea of Internet, first introduced as Memex and Xanadu, or Vannevar Bush As we may think, the text about a machine which is something like todays World Wide Web. Dissertation is looking for answers, how is it possible, that a basicly military and scientific network evolved into a Library of Babel. The second chapter of the dissertation deals with the filosophy of the network and it”s characteristics. This leads to the idea of Internet, first introduced as Memex and Xanadu, or Vannevar Bush As we may think, the text about a machine which is something like todays World Wide Web. Dissertation is looking for answers, how is it possible, that a basicly military and scientific network evolved into a Library of Babel. The literature can work with computers in different ways. First is the computer poetry, when the machine replaces the dice, for example in works of Tibor Papp or Queneau. This connection however is not organic. The second way is, when the computers are the topic of literary works. This is a stronger connection. Starting from the ideas of László Ropolyi, we arrive to the idea of the cyborg, and later, cyberpunk. The third part of dissertation is on the hypertext itself. New questions appear. What is the connection between hypertext and the critic, does the structure of text – author – reader stays intact or it changes. Is the reader more of a user? What are the oppurtunities of hypertext and the links, is the copy-paste order a way destroy the idea of original? What is ergodic literature? What are the text clones? Looking for the answers dissertation reflects to works of Espen J. Aarseth, Roland Barthes, Jorge Luis Borges, Vannevar Bush, Manuel castells, Jacques Derrida, James A. Dewar, Elizabeth L. Eisenstein, Iván Horváth, Péter Józsa, András Kappanyos, Raine Koskimaa, Zoltán Kul- csár-Szabó, George P. Landow, Marshall McLuhan, Péter Milosevits, Géza Orlovszky, Theodor H. Nelson, János S. Petőfi, David Ruelle, Tünde Tóth and Paul Virilio. At the end of dissertation is a hypertext chronology.

This thesis examines the nature of an electronic medium known as hypertext in relation to the act and experience of writing and expression. Essential to the thesis is a conviction that the experiential realm that is created by a particular medium of communication and/or representation is capable of also creating new 'habits of mind' or 'worldings.' These two concepts are indicative of the intensity of experience that is made available via an expressive act and the extent to which the various aspects of this intensity are capable of transformations on personal and public levels. One of the central issues of the thesis is an ongoing re-evaluation of the euphoric claims that trumpet hypertext as usurping the so-called tyranny of the book and the domain of linear thinking in general. In many evaluations of the medium, hypertext is commonly presented as a communications medium that offers a far greater panorama of choices and freedoms than does the printed word and, in addition, is far closer to the way in which the human mind 'actually works.' One of the intentions of this project is to not only critique and study such claims but also to explore their numerous offshoots with respect to cultural, philosophical and ideological practices and techniques. Thus, this thesis unfolds via four major thematic clusters that each, in its own way, challenges and probes at the emerging medium of hypertext as it relates to the activity and cultural practice of writing itself. The first of these clusters is organized around the challenges and problems of constructing an appropriate interpretive methodology with which to approach hypertext. The second cluster offers an analysis of hypertext's defining characteristics and their relation to melancholy, isolation and anxiety. What follows is an analysis of the major figures in the history of hypertext and their relationship to the dynamics of power and knowledge. The thesis concludes with a meditation on how the act of writing (electronic or otherwise) has profound implications on the very structure and form of the creative human mind and world.

Advisor: Massumi, Brian

(Source: McGill library) 

This study examines how themes, conventions and concepts in Gothic discourses are remediated or developed in selected works of contemporary interactive fiction. These works, which are wholly text-based and proceed via command line input from a player, include Nevermore, by Nate Cull (2000), Anchorhead, by Michael S. Gentry (1998), Madam Spider’s Web, by Sara Dee (2006) and Slouching Towards Bedlam, by Star C. Foster and Daniel Ravipinto (2003). The interactive fictions are examined using a media-specific, in-depth analytical approach.

Gothic fiction explores the threats which profoundly challenge narrative subjects, and so may be described as concerned with epistemological, ideological and ontological boundaries. In the interactive fictions these boundaries are explored dually through the player’s traversal (that is, progress through a work) and the narrative(s) produced as a result of that traversal. The first three works in this study explore the vulnerabilities related to conceptions of human subjectivity. As an adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s famous poem “The Raven,” Nevermore, examined in chapter one, is a work in which self-reflexivity extends to the remediated use of the Gothic conventions of ‘the unspeakable’ and ‘live burial’ which function in Poe’s poem. In chapter two, postmodern indeterminacy, especially with regard to the tensions between spaces and subjective boundaries, is apparent in the means through which the trope of the labyrinth is redesigned in Anchorhead, a work loosely based on H. P. Lovecraft’s terror fiction. In the fragmented narratives produced via traversal of Madam Spider’s Web, considered in chapter three, the player character’s self-fragmentation, indicated by the poetics of the uncanny as well as of the Gothic-grotesque, illustrates a destabilized conception of the human subject which reveals a hidden monster within, both for the player character and the player. Finally, traversal of Slouching Towards Bedlam, analyzed in chapter four, produces a series of narratives which function in a postmodern, recursive fashion to implicate the player in the viral infection which threatens the decidedly posthuman player character. This viral entity is metaphorically linked to Bram Stoker’s vampire, Dracula. As it is the only work in the study to present a conception of posthuman subjectivity, Slouching Towards Bedlam more specifically aligns with the subgenre ‘cybergothic,’ and provides an illuminating contrast to the other three interactive fictions.

In the order in which I examine them, these works exemplify a postmodern development of the Gothic which increasingly marries fictional indeterminacy to explicit formal effects, both during interaction and in the narratives produced.

(Source: Author's dissertation abstract)

[Published under author's previous name, Jennifer Smith]

Since its development, critics of electronic literature have touted all that is "new" about the field, commenting on how these works make revolutionary use of non-linear structure, hyperlinks, and user interaction. Scholars of digital narrative have most often focused their critiques within the paradigms of either the text-centric structuralist model of narrativity or post-structuralist models that implicate the text as fundamentally fluid and dependent upon its reader for meaning. But neither of these approaches can account completely for the unique modes in which digital narratives prompt readerly progression, yet still exist as independent creative artifacts marked by purposive design. I argue that, in both practice and theory, we must approach digital-born narratives as belonging to a third, hybrid paradigm. In contrast to standard critical approaches, I interrogate the presumed "newness" of digital narratives to reveal many aspects of these works that hearken to print predecessors and thus confirm classical narratological theories of structure and authorship. Simultaneously, though, I demonstrate that narrative theory must be revised and expanded to account for some of the innovative techniques inherent to digital-born narrative.

Across media formats, theories of narrative beginnings, endings, and authorship contribute to understanding of readerly progress and comprehension. My analysis of Leishman's electronically animated work Deviant: The Possession of Christian Shaw shows how digital narratives extend theories of narrative beginnings, confirming theoretical suitability of existing rules of notice, expectations for mouseover actions, and the role of institutional and authorial antetexts. My close study of Jackson's hypertext my body: a Wunderkammer likewise informs scholarship on narrative endings, as my body does not provide a neatly linear plot, and thus does not cleanly correspond to theories of endings that revolve around conceptions of instabilities or tensions. Yet I argue that there is still compelling reason to read for narrative closure, and thus narrative coherence, within this and other digital works. Finally, my inquiry into Pullinger and Joseph's collaboratively written Flight Paths: A Networked Novel firmly justifies the theory of implied authorship in both print and digital environments and confirms the suitability of this construct to a range of texts.

This dissertation investigates the current state of digital poetry generators. The study argues that today’s poetry programs embody a new stage distinct from second- generation digital literature. The new stage projects a “dynamic network aesthetic,” reflective of four trends in Web 2.0 cultural production: the potential for mass aggregation; the adoption of participatory platforms; the instability of textual material; and the unpredictability of individual actors. The chapters interrogate the ways in which the four characteristics emerge in three categories of poetry generators: programs that manipulate user input; programs that manipulate Internet text; and programs that generate autonomous content. Corresponding with the three categories, three theorists of the machine inform the discussion. Donna Haraway, Jean Baudrillard, and Gilles Deleuze each provide apt approaches to twenty-first-century technology. However, each theorist also demonstrates the ways in which recent models of the machine do not yet fully account for the “dynamic network aesthetic” of the Internet era. In addition to the theoretical discussion, each chapter addresses the design and output of eight poetry generators. The readings suggest that poetry generators, like contemporary technologies in general, advance towards increasingly autonomous cognitive abilities. Emphasizing the cultural value and literary merit of poetry generators, the discussion aims to validate poetry generators’ place in literary studies, in addition to demonstrating a strong connection between contemporary cultural trends and current poetic practice. The dissertation concludes by imagining a potential field of study dedicated to poetry generators. The conclusion calls for further investigations of a “dynamic network aesthetic,” and foregrounds the need to consider future literary machines.

This thesis aims to investigate digital methods of signification in order to examine the impact of the apparatus on poetic expression. This is done through a critical analysis of the translation process from analogue to digital, in the sense that even as we read a page we are in fact translating sight into sound. The resulting effects of this change in form are explored in order to understand their impact on meaning-making in the digital realm. Through this interrogation the comprehension and definition of ePoetry (electronic poetry or digital poetry) is extended, by exposing the unique affordances and specificities of digital expression. Digital poetry theorists such as Loss Pequeño Glazier posit that the emerging field of electronic literature is composed of interweaving strands from the areas of computer science, sociology, and literary studies. This is reflected in the interdisciplinary nature of this thesis, which necessitates an engagement with the broad areas of translation, literature, and digital media studies. Currently the pervasiveness of digital technology and access to the Internet means that the creation and consumption of online content such as ePoetry is becoming seamless and apparently effortless. Whilst recent studies have explored electronic literature as a field, there is a noticeable deficit of research that specifically focuses on ePoetry, a deficit that this thesis seeks to rectify. Within this work cybernetic and technosocial theories of communication are drawn on which provide as much emphasis on the apparatus, as is afforded to the author and reader. Traditional poetry criticism is problematised with reference to its suitability for application to online works in order to develop a comprehensive ePoetry rhetoric that explores not only what is being said, but also crucially how it is being said. Theories of translation are also used as a context in which to analyse the transposition of poetry from analogue to digital. This framework then forms the basis for a study that explores the move from print to pixel by analysing qualitative ePoet interviews as well as their corresponding ePoems.

 In a New Critical approach rarely seen in academic discussions of IF, Buckles de-emphasizes the role of the programmer/author, taking "Colossal Cave Adventure" (Crowther, c.1975; Crowther and Woods, 1976) as a "given," and examining instead the reader/player's efforts to make meaning out of the experience. As an immature medium, IF has not yet produced great literature: "I do not believe that the literary limitations of Adventure means that computer story games are of necessity a sub-literary genre, or that there is something about the computer medium itself which pre-destines interactive fiction always to be frivolous in nature. The development of film can be taken as an analogy."

(Source: Dennis G. Jerz, Interactive Fiction Annotated Bibliography http://jerz.setonhill.edu/if/bibliography/all.htm#Buckles_1985)