Wright, T. and R. Bevan (2002). Planet Jemma, XPT. 2003. http://www.planetjemma.com/
Monthly Archive for August, 2003
Hughes, B. (2000). Dust or Magic: Secrets of successful multimedia design. Harlow, Pearson Education Limited.
Deleuze, G. and F. Guattari (1980/1987). Introduction: Rhizome. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schitzophrenia. Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press. II: 3-25.
Causey, M. (1999). Postorganic Performance: The Appearance of Theatre in Virtual Spaces. Cyberspace Textuality: Computer Technology and Literary Theory. M.-L. Ryan. Indiana, Indiana University Press: 182-201.
Bevan, R. and T. Wright (2000). Online Caroline, XPT. 2003. http://www.onlinecaroline.com/
Aarseth, E. J. (1999). Aporia and Epiphany in Doom and The Speaking Clock: The Temporality of Ergodic Art. Cyberspace Textuality: Computer Technology and Literary Theory. M.-L. Ryan. Indiana, Indiana University Press: 31-41.
Aarseth, E. J. (1994). Nonlinearity and Literary Theory. Hyper/Text/Theory. G. P. Landow. Baltimore, The Johns Hopkins University Press: 51-86.
1. Ergodic Literature
“The concept of cybertext focuses on the mechanical organisation of the text, by positing the intricacies of the medium as an integral part of the literary exchange” (Aarseth, 1997: 1)
“In ergodic literature, nontrivial effort is required to allow the reader to traverse the text” (Aarseth, 1997: 1)
Aarseth argues that while reader-resonse theorists would note that the reader/user/consumer is central to the exchange, the concepts of the cybertexts and ergodic literature take this idea further as the reader must assemble or negotiate the text in the physical space as well as the conceptual in order to create meaning.
The distinction between linear and nonlinear texts is an important one in the definition of the cybertext as distinct from regular texts. For Aarseth the difference lies in the text itself rather than its reading. It could be argued that any reading is linear since it takes place in a certain order in time but it is the text that is being read from which is crucial to Aarseth’s distinction. He writes that “A cybertext is a machine for the production of variety of expression” and that “… when you read from a cybertext you are constantly reminded of inaccessible strategies and paths not taken, voices not heard.” (1997: 3).
“Why is the variable expression of the nonlinear text so easily mistaken for the semantic ambiguity of the linear text? The answer, or at least one answer, can be found in a certain rhetorical model used by literary theory. I refer to the idea of a narrative text as a labyrinth, a game, or an imaginary world, in which ther reader can explore at will, get lost, discover secret paths, play around, follow the rules, and so on. The problem with these powerful metaphors, when they begin to affect the critic’s perspective and judgement, is that they enable a systematic misrepresentation of the relationship between narrative text and reader; a spatiodynamic fallacy where the narrative is not perceived as a presentation of a world but rather as that world itself.”. “In other words, there is a short circuit between the signifier and the signified, a suspension of diff?rance that projects an objective layer beyond the text, a primary metaphysical structure that generates both textual sign and our understanding of it, rather than the other way around.” (1997:3-4)
Aarseth, E. J. (1997). Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature. Baltimore, The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Portrait of the blogger as a young man by Julian Dibbel
The ascendance of the search engine has done nothing to stem the tide of the Web’s original filter: the personal Web log. Julian Dibbell gets inside the obsessions of one of the Web’s most prolific bloggers.
