A long list of references I’ve found interesting and useful:
Archive for the 'Bibliography' Category
The full text of Gene Youngblood’s classic 1970 book on experimental film and video Expanded Cinema has been made available online. It has some really great information on the Whitney brothers’ films.
Youngblood, Gene. 1970. Expanded cinema. Toronto and Vancouver: Clarke, Irwin & Company Limited.
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.
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.
Aarseth, E. J. (1994). Nonlinearity and Literary Theory. Hyper/Text/Theory. G. P. Landow. Baltimore, The Johns Hopkins University Press: 51-86.
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.
Berressem, H. (1997). Negotiating the Universe of Discourse: The Topology of Hypertext. 2001.
Bevan, R. and T. Wright (2000). Online Caroline, XPT. 2003. http://www.onlinecaroline.com/
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.
Charney, L. (1998). Empty Moments. Durham and London, Duke University Press.
Deleuze, G. and F. Guattari (1980/1987). Introduction: Rhizome. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schitzophrenia. Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press. II: 3-25.
Don, A. (1990). Narrative and the Interface. The Art of Human-Computer Interface Design. B. Laurel. Reading, Massachusetts, Addison-Wesley.
Douglas, J. Y. (1994). “How Do I Stop This Thing?”: Closure and Indeterminacy in Interactive Narratives. hyper/text/theory. G. P. Landow. Baltimore, The Johns Hopkins University Press: 159-188.
Gibson, A. (1996). Towards a postmodern theory of narrative. Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press.
Gygi, K. (1990). Recognizing the Symptoms of Hypertext … and What to Do About It. The Art of Human-Computer Interface Design. B. Laurel. Reading, Massachusetts, Addison-Wesley.
Haraway, D. J. (1990). A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century. Simians, Cyborgs and Women. New York, Routledge: 149-181.
Hayles, N. K. (1999). Artificial Life and Literary Culture. Cyberspace Textuality: Computer Technology and Literary Theory. M.-L. Ryan. Indiana, Indiana University Press: 205-223.
Hughes, B. (2000). Dust or Magic: Secrets of successful multimedia design. Harlow, Pearson Education Limited.
Landow, G. P. (1994). What’s a Critic to Do?: Critical Theory in the Age of Hypertext. Hyper/Text/Theory. G. P. Landow. Baltimore, The Johns Hopkins University Press: 1-48.
Liest?l, G. (1994). Wittgenstein, Genette, and the Reader’s Narrative. Hyper/Text/Theory. G. P. Landow. Baltimore, The Johns Hopkins University Press: 87-120.
Manovich, L. (1996). On Totalitarian Interactivity. 2001. http://www.manovich.net/text/totalitarian.html
Manovich, L. (1996). What Is Digital Cinema? 2001. http://www.manovich.net/text/digital-cinema.html
Morse, M. (1998). Virtualities. Indiana, Indiana University Press.
Moulthrop, S. (1994). Rhizome and Resistance: Hypertext and the Dreams of a New Culture. hyper/text/theory. G. P. Landow. Baltimore, The Johns Hopkins University Press: 299-319.
Moulthrop, S. (2000). A Subjective Chronology of Literary Hypertext. 2000. http://raven.ubalt.edu/staff/moulthrop/chrono.html
Murray, J. H. (1997). Hamlet on the Holodeck. New York, The Free Press.
Naimark, M. (1990). Realness and Interactivity. The Art of Human-Computer Interface Design. B. Laurel. Reading, Massachusetts, Addison-Wesley.
Norman, D. A. (1990). Why Interfaces Don’t Work. The Art of Human-Computer Interface Design. B. Laurel. Reading, Massachusetts, Addison-Wesley.
Oren, T. (1990). Designing a New Medium. The Art of Human-Computer Interface Design. B. Laurel. Reading, Massachusetts, Addison-Wesley.
Poster, M. (1999). Theorizing Virtual Reality. Cyberspace Textuality: Computer Technology and Literary Theory. M.-L. Ryan. Indiana, Indiana University Press: 42-60.
Potts, J. (2002). Nowheresville. Utopia is no-place. Prefiguring Cyberculture. D. Tofts, A. Jonson and A. Cavallaro. Sydney, MIT Press: 240-251.
Sofoulis, Z. (2002). Cyberquake: Haraway’s Manifesto. Prefiguring Cyberculture. D. Tofts, A. Jonson and A. Cavallaro. Sydney, MIT Press: 84-104.
Walker, J. (2002). How I was played by Online Caroline. 2003. http://cmc.uib.no/jill/txt/onlinecaroline.html
Wright, T. and R. Bevan (2002). Planet Jemma, XPT. 2003. http://www.planetjemma.com/
