|
Hayles, Writing Machines Chapter 3: Entering the Electronic Environment |
Hayles, Ch 1, 2 reminder: Material metaphors; technotexts (foreground their materiality); ergodic literature (requires work) |
| Reading Afternoon, 36 -- using same criteria as for print, 37 -- first generation, still rather like books, 37 Patchwork Girl: form related to computer; fate of consciousness? 38 Shift in material substrate of literature, revolutionary, 39 Aarseth, computational perspective that accommodated print, 39 Medium and work as "material metaphor", 42 W. J. T. Mitchell, beyond word and image? 43 Computer technology threatening to traditional scholars, 44 Shift in what constitutes literature, 45 Forecasts importance of electronic literature, 45 |
Aarseth, Introduction
to ergodic literature (from his book) W. J. T. Mitchell on word and image |
| Chapter 4: Electronic Literature as Technotext: Lexia to Perplexia | |
| Computers are simulation machines producing environments,
48 Mind-body engagement, 48 Computer structures work and viewer, 48-9 illegibility, 50 subject (reader) a part of the code, 53 multimedia effect on page, 56 "nervous" document, 57 that flesh will circulate through cybercircuits, 61 |
Lexia to Perplexia |
| Gardner, Colin. (2003). Meta-Interpretation and Hypertext Fiction: A Critical Response. Computers and the Humanities, 37, 33-56. | |
| Computer-mediated textuality a problem for the literary critic,
33 Landow on combining text and criticism, 33-4 To study Afternoon, reader progression, "meta-interpretation," 34 Study reader navigation as basis for critical analysis, 34-5 All texts are "variant"; indeterminacy, 35 Hypertext typology: order-dependent (reader driven by style, etc.), order independent (plot), 36 Problems of reader study, e.g., online commentary, 37 His measures: Reading speed; mouse movements, 37 Reading time calculations (relation to content?), 38 Mouse behaviours, 38-9 Study: readers all inexperienced with hypertext, 39 Table 1: a lot of revisits to screens already seen, 40 -- Table 2: individual differences in recursion, 41 interventions (use of lexia list, history), 41 only 3 screens shared by all 5 readers, 42 longer texts read faster, 43 mismatch in link expectations, 45 making linguistic choices, stylistic implications, 47 location on screen of link chosen; nouns most commonly chosen, 50 |
Landow: hypertext represents multivalence of literary object and commentary
|
Electronic Literature Organization / Electronic Literature Collection, Vol. 1
Fisher, These Waves of Girls
Joyce, Twelve Blue
Miall (2003) focuses on a critique of Fisher: Reading
Hypertext: Theoretical Ambitions and Empirical Studies. Jahrbuch für
Computerphilologie, 5, 161-178.
-- discussion of Fisher's Waves: begins around note 36; first lexias
cited are waves/mr_anderson.htm;
and waves/farmsky.htm
Talan Memmott, Lexia to Perplexia
Essay 3. Either (1) offer a critical reading of a hyperfiction or (2) produce a hyperfiction yourself; in either case, your text will amount to between 1500-2000 words; to be located on your website. For handing in (1) print out your online version for submission in class on November 27.
-- 1. criteria: explain structural principles of chosen work; how effectively are they implemented, including multimedia effects, if any; what kind of a "literary" experience does it offer; how does it relate to hypertext more generally. (Text of essay should include link(s) to chosen work; essay can be presented in one section.)
-- 2. criteria: quality of fictional writing; that it benefits in literary terms from being structured as a hypertext; should be evidently written to take advantage of the medium, not just a linear short story segmented to make it hypertextual.
Document created November 20th 2007