CONCLUSION
Children’s Time by Deena Larsen is a very good example of the technique of
hypertext as the tools support the content and offer chances which a normal
written document could not express in the same way. It is a typical kanjiku. In addition to that Deena
Larsen manages to comment the poem and the hypertext world in general in an
ironic, witty way. In a kind of alienation effect she combines her instructions
with the content by saying for example: “Please be patient while the java
applet loads--this takes about a minute on a 28.8 K modem. (Which is probably
just enough time to remember infinity yourself.)”[1]
And I also had to smile when I red the warning about hypertext on her page:
Warning: Reading electronic literature can cause
sleepless nights, longing for tools that do not exist yet, and dangerous
transmissions of ideas.
Official advice: Do not stray any further into the realms of the
incredible possibilities offered by combining sound, images, motion,
navigation, and structure into a symbiociation of
meaning. Do not imagine telling a story from more than one character's
viewpoint, showing paths between nodes that continue a theme, and weaving many
connections of meaning.[2]
In
general I liked her work a lot and the impression I got from her by reading her
Curriculum Vitae and the e-mail
correspondences with other students is a very positive one. So even though my
hypertext also caused me sleepless nights I learned a lot and hope that you can
also get something out of my page.
[1] Deena Larsen: http://www.deenalarsen.net/kanjis/children/index.html (last viewed on the
[2] Deena Larsen: http://www.deenalarsen.net/ (last viewed on the