VARIOUS TEXTS FROM CYBERARTSWEB
<http://www.cyberartsweb.org/cpace/>
· The Definition of Hypertext and Its History as a Concept
In S/Z , Roland Barthes describes an ideal textuality that precisely matches that which has come to be called computer hypertext -- text composed of blocks of words (or images) linked electronically by multiple paths, chains, or trails in an open-ended, perpetually unfinished textuality described by the terms link, node, network, web , and path: "In this ideal text," says Barthes,
the networks are many and interact, without any one of them being able to surpass the rest; this text is a galaxy of signifiers, not a structure of signifieds; it has no beginning; it is reversible; we gain access to it by several entrances, none of which can be authoritatively declared to be the main one; the codes it mobilizes extend as far as the eye can reach, they are indeterminable . . . ; the systems of meaning can take over this absolutely plural text, but their number is never closed, based as it is on the infinity of language" (emphasis in original; 5-6 [English translation]; 11-12 [French]).
Like Barthes, Michel Foucault conceives of text in terms of network and links. In The Archeology of Knowledge , he points out that the "frontiers of a book are never clear-cut," because "it is caught up in a system of references to other books, other texts, other sentences: it is a node within a network . . . [a] network of references" (23).
Like almost all structuralists and poststructuralists, Barthes and Foucault describe text, the world of letters, and the power and status relations they involve in terms shared by the field of computer hypertext. Hypertext , a term coined by Theodor H. Nelson in the 1960s, refers also to a form of electronic text, a radically new information technology, and a mode of publication. "By 'hypertext,' " Nelson explains, "I mean non-sequential writing -- text that branches and allows choices to the reader, best read at an interactive screen. As popularly conceived, this is a series of text chunks connected by links which offer the reader different pathways" (0/2). Hypertext, as the term is used in this work, denotes text composed of blocks of text -- what Barthes terms a lexia -- and the electronic links that join them. Hypermedia simply extends the notion of the text in hypertext by including visual information, sound, animation, and other forms of data. Since hypertext, which links one passage of verbal discourse to images, maps, diagrams, and sound as easily as to another verbal passage, expands the notion of text beyond the solely verbal, I do not distinguish between hypertext and hypermedia. Hypertext denotes an information medium that links verbal and nonverbal information. In this network, I shall use the terms hypermedia and hypertext interchangeably. Electronic links connect lexias "external" to a work -- say, commentary on it by another author or parallel or contrasting texts -- as well as within it and thereby create text that is experienced as nonlinear, or, more properly, as multilinear or multisequential. Although conventional reading habits apply within each lexia, once one leaves the shadowy bounds of any text unit, new rules and new experience apply.
In order to fully exploit the unlimited possibilities that the Internet provides it is necessary to first understand this entity on a conceptual level. The Net, because of its antispatial and non-material nature, differs from other economic resources that mankind has henceforth utilized. This idea has been lost on many individuals who comment on the Web and has lead to a great deal of misunderstanding regarding what must be done in order to make the most of this resource. In a memo on "Ethics and the Internet" the Network Working Group comments,
As is true of other common infrastructures (e.g., roads, water reservoirs and delivery systems, and the power generation and distribution network), there is widespread dependence on the Internet by its users for the support of day-to-day research activities.
This tendancy to treat the Web like a natural resource paves the way for an American Bar Association essay which attempts to warn the cyber-community that, unless it is careful, the Internet could become overcrowded and worthless.
The Internet is an international community of people who police themselves and orient new members to the rules of using a shared resource. No one owns it, but like grazing land, Radin said, the Internet could quickly become a "tragedy of the commons" where everybody grabs as much as she can as fast as she can, and the resource becomes crowded and useless.
The essay goes on to consider and reject the solution of turning all of cyberspace to a private enterprise which would prevent overuse in order to maximize efficiency and thus profit.
In economic texts the tragedy of the commons is described as a situation where a resource is jointly owned or provided free of use. Let us assume for the sake of argument that the resource is indeed a common, a common grazing land for sheep farmers. The land is provided free of charge or is unowned. Those who are able to use the land will consume as much of it as they can as fast as they can, knowing that A. It is free and B. That it will be used up quickly because everyone else plans to consume as much as possible also. Unfortunately, if this state of affairs persists the grazing land will quickly become barren. The farmers would all be better off if each consumes moderately, because then the grass will be allowed to reproduce itself. Unfortunately, no single farmer will stop immoderate consumption for fear that the others will take advantage of him by continuing to allow their sheep unlimited grazing. In this manner the green is destroyed prematurely. Similar arguments can be made regarding the environment (clean air/water) or machinery that wears down quickly (a jointly owned dishwasher). The traditional solution involves assigning the land (or what have you) to a private owner or implementing a series of tariffs and fines i.e. a pollution tax where industry pays for the right to emit a certain amount of pollution.
Invoking the image of the tarnished common is somewhat misleading in the case of the Internet. It is fundamentally different from roads, water reservoirs and the like. The problem of looking at the Net as if it was analogous to a traditional common is that Cyberspace, unlike "real space," remains unlimited. As Mitchell points out
The property metaphor [for cyberspace] can be misleading since digital artifacts (such as application software files, text files, and digital movies and audio files) differ from tangible property like land, buildings, automobiles, and printed books in several crucial ways.
Net material can be copied easily and cheaply. It does not require a place to store the data. More importantly, any number of individuals can use a Web site simultaneously without wearing it out in any manner or preventing others from utilizing it at the same time. As Mitchell points out this removes from cyberspace the concept of scarcity, which is a necessary precondition for a "tragedy of the common" scenario. On the Web everyone can utilize the posted sources as much as (or more than) is necessary without the information becoming worthless.
In one sense, however, those concerned with the overcrowding of the Net make a valid point. Although there is enough room for an infinite amount of material on-line, there exists a danger that worthless "information" will flood the Net, making it difficult to pick through the debris and find the valuable bits. What is needed now is a method of structuring the anarchic mass of bits that is the Net. Current search engines do not go far enough in insuring that individuals will be able to find what they need. Mitchell's architecture metaphor is appropriate in this instance: what we need is some method of storing and classifying data. Another comparison likens the Net to a library. Unless the books are stored in some systematic manner, the information contained in a library is inaccessible and thus worthless. The problem that is inherent in attempting to catalog the Net is quite obvious, however. Anyone can post information at any time from anywhere in the world. There is no "librarian" or "architect" who could conceivably keep track of all the information or force individuals to place it in a certain place. Another problem with all of this is that the Net is a fluid entity. Information is constantly being added and removed, changed and relocated. Unlike books in a library or houses on a street, information on the Web is not fixed in place, making any sort of mapping an even greater headache.
As we have seen the Net is not similar to a physical resource and should not be treated as such. There is no danger of all of the cyberspace being used up. Real problems however could arise, however, if some method of dealing with all of the information is not devised. The Internet presents special problems which demand new and unique solutions. The first step to finding these solutions is understanding the true nature of this new medium.
According to the online American Heritage Dictionary, 4th edition (Houghton Mifflin, 2000), "me-di-um" is a noun with two forms in the plural -- either "me-di-a" or "me-di-ums." [Note how many opportunities and difficulties the following definitions offer:]
1. Something, such as an intermediate course of action, that occupies a position or represents a condition midway between extremes.
2. An intervening substance through which something else is transmitted or carried on.
3. An agency by which something is accomplished, conveyed, or transferred: The train was the usual medium of transportation in those days.
4. pl. media Usage Problem.
a. A means of mass communication, such as newpapers, magazines, radio, or television.
b. media (used with a sing. or pl. verb) The group of journalists and others who constitute the communications industry and profession.
5. pl. media Computer Science. An object or device, such as a disk, on which data is stored.
6. pl. mediums A person thought to have the power to communicate with the spirits of the dead or with agents of another world or dimension. Also called psychic.
7. pl. media
a. A surrounding environment in which something functions and thrives.
b. The substance in which a specific organism lives and thrives.
c. A culture medium.
8.
a. A specific kind of artistic technique or means of expression as determined by the materials used or the creative methods involved: the medium of lithography.
b. The materials used in a specific artistic technique: oils as a medium.
9. A solvent with which paint is thinned to the proper consistency.
10. Chemistry. A filtering substance, such as filter paper.
11. A size of paper, usually 18 x 23 inches or 17 1/2 x 22 inches.
Thinking back to middle school, at the peak of pubescent sexual curiosity, one of the more educational outlets to the repressed hormonal chaos permeating through the ranks of seemingly all 6th to 8th grade boys had to have been Mad-Libs. I remember vividly the wonderful textual creations of the many burgeoning writers who avidly sought to fill in the blank spaces, that asked for any noun (common or proper!), verb, adjective or adverb, with the extensive "curse-word" vocab my comrades in perverted publishing had picked up in our Catholic School Yard, during recess of course. At the time, we claimed authorship of our works with adolescent confidence; however, I have now gone on to other creative endeavors; however, in retrospect the complex combination of prefabricated sentences merged with our choice of words brings to light the following questions: Were we the authors for completing the fragments of sentences already partially constructed with our own words? Was it the author who originally composed the complete paragraph or, perhaps, was it the editor who selected which words were to be omitted? In essence, Who or What is the author?
An even more intriguing question is to ask whether or not our placing of words into the Mad-Lib was a form of writing or was it a method of active reading - a manifestation of words we already visualized or wanted to see within the context of the incomplete medium. The differentiation of writing from reading may seem academic but, with the advent of the hypertext environment, that clear-cut polarity between the writer and reader begins to degenerate. George Landow begins his chapter on Reconfiguring the Author in his book Hypertext by stating that,
...hypertext reconfigures - rewrites - the author in several obvious ways. First of all, the figure of the hypertext author approaches, even if it does not entirely merge with, that of the reader; the functions of reader and writer become more deeply entwined with each other than ever before. This transformation and near merging of roles is but the latest stage in the convergence of what had once been two very different activities... Hypertext, which creates an active, even intrusive reader, carries this convergence of activities one step closer to completion; but in so doing, it infringes upon the power of the writer, removing some of it and granting it to the reader. -- (Landow 76)
Not only is a theoretical power of access established into a text's panoply of discourses but on a greater level entrance into a national language also remains a possibility. In addition, this Foucaultian notion of language's equivalence to power is even more extant within the realm of hypertextuality because the reader simultaneously exerts a presence and asserts a personal direction through the actual decision making opportunities afforded within hypertextual literature. Whereas the sovereignty of the author within linear literature further establishes the distinction between writer and reader, the advent of hypertext does something quite different. While calling for the death of an author hypertext invites the author's reincarnation, reinvention and/or rebirth. Perhaps, it is not so much the "entwinement" of author and reader as Landow suggests, as it is the genesis of an entirely new literary entity. Through hypertext, the concept of the reader evolves into a new creation that utilizes a new type of power rather than simply infringing upon the power of the author.