Introduction

‘What is a hypertext?’

Hypertext is text which is not constrained to be linear. This text contain links to other texts. The term was coined by Ted Nelson

around 1965.

HyperMedia is a term used for hypertext which is not constrained to be text: it can include graphics, video and sounds, for example. Apparently Ted Nelson was the first to use this term too. Hypertext and HyperMedia are concepts, not products. Here you are different definitions:

From Wikipedia :

Hypertext most often refers to text on a computer that will lead the user to other, related information on demand. Hypertext represents a relatively recent innovation to user interfaces, which overcomes some of the limitations of written text. Rather than remaining static like traditional text, hypertext makes possible a dynamic organization of information through links and connections (called hyperlinks). Hypertext can be designed to perform various tasks; for instance when a user "clicks" on it or "hovers" over it, a bubble with a word definition may appear, a web page on a related subject may load, a video clip may run, or an application may open.

From © http://cyberartsweb.org/cpace/ht/htov.html :

Hypertext is a system for marking up documents with informational tags that indicate how text in the documents should be presented and how the documents are linked together. With Hypertext, lies the power to create a multi-platform and multimedia application. It is easy to use, because it is not a programming language, and the writer/author does not have to be a programmer in order to make one.

Hypertext systems are emerging as a new class of complex information management systems. These systems allow people to create, annotate, link together, and share information from a variety of media such as text, graphics, audio, video, animation, and programs. Hypertext systems provide a non-sequential and entirely new method of accessing information unlike traditional information systems which are primarily sequential in nature.

Unlike book, hypertext is a non-linear text. This gives readers many choices of reading materials to choose and read. Different readers can follow different paths through the work; readers can choose among all the links that the authors provided those associations most relevant to their immediate needs.

In the early days of hypertext, links only contained textual data. Now, it can contain various kinds of data, such as graphics, audio, video, animated images, or other kinds of information. The Hypertext with multimedia is called hypermedia.

‘Kabbalah Kabul: Sending Emanations to the Aliens’

Sonya Rapoport gave a presentation to her hypertext in Paris in March 2003 at a SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Workshop entitled ENCODING ALTRUISM: The Art and Science of Interstellar Message Composition.

The reading of ‘Kabbalah Kabul’ of Sonia Rapoport begins with the Choice that the reader has to make between ‘Hi Bandwidth’, ‘Hi Slideshow’, ‘Lo Bandwidth’ and ‘Lo Slideshow’. When you get into ‘Hi Bandwidth’ you are in front of many options between which you have to choose. On the Leith of the screen we find an outline with the main points– Initial will, wisdom, understanding, love, Strength, beauty, endurance, splendor, foundation and Kingdom -that, according to what we choose, it will guide us to other options on the right of the screen. This options are presented as icons with the shape of the body parts ( lungs, kidney, mouth …). Depending on the main point of the Left we choose, the icons of the right we have to get in will brighten up and we’ll be able to access.

If we get back to the index page, and despite choosing ‘Hi Bandwidth’ we try with ‘Hi Slideshow’ the content of the hypertext will be the same, some screens divided by the main points within which, depending on the parts of the body we choose, we will be able to read a text and see some photographs. But, the form will be different because we could see it as a powerpoint presentation and its reading will be easier: we only need to click on ‘next’ or ‘back’ when we had seen the sections inside each part.

Why did I choose this hypertext?

There are many reasons why I chose this hypertext which it is not inside the recommended hypertext for the second paper, but the main was making a research on a Sonya Rapoport’s work. The research on a hypertext was complicated because I wasn’t familiarized with any hypertext and it was too time-consuming having to read all of them before deciding which one I wanted to analyse as a hypertext requires a lot of time. So I decided, first of all, to make a research of the different hypertext authors. About Sonya Rapoport I found very interesting information and it was decisive to choose her as the author I wanted to write about. At the beginning the fact that she had lots of hypertexts and a own web page attracted my attention. There’s a great variety, you can find hypertext such as ‘Make me a jewish Man’ or ‘Brutal Myths’, which have already chosen by other classmates. However, I felt curiosity in ‘Kabbalah Kabul’ as I Found it a deeply elaborated work whose topic was unconventional. I haven’t heard before about the theme so I decided to look for it. I was surprised about the author interest in this kind of topics. The more I found, the more I wanted to know and I found some articles about Sonya Rapoport’s interest in the concept ‘communicating altruisms to extra-terrestrials’.

On the other hand, there were many interviews to the author, such as the one realised by Anna Couey on the Interactive Art Conference on Arts Wire (June 1995): A conversation with Sony Rapoport. Moreover, Sonya Rapoport can be found in many entries such as book reviews. For this reason, I consider very interesting to highlight the review he did to the book of the artist ‘Paul McCarthy’. And in this same page we can fin a small biografía about her.

To sum up, Sonya Rapoport appears in other hyperfiction authors’ web pages, for example, Judy Malloy, where I could check the strange person Sonya Rapoport is, so she’s an artist in all the senses and she felt in this way since she was a girl. There are many interesting commentaries like: ‘I never felt I was a woman; I knew I was an artist.’

She’s an artist within a world that since today, it was unknown for me. She has been working for many years making interactive installations and websites. Her chapter in the book "Processing(ing) Interactive Art:

Using People as Paint, Computer as Brush, and Installation Site as Canvas" details how her work uses people's responses to queries in an installation

environment -- in works such as Digital Mudra and Biorhytmn. Now she is expanding interactive concepts of communication to outer space, what seemed to me deeply interesting and atypical.

Second Paper

Main Page

Academic Year 2008/2009
Ó a.r.e.a./Dr. Vicente Forés López
Ó Paula Vázquez Valero
pauvazva@alumni.uv.es
Universitat de València Pres