In order to understand the temporal relationship between the different parts and sections of the text first we must understand how the text is structured. It is is divided in three different general Parts, and each of these parts split into two separate Sections, each one dealing with either Mouth's Journey of Granville's. And each chapter is formed by short Sections. We don't have access to the next Part until we have finished reading the previous one completely. But this is the only limitation. We can read anything in any order we want from within each Part.
Once we understand the structure we can proceed with the curious timeline that this text follows. The Introduction of the text introduces the idea that time is actually non-linear, and the only reason we perceive it as a line (that is, as an event after the other) is for our limited brains to make sense of reality. The text, therefore, is non-linear to some extent. To begin with when we enter Part I we are allowed to choose between two chapters: Mouth's Journey, situated 40.000 years in the past; or Granville's story, which takes place at some point of the 21st century. At any given moment we are granted the possibility of changing between the present and the past as we see fit. And the sections that form every chapter are also non-linear. We start with the one on top of the list, and through links inside the text we are usually invited to follow several possibilities, which are not necessarily the chronological continuation of the section we are reading. Some sections don't even have a link to follow, which I take as an invitation to explore other possibilities from the section list on the left side of the screen. All together form a story which can be ordered chronoligically, but the structure of the website makes it difficult to do so, in order to enjoy the non-linearity on which this text is based. The only chronological restraint is that we cannot access Part II until we have finished Part I, and we won't be able to see Part III until we have finished reading Part II. This is understandable, because the whole story would be too big to understand in a non-linear way. The mastery of the writer is made evident here because he knows to find the balance between his purpose, that is non-linearity, and the accesibility for the readers, usually accostumed to linear texts. All in all I think this text exploits the possibilities of hypertext, and I don't think it could've been written in any other format without sacrificing its essence.
Academic year 2008/2009
© About Time (Rob Swigart/Wordcircuits)
© a.r.e.a./Dr.Vicente Forés López
© Víctor Ortuño Domínguez
vicordo@alumni.uv.es
Universitat de València Press