e-text and non-linearity
In Nelson's description of a unique file structure, he proposes that if a system were to really help a writer it "ought to do more than retype and transpose: it should stand by him during the early periods of muddled confusion, when his ideas are scraps, fragments, phrases, and contradictory overall designs"(Nelson, 1965, p.136-137). After having written 170 pages of (what I hope someday might be) a novel, I can appreciate just how revolutionary this idea still is. Although I am not someone who "has to" write in longhand or draft on a typewriter, I do often feel that my word document can't really help me outline a chapter and I still resort to visually "doodling out" with the section/chapter space conceived as a circle. Also, this gets to the heart of something authors worry about/grieve over today-- like Zadie Smith who bemoaned that she doesn't have a single original manuscript of any of her novels, because whenever she edits she doesn't save the document as a more recent version, but revises directly, thus overiding the original version. It seems to me, though, that the "hidden" linked versions in different views/screens still doesn't pinpoint the intuitive mapping of alternate versions/paths of stories. I think this is tied to when Nelson(1965) talks about how he will outline the system in theory and not worry at present about how the file structure would actually be seen and manipulated (p. 137), when in actuality, how it is visualized is very important to the idea of navigation and conceptualization of the text. Although the maps of links for the ELF seem to present a dazzling assortment/arrangement and ability to manipulate non-linear thoughts, it is interesting to me that this is largely unrealized (at least in the creative realm) in terms of how writers actually write and arrange their drafting process, possibly due to the visual realities of hypertext/linking.
One of the interesting points I believe that Araseth raises in the beginning of his look at nonlinearity and literary theory is that nonlinear narratives can be represented fairly traditionally in linear form and that he will focus instead on nonlinearity as an arrangement rather than content-based (Araseth, 1994, p. 762). I was also very interested in the example of watching Zardoz out of sequence viewed possibly as creating a new text in the discussion of "what is text." This discussion seemed to play on the dimension of static versus dynamic texts. Also, on a side note, would lit teachers assign Agrippa and then ask to see the re-encrypted book as proof? This also might re-popularize the Greek study of memorization if all our books "un-wrote" themselves as we read. Finally, I am not sure that ultimately I buy into the idea of "nonlinear" text in that the form version seems to imply that the process of reading a nonlinearly arranged text is nonlinear in that there are possible forms that allow one to witness multiple possibilities simultaneously. However, this is not really true. Even if you get to the line: -end blog post here (close window) or -Keep reading, scroll down, you encounter the words/texton one at a time, still linearly. I am still thinking that until we can read like Tralfalmadorians (Slaughterhouse Five, Vonnegut,) where there is no time and each piece of life or a novel is encountered at exactly the same time, simultaneously, the "text" still maintains a key process of linearity in its form.
"Material Metaphors" surprised me in Hayles discussion of a novel where downloaded consciousness copies committed suicide unless able to construct material metaphors such as the CEO in the computer boardroom. It also made me think about our need for material "anchoring" when thinking about electronic literature or MSA. When Hayles spoke (also at the Watson conference) about electronic literature (see wiki) although many people were excited about the possibilities that electronic literature opened up in the lit classroom, several of the members of the audience stated that they would rather read Hayles on electronic literature than view/read the works themselves. This seemed to me to be another affirmation of privileging text/linearity similar to Araseth's discussion of nonlinear narrative versus nonlinear arrangement in that Hayles still remains to many more accessible than the original works of electronic literature. Also, somewhat more tangentially, but in terms of a previous theme throughout our 701 class, Hayles discussed briefly this idea of our being changed by the media we use in that academia is emphasizing the shift in generations from "deep attention" to "hyperattention" but in that synaptogenesis claims that we are born with the most possible synapses and that learning involves a pruning of synapses in order to adapt to an environment, that we (as academics) should instead of excoriating or fearing for the next generation start building bridges to understanding hyperattention as evolutionarily adaptive in an information intensive environment. Similarly, I wonder how this idea of synaptogenesis applies (or doesn't apply) to future students' view of materiality. I guess what I am wondering is if future generations consciousnesses would be more hypothetically comfortable with being downloaded without materiality.
Hayles article on "Translating Media" opens with a discussion of my favorite Borges story "The Don Quixote of Pierre Menard," (which you may remember from my discussion during "The Garden of Forking Paths" week). In discussing the translation of texts Hayles(2005) states that "if slight color variations [in the William Blake site specifically] affect meaning, how much more does the reader's navigation of the complex functionalities of this site affect what the texts signify?"(p. 91). Although this might seem a bit technologically deterministic again, there is a connection to Araseth's question about what constitutes a text and if one can separate the experience of a text truly from its seemingly fixed nature. Hayles' article calls for consideration of the text in not only its linguistic content form but also the "interrelations of linguistic, bibliographic and digital codes" in order to understand the transformation process (Hayles, 2005, p. 97). This she relates back to the idea of decryption versus translation where one process restores the message exactly while translation as a process never produces exactly the same message. Once connected to Borges idea that meaning existed as a potential (incompossible drafts?) and that a translation could be superior to the original in its hunt for meaning, I was interested finally in the idea of media translation posed in terms of "media adaptation" (like book--> movie adaptions). In a shift in terms there seems to be less privileging of the original and more focus on a transformation rather than a transcription, therefore, I was interested in what this might do to/for electronic literature or translation of texts to new mediums.