However, the other sites, such as Moulthrop's "Hegirascope" and Conway's
"Girl Birth Water Death" integrate Bernstein's ideas of independence,
persistence, and intentionality into their fictions. Not that these ideas
exist as the end all descriptors of good art, but these factors in fact
magnify the hypertext, almost telescope it into something larger than
itself. As a process, hypertext constantly reminds the wreader (the
integration of reader and writer) of itself, there exists a
self-consciousness solely in its dependence on consciousness/activity.
But, when we get absorbed by a text, (I don't know about you, but I have
to actually be interested in the text otherwise I'll become intensely
engaged by the smallest periphial distraction-thank you tv god) there
exists an inherent oneness, where all else is tuned out. Bernstein's
factors are the usual necessities employed when trying to engage a reader:
hint at meaning but don't destroy the mystery. As much as I hate the
saying, "make your reader care about the story," it's important that the
reader care enough to finish the first sentence. So, for example what
engaged me about Moulthrop's "Hegirascope" is the use of paricular
colors to denote certain characters, and in "Girl Birth Water Death" the
limited character/element choice between the four hypertexts brought about
an awareness of the dependence on the symbols within it, and in "Love
One" how I almost nostagically returned to the same 4 stanzas over and
over (especially the first). And its not that I'm a lover of continuity
and sense and circularity, because I'm really not at all, its just that
these authors chose to work in subtle levels of the hypertext itself in
order to reveal a bigger meaning in the fiction. These works are not all
just seeminly random nodes where the reader is obligated to assume more
authorial control than he/she wants to.
The factors of persistence, independence, and intentionality slyly work
themselves out via the reader, to the point where the importance of
"hyper" is reticent in comparison to the "text". I'm assuming we can
suspend our disbelief in hypertext as well as we can in novels and movies
and better than we do through sculpture and paintings. But it's difficult
to rid the sensation of self-conscious participation, and get "swept away"
by a hypertext as easily as a novel, but if Bernstein's ideas are well
incorporated, perhaps the "hyper" itself will be a telescopic means of
immersing the reader in its text. What I mean is that, like the fiction
readings for this week exemplify, its important that an author really
utilize the hypertext to expand on text in ways we've never before, which
are accessable and will help the reader better penetrate the work.
Bernstein said, "I propose hypertext rich in character". Hypertext should
magnify, revealing new qualities of fiction itself -but while disclosing
some mysteries, more will crop up to replace the missing ones. And while
it magnifies or telescopes (no difference) the hypertext could blend into
the scenery. The hypertext could be camoflauged into the background of the
fiction which would be full of content and character, causing the method
of linking nodes to function as well as the rest of the landscape, without
calling attention to itself, it being a bush or shrubbery like any other
in the forest of the fiction. (silly metaphor).
whew.
I attribute the length (and/or repetitiveness) of this letter to large
quantities of caffiene.
thank you. -alison.
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