Re: Creative Hypertext discussion
Eva Nicole Siegel (ens2k@uva.pcmail.virginia.edu)
Wed, 21 Feb 96 20:35:16 EST
I have to agree that originally at least, the boundless works of hypertext
were very upsetting to me. It's frightening to think that we have virtually
an unlimited number of hours of reading before class (if we were to travel
every blue anchor--every bit of the hypertext). Now, however, I enjoy the
endless anchors and blue text in most of our readings--I don't feel as if I
have to read 35 pages for class. In fact, I feel encouraged to travel
anywhere my blue anchors wish to take me, or rather, anywhere I wish to click
and travel. I think that eventually readers in the hypertext world will have
to give up all notions of following a thought through. Perhaps we are
embarking on a completly new way of ordering our thoughts; i.e. wholly
non-linear. I liked it when Ed Falco said that he had a hard time with never
finishing the original article he started out reading. That is the problem
with hypertext if we force ourselves to compare it to the written world. You
probably won't ever finish that first article, but on the other hand, you
will most likely have spent a few hours tapping into huge quantities of
information that you never even knew you had acess to. For example: I spent
at least an hour in Virtual Valhalla, which I connected to from some blue
text in some article we had to read for Friday. Not only did I learn a lot
about Celtic music, I learned that I actually am interested in that topic.
Maybe we should ask ourselves if it really is important to finish one
thought--one article--one author?
On a completly different note, I enjoyed Multhrop's Victory Garden, but I
encountered/noticed something rather odd; one of the buttons would emit nodes
that were nearly void of links. I don't know if we already spoke about this
in class, but I found this work to be user friendly in many ways. The story
bits connected in a coherent fashion, but the icons at the bottom of the page
would do your thinking for you. When I got tired of making decisions about
where to click, I hit the <more> picture, and nodes almost void of links
began to appear. So in response to James' email (?) about the pictures at
the bottom of the page, I actually found them helpful, and not a hindrance.
For someone wary of hypertext, I think they are a very valuable addition.