Hypertext Design
Thomas Peter Lukas (tpl4q@fermi.clas.Virginia.EDU)
Wed, 21 Feb 1996 21:54:36 -0500 (EST)
I'd liie like to start offf with the question posed by _A
Manifesto for Hypertext Authors_ that is, How will the
hypertext change the experience of literature.? Michael Joyce
i gives us two possibilities--that is--exploratory" hypertexts
distinguishes clearly between the author and the reader, yet
"constructive" hypertext allows the reader to make changes to
the text. In the case of the latter, it seems that our
experience of literature could indeed change. The boundry
between author and reaxcder reader becomes blurred, with the
reader empowered to maek choices and changes. In Joyces ideal
for constructive hypertext, the MUD, we see that at times these
choices thrust unforseen experiences upon readers who react in
ways which seem unusual, at best, for a reader--case in point,
the "wizard" who filled the Moo with kudzu.
Stuart Mouthrop discusses the newness of hypertext, and its
impact on readers in his passage about the idea of "throwness"
which Heiddegar termed as the impact of surprise upon the
individual which cuauses her to react out of experience or
instinct, as opposed to values and concepts. This, Mouthrop
tells, us, is the metaphor for hypertext, especially hypertext
fichtions. In fact, Mouthrop makes his point that several
popular hypertext works use the trope of the car collision as a
means of embodying the idea of hypertext itself, and the
experience of hypertext upon the reader.For Moulthrop, the
fast-paced milieu of electronic text brings the reader (and
sometimes reader/writer) to Heidagar's state of "thrownness".
Such intellectual brinksmanship carries the reader/writer of
hypertext swiftly along corridors of thought/reaction, placing
the reader always already at the center of the action,. That
action is something like machine intelligence, Mouthrop writes,
wherethe virtual intelligence of the machine meets its
limitations--like the computer psychotherapist that
misunderstood suicide--and we have achieved "breakdown."
Breakdown is another of Heideggars principles which basically
says that a hammer isn't truly a hammer until it breaks off in
your hand--until then its utility , and thus its definition,
are not fully realized. MOuthrop suggests that the images of
breakdown (as car crash), and the superhighway(indicative of
the fast-paced information milieu), and collision are
significant of our state of "thrownness" into a new
medium--that is, hypertext--where the purposes of expression
are often misunderstood as purposes of artificial
intelligence. But sometimes it seems as though a hypertext is
intelligence, because it can fiddle with out sense of
"thrownness" and in effect, appear as an intelligence in and of
itself.
Tom Lukas