I was going to write more about some of the topics mentioned in today’s lecture, at least write my notes out a bit.. But I don’t have time at the moment, so I’ll just copy paste straight into here and try to do more on it later.
Concept of the idea hypertext very new; 60 years old.
Vannanar Bush’s MEMEX. Electronic archive. Different text with a censor that controls and shows. Being able to navigate between two text.
We think in a hypertextual fashion. Not linear, we jump all over the place. Pushes ideas that got an internet engineer, ted nelson to. Non Sequential writing. Docuverse. What the internet would be. The xanadu? Orson Welles Citizen Cane. Constantly anxious, unfinished, incomplete, as the internet.
No interest in technology, he likes literature and literary theory, professor of art history and English literature. Landow embraced hypertext. Not from technology background but area is the Victorian era. Looking at internet from an historical viewpoint. Comes at it at different perspective: antrophilogical, sociological, psychological etc. Assumes that the reader understand
What is hypertext doing to text?
Rosetta stone. Anchient Egypt. 2100 years old. Found 1799. Crucially important. Displayed three texts. Egyptian hieroglyphics, Demotic (anchient greek, Egyptian), and then anchient Greek.
This document allowed people to understant hieroglyphs.
Some kind of hypertext, translate button. Carved in rock, so linear.
600 years ago, a bible. Printed. Gutenberg 100 years after. Books were printed by munks, copying bibles. Didn’t know how to read, but copied it from what it looked like. Nature of text: ink was a certain recipe. Higher priest would check the bible, if there were three mistaked in the bible (a missing dot, etc) the whole bible were thrown away. As a monk you might copy one bible in your life. Text has authority and weight. Hypertext dramatically different. Text always been static. Stabelising of truth. If its on paper, it is true. All history written down, memory is lost.
hypertext: whole history of philosophy is at state because it is changing the language. Authority is different in those texts. Landow approaches with post-structualistic view.
Structualism era around the 50’ 60’ of thinking that human culture could be understood by the means of structure. Technical structure. Unconscious structures like a language. Life hinged on Grand Narratives. The way world is structured. History goes in a single line.
Post-structualist: Roland Barthes. Rejects the idea that a text has a single meaning, history is written by the winners. A million other stories that were not told. Every different reader creates his own history from it. Multiple perspectives, points of view.
Jacks Davida, Roland Barthes. Rejecting traditional notions of interpreting the world by text. Wanted to look at the world in different perspective.
birth of the reader. Thoughts of reading, how you interpret it, the reader makes the meaning, is part of “writing it”. Readers personal background, politics, etc plays in. Death of the authors, Shift in the narrative by being told by authorities, its just as important what happens in the head of the reader. He takes an active role.
Hypertext: Barthes idea come to life. What happens? Text are open, not closed.
Opens up inside, can go anywhere else. No longer specific books, any book on internet are part of a gigantic book called the internet. Implication of this is that it is no borders. Pages intersperse. Changes the way we think.
Intertextuality is an idea of the way text influences each other. Simpson, passing reference to other popular culture.
Family Guy, South Park.
Destroys hierarchy, it is all mixed up. Mess of possibilities, a party of meanings. Another implication is that it brings in the marginal. Anyone can be linked to a main text. A whole lot of bloggers talking about it and linking to it. Different voices, marginal voices are just as present as academic. Hypertext in other words, the centre is what each of us makes it. Multi linear fasit to it. We make our own path to it, like in the world. The way we live our life. Choises.
Hypertextual notion interpretet in different way. www.theyrule.net
Allows you to find different things and investigate? Chubby directors are linked to other boards. Purpose: shows how connected the world is. Not single linear narrative, the world works in a hypertextual way. Visualise how you are connected; tied together through strings. FIND ART FROM HUGH. Analoge art map. Visual, analog form of social networking.
Interlinking part of our nature now. Google crates hyperlinks for you.
Military version of internet; they developed the first one, it wasn’t safe enough so they gave it to us, created a new one. Person behind it, downloaded a whole load of files called it lady gaga. Sent it to Julian Assange. Took it to the press, couldn’t handle it only by himself. All donated some reporters, but still to much. Got a computer technician, structure it.
The trick was to use unusual, but off the wall. Put in batman gave two results? Was no hyperlink, but they created it. Bringing in different voices. Landows article still up to date, still relevant. They become part of our life. We take hyperlink for granted. What is it? What is it doing to the way we experience work? What about the munks? The authorities of text. What is the context of your hypertext essay? What can you link to it, what is it about, what does it mean?
Ok, this doesn’t make ANY sense for anyone but me.. To bad.
