User:Laurier Rochon/readingnotes/cybertext
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Espen J. Aarseth > Cybertext - Perspectives on Ergodic Literature
Define Ergodic : Of or related to certain systems that, given enough time, will eventually return to previously experienced state; Of or relating to a process in which every sequence or sample of sufficient size is equally representative of the whole.
keywords/concepts : cybernetic textuality, semiotics, linguistics, information theory, semiosis, processing, typology of symbols, textual variation, cyborg
- "By naming none I hope to include all" (completely unrelated, just sounds nice)
Intro
- Ergodic literature takes effort to traverse the text, given the extranoematic responsibilities of the reader, added to the eye movement and page turning process, which could characterize non-ergodic literature.
- "Cybertext focuses on the mechanical organization of the text"
- "A cybertext is a machine for the production of variety of expression."
- 'Traditional' linearity in a text means that there is an absence of possibility other than the direction given by the text. From a non-linear perspective (according to the author), the choices not made and the result of decisions not taken are reminded to the reader periodically. Inaccessibility != ambiguity.
- Aarseth's critics were analyzing what was being read, and he focused on what was being read FROM.
- The variable expression of a nonlinear text is often mistaken with the ambiguity of a linear text.
- In linear texts, the reader is passive. "Safe, but impotent"
- "The cybertext reader is a player, a gambler"
- The difference lies between games and narratives
- study of labyrinth - if the concept of it changes during periods, then the concept of text as a labyrinth changes with time, too.
- A footnote as an interactive feature of text : follow the path or not!
- Examples of paper-based Ergodic literature : I Ching (Book of Changes) which has inspired the binary math of computers, Calligrammes (Apollinaire), Composition No.1 (Marc Saporta)
- Examples of computer-based Ergodic works : Listen (Sharon Hopkins), Eliza (Weizenbaum), Adventure (Crowther & Woods), Tale Spin (Meehan), Hypertext (Nelson), TinyMud (Aspnes)
- Old question in a new context : What is a text?
- Author's exploration is based on narratology and rhetoric
- The distinctions that are made between printed and electronic texts are usually historical, technological and always political.
- cybertext = contains some kind of feedback loop
- Can a text never really 'reach itself'? And therefore not exist? (Fish, 1980) - will have to look into this idea.
- "Cybertext is the wide range of possible textualities seen as a typology of machines, as various kinds of literary communications systems where the functional differences among the mechanical parts play a defining role in determining the aesthetic process."
Paradigms and perspectives
- Can self-generating, self-sustaining works like Game of Life be considered a semiotic system?
- "Cybernetic signs are basically mouthpieces for their human designers and programmers"
- Andeersen's typology of symbols : permanence, transience, handling and action. The author will methodically destroy this technique of analysis based on semiotics. He is 'far from convinced' that computer-mediated communication is primarily a semiotic domain.
- Multilinear VS nonlinear VS linear VS multicursal
- What is interaction? Definitions proposed by Andersen and Lippman are obviously not suitable. Also, what does fiction mean?
- cyborg = coined in 1960s, humans + technology.
- Haraway's conception of a cyborg as a window to explore the aesthetics of ergodic communication.