Cybertext: perspectives on ergodic literature
Bibliography
Aarseth, E. (1997). Cybertext: Perspectives on ergodic literature. Johns Hopkins University Press.
Notes
Notes along reading
Ergodic Literature
- ergodic points towards more effort than just eye movements and turning pages
- cybertext denotes structure, not content or genre
- long excursion on texts and labyrinths
- going into examples of ergodic lit
- databases introduced new possibilities for producing ergodic text
Go to annotation “For the first time, this breaks down concepts such as “the text itself” into two independent technological levels: the interface and the storage medium.” (Aarseth, 1997, p. 17)
- aarseth describing source code on p.11 is interesting and insightful
- mentioning of the “ergodic textual machines”
- some words of heed towards literary research on cybertexts as well as the concept of social change through new technologies
- raising the question on what is a text
- Aarseth already being fed up with academic skirmishes in 1997
Go to annotation “Isn’t the content of a text more important than these materialistic, almost ergonomic, concerns?” (Aarseth, 1997, p. 24)
- must be a sarcasto-rhetoric question, since cybertext is about structuring texts
Go to annotation “If it [a difference] exists, it must be described in functional, rather than material or historical, terms.” (Aarseth, 1997, p. 24)
- there you go
Problems in Computer Semiotics
- focus on functionality of the different texts and medias, trying to get a pluralist perspective
- reading is not just between reader and text but also includes context and world
- on the fields focus on books and ignorance of any other textual media
- Aarseth adding cybertext as a textual definition such as phenomenological, semiotic, etc
Go to annotation “[Cybertext as] as a material machine, a device capable of manipulating itself as well as the reader” (Aarseth, 1997, p. 31)
- going into the problems of computer semiotics, which seem to be ideologically influenced
- until recently, semiotics concentrated mostly on the static and linear, not bein able to encompass the dynamic and varied
- a very interesting part on complexity and autonomy (in response to Jensen differentiation of semiotics and signal processing) leading to a discussion on how a program will have results that couldn’t have been predicted by the programmer on p.27
- on the global stock market as a transgression of the semiosis-signal-processing threshold
- this longer, a bit tougher to read part, goes essentially into the problems of how meaning arises in between computational signal processing and human semiotics; is that not a bit the part that I’m also struggling with in understanding? I saw this process much more as a specific moment then an assemblage, but it would be interesting to map this out once
Go to annotation “The crucial issue here is how to view systems that feature what is known, as emergent behavior, systems that are complex structures evolving unpredictably from an initial set of simple elements.” (Aarseth, 1997, p. 36)
- on the problems of generative/emergent behaviour
- Andersen’s classification of semiotic signs: permanence, transience, handling and action; classes: interactive, actor, object, button, controller, layout, ghost
- Critique of Andersen’s classification as it is insufficient along the line of applying the system to buttons as well as it’s application on Breakout and Lemmings
Go to annotation “When the relationship between surface sign and user is all that matters, the unique dual materiality of the cybernetic sign process. is disregarded. Without an understanding of this duality, however, analyses of communicative phenomena involving cybernetic sign production become superficial and incomplete.” (Aarseth, 1997, p. 47)
- basically a call for action in 1997, and … THIS
Go to annotation “In short, the dual nature of the cybernetic sign process can be described as follows: while some signification systems, such as painted pictures and printed books, exist on only one material level (i.e., the level of paint and canvas, or of ink and paper), others exist on two or more levels, as a book being read aloud (ink-paper and voicesoundwaves) or a moving picture being projected (the film strip and the image on the silver screen). In these latter cases, the relationship between the two levels may be termed trivial, as the transformation from one level to the other (what we might call the secondary sign production) will always be, if not deterministic, then at least dominated by the material authority of the first level. In the cybernetic sign transformation, however, the relationship might be termed arbitrary, because the internal, coded level can only be fully experienced by way of the external, expressive level.” (Aarseth, 1997, p. 47)
- the in-depth explanation of the cybernetic sign process is pure gold as it is foundational to my dissertation project
Textuality, Nonlinearity, and Interactivity
- I can’t follow the part on nonlinear text, there seems to be many reference to discourse that I’m not familiar with, but I’m also not sure if it’s important at the moment for me
- discussion of nonlinear vs. multilinear; the importance of defining the poit of perspective (writter, user, the net itself, the possible courses)
- hypermedia are topologically nonlinear
- when we describe things, ie as cybertext, it is important to outline if we describe the thing or doing the thing (writing vs writings)
- interactive as a term that doesn’t mean much
Cyborg Aesthetics and the “Work in Movement”
- cyborg aesthetics!
- shout-out to Donna Haraway and her appropriation and theoretisation of the cyborg
- cyborg as play at the boundary of machine-humane
- writing as a cyborg technology
- text as a machine, symbiosis of sign, operator and medium; being of linguistic, historical and material phenomena
- cyborg fields being dominated by issues of domination and control; author, text, or reader control
A Typology of Textual Communication
- reviewing previous efforts, such as Bordewijk and can Kaam’s typology of traffic patterns: allocution, consultation, registration, and conversation
- Aarseth is interested in textual systems, less the social ones
- explaining his methodology: categorizing texts then employing correspondence analysis and pointing to possible shortcomings (which was interesting to me)
The Typology
-
text isn’t really defined and that is helping and hindering a proper analysis
-
broad definition of text: relays verbal communication, thus is depending on material medium and is not equal to the information it transmits
-
strings appearing for the ideal reader: scriptons (the reader might not read it accordingly)
-
strings existing in text: textons
-
texts consists of traversal function, the generation of scriptons from textons
-
variables
- See (Aarseth, 1997, p. 72) for summarizing table
- dynamics: amount of scriptons and textons
- determinability: if adjacent scriptos stay the same or not
- transiency: if the scriptons change by themselves or through interaction
- perspective: im/personal
- access: codex is random access, hypertext w/o search are more linear
- linking: links, conditional links, no links
- user functions: interpretative, explorative, configurative, textonic (user can add textons or traversal functions)
The Texts
- he chose 23 texts based on the variables outlined before
- then applied the correspondence analysis with the help of Analytica producing some matrices that position the works according to their variables
Go to annotation “The concept of text, always contested and problematized, is once again under reconfiguration. Should we use the same term for phenomena as diverse as Moby Dick and MUDs? Or for that matter, the I Ching and Moby Dick?” (Aarseth, 1997, p. 80)
- conclusion: reader might not be an appropriate term; they certainly must more then just read depending on the kind of text
- the avoidance of industry-provided terminology by falling back to the parameters is a nice move
Go to annotation “new media do not appear in opposition to the old but as emulators of features and functions that are already invented” (Aarseth, 1997, p. 81)
- based on anaylsis and conclusion, suggests cybertext as the term for texts which include calculation in the production of scriptons
Hypertext Aesthetics
- aesthetics as the motives that produce hypertexts and their poetics
- hypertextual reading is not equivalent with writing, at least not with the writing the author can do; the semantic units/signs have different scopes and allow for different kinds of failures (the author can chain random letters to produce unmeaningful material, but play with the signs in a much broader scope)
- hypertext doesn’t seem much different from older writing media and it is less freely in terms of tmesis
Go to annotation “We might say that hypertext punishes tmesis by controlling the text’s fragmentation and pathways and by forcing the reader to pay attention to the strategic links.” (Aarseth, 1997, p. 85)
- Go to annotation “hypertext labyrinth (what I later call an ergodic aporia)” (Aarseth, 1997, p. 86)
- talking about hypertext as a ideological and technological category, applying proper discourse analysis
- web-based hypertext as having place and regaining parts of its aura, since it cannot be reproduced fully
Paradigms of Hypertext
- I do love the inclusion of power-analysis in bits of Aarseth’ text
Go to annotation “Contrary to Nelson’s idealistic claim [computers are about human freedom], the purpose of computers is power, and hypertext is as much involved in that struggle for power as anything else.” (Aarseth, 1997, p. 89)
Go to annotation “To claim that hypertext is fulfilling “postmodern theory”-and that “postmodern theorists have been doing this (i.e., describing hypertext] without knowing it” (24)-is an attempt to colonize several rather different critical fields by replacing their empirical object or objects on the imperialist pretext that they did not really have one until now.” (Aarseth, 1997, p. 90)
- deconstructing the ideology of hypertext as the the superior text
- fiction and narrative being of different types of categories and thus, can’t be the same
- the deep reading of hypertext fiction/narrative and what’s what eludes me at times
The Sense of a Novel: Michael Joyce’s Afternoon
- interesting approach to critiquing tech vs. content
Go to annotation “Instead of asking, What have I read? the critic might become preoccupied with the question, Have I read all? and come to identify the task of interpretation as a task of territorial exploration and technological mastery.” (Aarseth, 1997, p. 94)
- reverse engineering hypertext structures
Go to annotation “As one of the programers behind Storyspace, Afternoon’s hypertext system, Bolter is in an excellent position to demystify the text. Afternoon is certainly mapable; it can be loaded into the full version of Storyspace and its links studied there in detail.” (Aarseth, 1997, p. 95)
- pondering on the term interactive fiction
The Rhetoric of Hyperliteralture: Aporia and Epiphany
- on hypertext mechanisms and what they affect; from aporia to epiphany
The Poetics of Conflict: Ergodics versus Narration
- skipped this part; exhaustive discussion of Afternoon
Some graphics of interest
The textual machine
Go to annotation
(Aarseth, 1997, p. 28)
Andersen’s classification of computer-based signs
Go to annotation
(Aarseth, 1997, p. 40)
Hypertext versus cybertext.