Talan Memmott’s piece Self Portrait(s) [as Other(s)] speaks toward a multiplicity of texts which combine and recombine, both informing each new artist and changing the previous one. Not only are portraits of the artists a collage of all the other artists’ portraits, the perspectives, tones, styles, and sizes are all jumbled together, making the reader very aware of the composition. When the illusion of reality is destroyed, the picture is flattened. The same thing happens in the text as well. Repeated phrases and anecdotes are transplanted over time and space, flattening the depth of the text, making no mistake over the “truth” of the biography’s reality. Although the flattening of the painting is a very modern idea, the flattening of the text is a postmodern one, where multiple texts form an intertwining reality where it is not a matter of picking which one is true, since they are all on equal footing. Unless a reader is intimately familiar with these painters, the initial stories sound reasonable and entertaining. However, as the reader progresses through these texts, the overlapping of these lives becomes obvious, forcing a revision of the preceding texts in the light of this new information. This could be construed as a reflexive information loop, where the base information changes as it is filtered through the reader and back to the texts. Binary code could considered a way to flatten signifiers since binary is based in the fact that there is one signifier for every signified: 0=no, 1=yes.
The piece is designed to show how previous texts inform latter texts, and vice versa. The title of the piece places emphasis on the author/reader relationship, highlighting the “Other” as a symbiotic intertwining of the two. Memmott’s composition of these artists changes how was see them, pointing toward the larger idea of how each artist has changed the others as well. The format plays into this fact, by having the reader participate in the time-space release of information. A reader can skip artists or skip some of the text if one so wishes, which will invariably change the reading of the piece. However, the piece is also designed to begin with a different artist each time it is loaded, with (I assume) a random algorithm for which artist comes after the next. This creates all kinds of readings based on the interaction of the piece.
Although this piece favors the interconnectivity of all “texts”, there are a lot of “texts” not represented. We are given a time frame of 1746-1954, but the artists are all Western cannon painters. Painters, necessarily because of they deal in self-portraits the most, but a simple feminist reading of this piece would have to point to lack of women and non-western artists. Although there were considerably fewer female artists during this time, the piece’s flattening, an equalizing effect, would be a perfect opportunity to include the marginalized as having an equal ground as “texts” that inform all other texts. Obviously an all-inclusive writing of the piece would be impossible since there are infinite texts, which is why Memmott narrows it down in time and medium. However, even within these frames and infinite amount of texts are left out, something which must be done if the piece is going to be made.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Hypertext's slow, painful death
In a fit of hypertextual, post-human ecstasy—churned up in the maelstrom of the new fictional frontiers where for writers and critics entire new genres can be created, transcended, and deemed passé in a single piece of work—it is easy to appropriate language from older technologies and older criticism and slap it onto the new. After all, the life span of new technologies are being shortened in what seems to be a logarithmically descending scale, where markets don’t have time to become saturated before the product is supplanted.
For artists working in these technologies, there is hardly enough time to learn the parameters of a new program—let alone test them to their limits—before the cutting edge is past them. (Alan Sondheim’s digital pictures and video’s attempt to stretch the coding boundaries of a program {and he seemed quite proud of this fact, as if it were something that isn’t also done by every elementary school student playing around with Microsoft Paint or cheat modes in Wolfenstein 3D.}) The result of this leap-frogging through the new frontier is the fact that terminology can become sloppy, and like a hypertext itself, the criticism can dissolve into endless paths of nano-definitions and semantic arguments. Espen Aarseth attempts to inclusively define the new digital literature as ergodic literature, an all-encompassing term that is then broken down into subcategories. (Ergodic: of or pertaining to the condition that, in an interval of sufficient duration, a system will return to states that are closely similar to previous ones.)
However, as any group attempting to hold a digital literature contest finds out, these sub-categories can whittle down to a singular genre for a singular piece (appropriate in a digital coding where one sign has one signifier). But what is considered a digital poem? A film with words? A sound bite using digital recording? Because the definitions of these new genres are so hard to pinpoint, they are too often glossed over, more for ease of argument than anything else since any essay could drown in endless defining of these new terms.
Considering hypertexts, Aarseth addresses one specific terminology which I find very important. Linearity is one of the main issues involving hypertexts, and it is often off-the-cuff-ly(?) described as non-linear as opposed to a linear progression of a novel, a byproduct of its materiality. Although hypertexts are aware of their materiality and disrupt the normative progress of a narrative, that does not make the text non-linear. Multilinear might be a more appropriate terms here, because, as Aarseth argues, it deals in topography instead of tropological (Cybertext, 45). He goes on to argue that the nodal sequence of the text is still interconnected, just in a different graphic plane than, say, a novel.
Of course, hypertext could be considered passé even now. One no longer needs to be a hacker/artist to create a hypertext fiction as there is Storyspace, a program designed specifically for hypertext, and in fact Shelly Jackson used this program for Patchwork Girl and My Body, and used it in a straightforward manner (Adrienne Eisen’s Six Sex Scenes is even more bland format-wise. It doesn’t even have pictures). Because hypertexts are kind of a one-trick pony, the writing becomes foregrounded, carrying the majority of importance of the piece (as opposed to the technical revelations). And because the writing necessarily has to be aware of its materiality, fragmented, personal stories, compiled through fragmented memories emerge—everywhere. I am not saying that all hypertext is written in this manner, but it sure seems a lot of it is. The material seems to insist upon it, as author cannot ignore the multilinearity of the format and has to justify it in the project of the piece. It seems like there are a limited number of ways to do that fictionally, and fragmented memories, fragmented bodies seems to be a popular one. Unlike a program like Adobe Photoshop, where even the programmers do not know the endless permutations of what it can do, hypertexts, by the clinical definition of them, are rather limited. Newer technologies for creating texts have come after Storyspace, and unlike the technology of the book, there is very little room for adaptation to changing times. Instead, the whole program is replaced with something, just like the tape cassette was wiped out with the invention of the more convenient technology of the CD. That analogy might be slightly fallacious, as hypertexts are still extant, and will probably be around as long as there are a type of computer interface in which it can be read. However, who knows how long that will last?
For artists working in these technologies, there is hardly enough time to learn the parameters of a new program—let alone test them to their limits—before the cutting edge is past them. (Alan Sondheim’s digital pictures and video’s attempt to stretch the coding boundaries of a program {and he seemed quite proud of this fact, as if it were something that isn’t also done by every elementary school student playing around with Microsoft Paint or cheat modes in Wolfenstein 3D.}) The result of this leap-frogging through the new frontier is the fact that terminology can become sloppy, and like a hypertext itself, the criticism can dissolve into endless paths of nano-definitions and semantic arguments. Espen Aarseth attempts to inclusively define the new digital literature as ergodic literature, an all-encompassing term that is then broken down into subcategories. (Ergodic: of or pertaining to the condition that, in an interval of sufficient duration, a system will return to states that are closely similar to previous ones.)
However, as any group attempting to hold a digital literature contest finds out, these sub-categories can whittle down to a singular genre for a singular piece (appropriate in a digital coding where one sign has one signifier). But what is considered a digital poem? A film with words? A sound bite using digital recording? Because the definitions of these new genres are so hard to pinpoint, they are too often glossed over, more for ease of argument than anything else since any essay could drown in endless defining of these new terms.
Considering hypertexts, Aarseth addresses one specific terminology which I find very important. Linearity is one of the main issues involving hypertexts, and it is often off-the-cuff-ly(?) described as non-linear as opposed to a linear progression of a novel, a byproduct of its materiality. Although hypertexts are aware of their materiality and disrupt the normative progress of a narrative, that does not make the text non-linear. Multilinear might be a more appropriate terms here, because, as Aarseth argues, it deals in topography instead of tropological (Cybertext, 45). He goes on to argue that the nodal sequence of the text is still interconnected, just in a different graphic plane than, say, a novel.
Of course, hypertext could be considered passé even now. One no longer needs to be a hacker/artist to create a hypertext fiction as there is Storyspace, a program designed specifically for hypertext, and in fact Shelly Jackson used this program for Patchwork Girl and My Body, and used it in a straightforward manner (Adrienne Eisen’s Six Sex Scenes is even more bland format-wise. It doesn’t even have pictures). Because hypertexts are kind of a one-trick pony, the writing becomes foregrounded, carrying the majority of importance of the piece (as opposed to the technical revelations). And because the writing necessarily has to be aware of its materiality, fragmented, personal stories, compiled through fragmented memories emerge—everywhere. I am not saying that all hypertext is written in this manner, but it sure seems a lot of it is. The material seems to insist upon it, as author cannot ignore the multilinearity of the format and has to justify it in the project of the piece. It seems like there are a limited number of ways to do that fictionally, and fragmented memories, fragmented bodies seems to be a popular one. Unlike a program like Adobe Photoshop, where even the programmers do not know the endless permutations of what it can do, hypertexts, by the clinical definition of them, are rather limited. Newer technologies for creating texts have come after Storyspace, and unlike the technology of the book, there is very little room for adaptation to changing times. Instead, the whole program is replaced with something, just like the tape cassette was wiped out with the invention of the more convenient technology of the CD. That analogy might be slightly fallacious, as hypertexts are still extant, and will probably be around as long as there are a type of computer interface in which it can be read. However, who knows how long that will last?
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