This page contains materials intended
to facilitate class discussion (excerpts from readings,
outlines of issues, links to resources, etc.). The
materials are not necessarily the same as the instructor's
teaching notes and are not designed to represent
a full exposition or argument. This page is subject
to revision as the instructor finalizes preparation.
(Last revised
1/30/02
)
clarity of reference ("eerie Kodak
clarity") balanced against allusive
obscurity ("allusion" = indirect
reference)
Inside the cover
he inscribed something in soft graphite
Now lost
Then his name
W.F. Gibson Jr.
and something, comma,
1924
. . . . . . . . . .
"Arthur on Dixie",
likewise 1919,
rather ill at
ease.
On the roof behind the barn, behind
him,
can be made out this cryptic mark:
H.V.J.M.[?]
"Papa's Mill 1919", my grandfather most
regal amid a wrack of
cut lumber,
might as easily be the record
of some later demolition, and
His cotton sleeves are rolled
to but not past the elbow,
striped, with a white neckband
for the attachment of a collar.
Behind him stands a cone of sawdust
some thirty feet in height.
(How that feels to tumble down,
or smells when it is wet)
What does Gibson mean that "the mechanism"
is that which is "Forever / Dividing
that from this"?
The passage means one thing when applied
to the camera and photo album of Section
1
But it means something slightly different
when applied to how we read Section
2, where the "new media" consciousness
of the poem begins to show (digitization,
modularity, variability, like re-compositing
the pixels or re-ordering Photoshop
layers)
Non-linear "jumping" or "linking"
of Section 2 (e.g., ll. 105 ff.)
A new kind of clarity vs. obscurity, reference
vs. allusion premised on lack of connected
context (cf., Manovich on "modularity")
An updated "translation" of
the beginning of Section 2:
Original:
The mechanism:
stamped black tin,
Leatherette over cardboard, bits
of boxwood,
A lens
The shutter falls
Forever
Dividing that from this.
Translation:
The mechanism:
injection-molded plastic,
Circuits on chipboard, bits of silicon,
A screen
The mouse clicks
Forever
Linking that to this.
The Process of Reading
Falco's Self-Portrait as Child with Father:
Your initial reactions to the work.
Reading of the first lexia (selfportrait.html):
clarity yet obscurity of the links to the next
lexias
The "meaning" of the work.
Overview of Hypertext and
Hypertext Literature
Basic definition of hypertext: "lexia"
and "link": George Landow, pp. 99, 100
[in Trend]
"Hypertext" was one of the first deployments
of the "new media" (digitization, modularity,
variability).
Practical level: from "Gopher"
(U. Minnesota) to "WWW" (Tim Berners-Lee;
NCSA
and Mosaic browser)
Conceptual level: hypertext theory
and literature:
WW II, Transition
from Modernism to "Postmodernism"
Counterculture,
Poststructuralism, Personal Computer
Beginning
of Hypertext Theory & Practice
WWW
Bush, Borges
Barthes,
Derrida, Foucault, Deleuze & Guattari
Ted
Nelson
Michael
Joyce
Jay Bolter
George Landow
J. Yellowlees Douglas
Stuart Moulthrop Storyspace Eastgate
Inc.
M.
D. Coverley
The rationalist bias toward "clarity"
in early hypertext theory:
Vannevar Bush, pp. 10-11 [in Trend]
George Landow, pp. 104
Ed Falco's Critical, Reflective
Use of Hypertext
"Self-Portrait as Child with Father"
is a work of identity ("self-portrait")
that purchases stunning clarity in its narrative
vignettes at the cost of equally stunning obscurity.
A work that says that "new media" is
not either more clear or more obscure, but clear
and obscure in different ways that can be exploited
to map out what is important to people.
"I find hypertext to be closer
to poetry. Since hypertext allows the
reader to determine the sequence of
words, traditional notions of narrative
are impossible; as is any conventional
sense of closure. Hypertext is interactive.
In a very real sense, readers become
writers, because they determine the
structure of the reading experience:
they decide where to start, what sequence
of words to follow, and where to stop.
Really, this is unlike any kind of traditional
poetry or fiction, but it is closer
to poetry in that the reader has greater
responsibility for constructing the
completed work and construing its meaning.
A story with a beginning, a middle,
and an end, is, on the surface at least,
a simpler thing—and something hypertext
can never be."
Olia Lialina's Critical, Reflective
Use of Hypertext/ Hypermedia
1970