Jeffrey Johnson and Maurizio Oliva

Internet Textuality: Toward Interactive Multilinear Narrative


  1. Reading hypertext criticism one inevitably comes across the names of Barthes, Derrida, and references to postmodern criticism. Among these discussions of decenteredness, death of the author, disposability of art, etc., we find Lyotard's and Simon's notion of the "currency" of information in particular appropriate to narratives on the Internet. One passes from one node-page to another pushing away the ladder as one follows paths. At every stage decisions are made using the information gathered, but because of the quantity of information there is no accumulation (Lyotard). Lyotard says that the relationship of the suppliers and users of knowledge to the knowledge that they supply and use assumes the form of the relationship of commodity producers and consumers to the commodities. Therefore knowledge is a medium of exchange. Simon's definition of the economy of information is the following:
     What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes
    the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a
    poverty of attention, and a need to allocate that attention efficiently
    among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it.
    (Simon 37)  
  2. The further the reader proceeds, the wider the "tree" expands, and the larger the amount of information, creating cognitive overhead. Information is "spent" in the process of moving from one node-page to another. The counterpart of cognitive overhead from the point of view of the writer is the exponential growth of the published material that derives from the fact that at each node-page the paths multiply. Related to this characteristic of node-pages is the fact that Internet texts do not have (at least, potentially) beginnings and endings but entrances and exits. The hierarchical notions embodied in beginnings and endings are done away with by texts in the new medium and each node- page must have the seeds of beginning and ending.

  3. The interactive nature of the Internet brings about the possibility for authorial collaboration on a text. This possibility creates at least two theoretical problems. First, how do you maintain coherence? And when can a text be considered a text? One possible answer to the coherence problem is a framework. We see at least four examples of such a structure operative on the Internet. First the text can be structured through the work of editors or reviewers. The editors or reviewers channel and control the submissions to the text and thus, give shape and coherence to it. Secondly, the author defines a timeframe. The timeframe could consist of elements, such as, a personal life, or during a certain historical period, etc. Such structuring would to a large degree mold the text through adherence to historical realities. Thirdly, the text can be controlled through defining characters, that is that the foundational characters already authored into the text to a degree control the general trajectory of the narrative. Fourthly, the text can be controlled by giving a spatial distribution. This puts similar constraints on textual production as characters and particularly a timeframe.

  4. Intimately related to the need to find ways to exercise controls for coherence, and questions of hierarchy in beginnings and endings, there is the greater question of authorship. The greatest breakdown of hierarchy that Internet texts bring about is the breakdown of traditional authorship. The Internet text is "readerly" beyond Barthes' notion of readerly. In addition to the rather simple matter of collaborative authorship, we see the presence of a plurality of figures that may contribute in different measure to the creative process. There is the author, the creator(s) of the text. Then, there is the originator. The originators or initiators of the text are persons who have infused the text to a variable extent with their ideas and directions. There are the editors, those who control publishability. There is the webmaster. And finally there is the administrator. The administrators are the persons responsible for the well functioning of a hardware/software on-line server. These are not different identities. They can be unified in one individual or be distributed among many. Or they can be functions carried out by shifting responsibilities between individuals of the group over time. The identity of each individual involved in the creative process becomes less and less distinct over time through the process.

  5. On these premises let us imagine that four contemporary writers decide to write a collaborative novel on the Internet. Each of them will write web pages and insert links to the others work. But none of them will insert links to any other Internet resource outside the collective work. Their framework will be a certain city. Many authors/editors/administrators/masters/originators will want to reference their work, and this will create a very large number of entrances. A very large number of readers will be interested in their work and will reach their work through these entrances. Thus generating millions of accesses to their pages. These node-pages will be developed on intratextual references only, and will not have any intertextual reference, which means no exit to the outside. The readers will browse in this internal universe till they exhaust their need to follow the information thread. This phenomenon of attraction and containment of the process of acquisition of the information can be defined as a "cognitive black hole."

    Figure 1.

  6. Additionally, the breakdown of authorship along with some of the characteristics of digital media described above, introduces the need for a redefinition of the concept and legislation on intellectual property (Davis). The most important aspect is the fact that there is a possibility for innumerable copies of each digital work and each copy will be virtually equal to the original. This is digital repudiation of the statement made by Andy Warhol's "Marylin Monroe poster" in which the image of Marylin reproduces itself, but always with variations.

  7. The above are some of the theoretical implications deriving from the characteristics of the new medium. A number of critics dealing with the new medium have acknowledged the continuation of various multilinear characteristics from traditional print or other media. The authors mentioned in this regard include Calvino and Borges. Keep gives a list of what he calls the non-linear[1] tradition in fiction (Keep 1995c). However, scant attention has been given to the narratological characteristics that carry over from one medium to another. Gunnar Liestøl uses Gerard Genette's terminology to demonstrate the continuity within narrative structures through various media (print, film, and hypertext). Rather than summarize Liestøl's excellent discussion which applies Genette, we include one thought provoking quotation indicating one aspect of the distinctiveness of hypertext:
     The screen occupies a third position, between the three
    dimensions of space and the one dimension of time.  The screen and what it
    presents is a manifestation of the present, between past and future. 
    Therefore the movement from space to time and the reduction from three
    dimensions to one, both halt at the position of the screen and its
    flatland of two dimensions.  Obviously the design and composition of
    elements on the screen are of central importance to any critical study of
    hypermedia texts (Liestøl; 105).  
  8. Liestøl attempts to open a discussion of what is inherent to the medium here. These are the often mentioned characteristics of multimedia and multilinearity. As for multilinearity, unless the author puts controls on the Internet text that are not inherent to it, the type of narrative sequencing inherent in other media does not apply to the new textuality, even though analogies have been attempted in print. The text, as it exists on the Internet, presents us with a narrative that is not subordinated by the syntagmatic axis. The lack of subordination of the paradigmatic axis renders notions of "wholes" extremely problematical. What we have is the sequencing of fragments in an infinite variety of juxtapositions in multimedia presentation. As Liestøl implies in his discussion of Wittgenstein, such a narrative line approximates thought, or perhaps more appropriately dreams. As such, in terms of its narrative genealogy, it has some relation to Joyce's stream-of-consciousness, and the surrealist use of dreams. As a direct result of this characteristic, our discussion of texts below, or any discussion of these texts, is derived from a limited engagement with texts that are potentially limitless.

    Figure 2.

  9. It is important to note here that the value of a text does not only depend upon technical skills in using the medium. On the contrary, the on-line texts are experimental, exploring the new medium, certain texts exploring certain aspects. The on-line texts will define the new code of expression in the new media. We are but witnesses to an unfolding medium. The novel is said to be the unfinished genre of print media and as such has not reached its potential; such an observation applies much more to the Internet text.

    Technologies and the Shaping of Narrative

  10. The new medium, as we are defining it, is part of the digital media that came about with the computer. It has some particular characteristics that derive from the technology employed. It is electronic, flexible, easily altered, inexpensive, transferable, and can be used by many users simultaneously. It is replicable in innumerable originals (Samuelson). In the last two or three years tremendous advancement in the technology of interpersonal communication has brought about three important factors that shape the new medium. The first is that the new medium is Internet distributed. The Internet is global, diffused all over the world and allows the sharing of resources (Matrix). It is ubiquitous (Anderson) and in its development is headed toward universal access. It is interactive, allows the individual to communicate two ways with other individuals or with groups, through various types of servers. The Internet is fast, both in synchronous and asynchronous communication. It is economical and gives to the individual a power of communication that is unprecedented. Finally, despite the fact that it was born in the U.S., the Internet is increasingly multilingual and multicultural.

  11. The convergence of communications technologies, the economic laws that make the interface adapt to skills, needs, and expectations of the users, together with the law of the market which requires products to reach every possible user, point to the fact that to operate the Internet will become as easy to use as it is now to operate the TV with a remote. The second factor is the multimedia nature of the new medium. It has the capability to carry sound, written text, and images. The third factor, and probably the one that has attracted the most theoretical interest, is its hypertext structure. The hypertext structure determines a multilinear path of distribution of the information, which frees the reader from a predetermined sequence (Landow), and has been perfectly synthesized in the World Wide Web interface by the point and click action, the essential operation in order to navigate it.

  12. The Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (http) was originally created at the end of the eighties by the CERN in Switzerland (Hughes). It was developed as a public domain utility by the university research community all over the world. The WWW allowed to emulate the http protocol and then all the most important Internet protocols. Http embodies all the factors that we have described above and has become the user friendly interface to all Internet resources. NetscapeTM is a commercial software that implements the WWW. It has been freely distributed, so far, and it has been estimated that 75% of Internet users employ Netscape. This has become de facto a standard for the Internet WWW. It appears that the medium is still far from its maturity. To publish information in the new medium requires a number of skills and a high degree of them. We recognize at least five skills: knowledge of the subject matter; knowledge of the hyper-text markup language (html); the ability to manipulate multimedia digital objects; the ability to write scripts in different languages, such as CGI, VRML, Java; the ability to run a server. To read the information often requires the overcoming of obstacles in the technical set up, such as, software and hardware capabilities of the readers system, and speed and type of connection. There are two main types of connection: dedicated line and phone line. The speed of delivery of the information may be effected by (a) the speed of the server in which the information originates, (b) the speed of the connection at the point of origin, (c) the traffic at the time of connection, (d) the speed of connection at the destination, and (e) speed of the client machine. The speed as defined above is the main determinant of the readability/accessibility of the information carried by the new medium.

  13. The new medium has become a new code of expression. Textuality on the Web can never be completed. Our concept of fiction refers to the mechanical aspect of the support, paper, ink, book, and the sense of finiteness, intrinsic to the materiality of its support. The Web is articulated in pages that do not have a standard length, they can be entered or exited at any point. The reader, each one of the infinite possible readers, controls the entrance (the beginning in print media) and the exit (the ending).

    Figure 3.

  14. Each node-page must contain the seeds of a potential beginning and a potential end, raising the question: is there a given narrative order? One must answer with a qualified no. The "author" can still direct the reader with multiple signs, forcing the entrance through a home page, or take for example, the genre of tree fiction which has one (or a few) entrance(s), but numerous exits. The distribution potential on the Internet is what distinguishes texts we consider here from the previous hypertext discussions, such as the following.
     Hypertext provides for multiple authorship, a blurring
    of the author and reader functions, multiple reading paths, and extended
    works with diffuse boundaries.  With the inclusion of sound, graphics,
    video, and other media as nodes, hypertext expands the world available to
    the writer (Keep 1995b).  
  15. The greater the degree to which a text on the Internet makes use of the potential that exists there, the more fully it distinguishes net textuality from print and other media. One of the potentials of the new media is that of the redefinition of the author-reader/artist- viewer relationship. The new author is often an administrator in a collaborative authorship with limited input into the direction and possibly the originality of the text. The new reader is a user with read-write privileges in the interactive environment. So part of the redefinition of the new author-reader relationship falls under the rubric of "interactivity." There are any number of texts on the Internet to examine in this regard. Another area of potential is the genre of "tree fiction," mentioned above, which implies one (or limited) entrance and many exits. Sometimes this multiplicity is a result of interactivity in authoring, sometimes it is the result of numerous reading paths. An additional area of potential of the Internet text is that of "hypermediality." Hypermediality exploits the net's potential to be visual and verbal, use static and dynamic images, and, oral and written language.

    A Preliminary Discussion of Texts on the Internet

  16. Of course a given text on the Internet does not necessarily use the potential of the medium. Some exploit hyperlinking but not the multimedia potential. Others exploit imaging, but not links, etc. Some demonstrate enormous potential but lose the viewer/listener due to a lack of technical sophistication. And there are texts on the net that do not differ at all from print matter. The following is an examination of a number of texts and their particular uses of the potential of hypertext on the Internet.

    Delirium

    (cooper)

  17. Delirium is a traditional story on the WWW, that is, this text is basically a print- media-conceived text which is launched on the Web. It announces itself by asking the viewer to resize the window, a command which displays a high degree of authorial control, and as such imposes limits on the medium. The entrance-page map is a rather simple visual. Links take one to close-ups of the places of action of the episodes of the story. This is very limited use of imaging. The paragraph groupings are sequenced, direct the reader "to next in strand," and the text is divided into chapters. It makes no use of intertextual or intratextual links and enforces linearity. "Copyright" appears at the bottom of nearly every page which is an unnecessary intrusion. The "Delirium Bulletin Board" is the author's concession to interactivity. In short, the enforced linearity, the limited imaging, the general lack of linking, and the tightly channeled interactivity render this a very traditional text. It does not address the new code of expression integrating multimedia hypertextuality.

    Hegirascope

    (Moulthrop)

  18. Hegirascope opens with multiple pathways. One of the options is "begin," which, of course, demonstrates an extremely high degree of authorial control. Once one clicks on "begin" the text is launched through a linear path determined by a mechanism with progressive screen redrawing using the Netscapeª "refresh" command. The reader can click on links in the margins to redirect the narrative to other lateral node-pages that are also progressively redrawn. Interactivity is limited to the reader's clicking to redirect the text. The feature of screen redrawing is made part of the syntax of this text and the most imaginative aspect of it. The path of the text creates a circular structure that in some cases forms closed loops. In its multiple pathways and use of progressive redrawing this text explores the medium. The circularity of the text's paths impose inherent limits, although this is clearly an attempt to surpass limits on print. While the reader can redirect the narrative line, this imposes a limit, at least in variety, on the reader's activity.

    The Confessional

    (Joelle)

  19. The Confessional is a highly interactive text that solicits writing. It is entered through an Image map. The Image map is divided into geometric shapes containing visages. All of them are female. They are links to node-pages that do not give an Uniform Resource Locator (URL) -- therefore the paths are controlled, and one cannot understand -- visually -- the direction that one is taking. The paths lead to images with captions that solicit responses. Here one enters the highly interactive sphere of this text. The reader is solicited to contribute to the text by answering questions specific to each page, thus becoming an author. The reader can input answers using a form and the answers will be automatically posted by the server in real time. The questions may be triggered by the display of dynamic images. Dynamic images are in Quicktimeª format; some are very large and may require an extended delivery time, between 30 minutes and an hour. The user can also go through this process once and then use the cache function to view the text in a more fluent fashion. The use of images as node-pages and the interactivity, particularly interactive writing, are the strengths of this text and its creative use of the medium.

    No Dead Trees

    (Francis)

  20. No Dead Trees extensively exploits the tree metaphor: in its "tree" structuring pointing to infinite growth; through the pun in the title which locates the text as a genre piece, and simultaneously indicates that it is not print media consuming trees (Rees). The text is incomplete and open to contributions. The linking play with story trajectory, plot branching, and potential endlessness is the strength of this text. Yet, its limitation is the tree metaphor itself. The metaphor allows only limited links to node-pages for entrance, not fully exploiting the medium's capabilities of multiple entrances or indistinguishability between entrance and exit. The entrance is based on a limited number of characters. The "worlds" portion is a link which only leads to characters. The characters are node-pages that are linked to both intratextual episodes and characters, and some are linked to intertextual spaces. There is a principle of guidance operating, in that the characters are subdivided: Character.1, Character.2, etc. The "lower trunk space" of the tree/text has a background patterning which contains no information, no links -- it is just decorative. The "main character branches" or main text is plain background with no decor. The images in the text sometimes link, and sometimes merely blow up. Perhaps the greatest testament that tree fiction does not fully exploit the medium is the fact the Cortazar's Hopscotch is print media. With Cortazar and others such as Calvino and Borges the technique has been conceived and executed in print (Keep 1995c). So, already from within print media the limited number of solutions for traditional endings in fiction was being challenged and subject to play. Multilinearity, then, does not depart significantly from what can be accomplished on the printed page. Yet, in this medium, the play with infinity and incompletion, the request that readers submit and expand the branches of the fiction as writers is indeed a unique use of one aspect of the medium's potential. The reader can contribute to the narrative by creating a new character and submitting it to the editors. There is a basic rule that the contributor either writes about existing characters or when creating a new character have this character interact with at least two existing characters. In this way the narrative is structured around characters. However, the structure is open. In its attempt to maintain openness, its incompleteness, its interactivity through writing, and use of multimedia No Dead Trees is exemplary in exploring the medium.

    Click Me

    (Clarage)

  21. Click Me, which the author refers to as a "ride," displays an image of a head, a torso, and a buttocks interimposed on the letters:
    
    			C
    			L
    			I
    			C
    we shall call these letter-image links. The "k" is a slightly distorted "boot" -- an image substitution for a letter -- which appears below c-l-i-c. And finally the word "me" appears. All letter-images are links to node-pages. Below the letter-image links (c-l-i-c), the image link (boot-k), and the word link (me) are the word- links "head," "heart," "glute," "boot," and "me" which directly correspond to and lead to the same path as the letter-image links. Their organization on the page emphasizes the paradigmatic organization potentiated by Internet textuality. Then below all this, there is a link to "My Graphic Interpretation of the Communications Decency Act of 1996." So in fact, the entrances are limited, but number seven. The following paragraphs describe some of the characteristics of the major node-pages. "Head." Through the link of letter-C-head image one enters a text which shows the head of a woman, reproduced many times, asking in a written text, "Why do you do/what you do/when you do/the net thing?" The words come up by progressive screen redrawing. This page of the text is entitled "dada Net Circus" and is linked to another page which alludes to information overload. On this page the woman now says: "mmm snorting information/we must visualize this." This image moves to a screen with a photograph in the center surrounded by yin/yang symbols interposed with binaries (1-0). The photo is of members of the Yanamamo tribe ingesting ebena. The combination of "the net thing," binaries, yin/yang, and ebena ingestion creates a metaphor for information as a drug. The linked sequence creates a visual pun: the computer, electronic information is the drug, the path, Tao. "Heart." The letter-L-torso link leads to the words "Cerebum Flatus" where automatic refreshing brings about an audio of Mozart's Faustus. This node-page is linked to Faustus 1, Faustus 2, Faustus 3, and Faustus 4. Faustus 2 displays a "typewritten" poem with a "hand written" image background. The hand-written image repeats the words "exhilarating moment." This too is accompanied with sound. Faustus 3 again repeats a word-image: "soul." This image too is accompanied by a poem and an audio. These images of writing replicate the probable origin of writing. Writing probably moved from image, cave painting, to abstraction, hieroglyph, character, or letter, to something immaterial, the beats on a computer keyboard (Bolter 1973). Faustus 3 takes the beats on a computer keyboard back to being an image, an image of writing. "Glute." Upon entrance to glute one sees nine image paths: one is an image of writing, and eight are anthropomorphic images of body fragments. One path makes use of fat-fitness humor. The only dead end path we found in the text happened to be here, in the glute. "Boot." In the image-letter boot-K a "Rock-o rides again" -- rock being a word image -- greets the viewer here. This image links to a tale in 23 chapters. Chapter 2 is entitled "In the back door of SinCity 24-hour rental joint" which is a satirically encoded tale. The verse/tale is an extended metaphor of intercourse as a 4-track tape insertion, and takes aim at censorship of the Internet. The link is to an electronic confession booth where there is an opportunity to interact through writing. "Me." Me contains "autobiographical" information. Of the texts we examined Click Me is by far the most experimental and exploratory with the new medium. It contains multiple references to the net-world, which is closed, sometimes solipsistic, often self-referential, and inherent in self-referentiality, ironic. Click Me is highly intratextual, extensively exploiting links. It is multimedia based, and contains various types of interactivity. The shortcoming is the lack of writing required by the reader, but there is some possibility for writing too. As the text defines itself in the "Me" section: "Netsam, flotsam, and jetsam" it contains odds and ends, vagrants and tramps, and the unreliable author/narrator indeed takes us for an ironic, irreverent ride.

    WAXweb

    (Blair)

  22. WAXweb is a hypermedia rendition of David Blair's film WAX or the discovery of television among the bees. It was the application that gave origin to the development of WWW-based viewing and authoring tools geared toward Computer Supported Collaborative Work (CSCW), an environment where users can write, annotate, and explore hypermedia documents simultaneously and in real time. This is in fact a leap forward in WWW technology destined to open interesting possibilities not only in literature but also in other realms, such as telecommuting, groupware, and electronic democracy. The example of WAXweb was followed by similar initiatives such as Lotus notesª and NetscapeTM. WAXweb may have been the first work on the Internet to use graphics as an autonomous code of expression. It is an extensively reviewed text which has drawn high praise. The main response we had was in the area of technical sophistication. The text may well be groundbreaking, but the time spent waiting kills the experience. We await an upgrading of the system of delivery.

    Conclusion

  23. The Internet has provided hypertext with a forum for its unfolding, its development. The Internet has also structured the new medium. Because it has broken the closed circle of the text residing on one single machine. This has rendered the text without beginning and ending. The Internet also means immediate distribution and a flowing identity of the individual text. The texts critiqued above participate in the definition of the new code of expression. However, as has been stated above, any discussion of these texts is derived from a limited engagement with texts that are potentially limitless. Internet texts which engage the potential in the media are unbounded in their multilinearity and of a profound complexity due to being multimedia. We find that the narratives using the potential inherent in the medium are narratives not subordinated by the syntagmatic axis; the paradigmatic axis all but eclipses notions of "wholeness" and replaces the whole with sequencing of fragments in an infinite variety of juxtapositions. Such a textual presentation most closely approximates the thought process and/or dreams in human experience. Among many areas of further exploration and thought on this new medium, we await further investigation into what Liestøl has formulated as an exploration of the "position of prominence of the screen" in the theoretical probing of Internet textuality.

Notes

  1. Landow suggests the term multilinear instead of non-linear.

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Jeffrey and Maurizio