I’ve sent the video to Kathie, but here are the Works Cited. I thought the content would be too small to read in a video. Thanks for a fun class, everybody. Diane
Works Cited from Class Readings
Deleuze, Gilles & Guattari, Felix. “Introduction: Rhizome.” From A Thousand Plateaus. 1980. Retrieved May 14, 2009 .
Jenkins, Henry. Convergence Culture. New York: NYU Press. 2006.
Manovich, Lev. The Language of New Media. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. 2002.
Manovich, Lev. “Generation Flash.” In Chun, Wendy & Keenan, Thomas (Eds.), New Media, Old Media. New York: Routledge. 2006. pp. 209-218.
Other Works Cited
“Amanda Palmer Made $19K In 10 Hours On Twitter.” Hypebot.com. Retrieved 1 Aug 2009. <http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2009/06/amanda-palmer.html>.
Brodie, Josh. “Music Industry in Trouble, Execs Say.” The Daily Princetonian. Retrieved 1 Aug 2009. <http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2003/12/04/9281/>.
Dankosky, John, host. “The Music Industry’s New Groove.” Where We Live. Aired: 06/30/2009. Retrieved 1 Aug 2009. <http://www.cpbn.org/node/14136>.
“Fans Heart Jill Sobule.” Studio 360. Aired 22 May 2009. Retrieved 1 Aug 2009. http://www.studio360.org/episodes/2009/05/22/segments/132505.
“Hard Hats On.” Blog Entry for 10 October 2007.Radiohead Official Website. Retrieved 1 Aug 2009. <http://www.radiohead.com/deadairspace/index.php?a=294>.
Lefsetz, Bob. “More ‘In Rainbows.’” Lefsetz Letter: First in Musical Analysis. 8 Dec. 2007. Retrieved 9 Dec. 2007. <http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/index.php/archives/2007/12/08/more-in-rainbows/>.
- – - . “Stunting.” Lefsetz Letter: First in Musical Analysis. 27 Oct. 2007. Retrieved 9 Dec. 2007. <http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/index.php/archives/2007/10/27/stunting/>.
King, Michael. “How an Indie Musician can make $19,000 in 10 hours using Twitter.” Berklee Music Blogs. Retrieved 1 Aug 2009. <http://mikeking.berkleemusicblogs.com/2009/06/23/how-an-indie-musician-can-make-19000-in-10-hours-using-twitter/>.
Kusek, Dave and Gerd Leonard. The Future of Music. Boston: Berklee Press. 2005.
- – - . “Dave Kusek of Berklee College of Music on His Book, “The Future of Music.’” Artists House Music. Retrieved 1 Aug 2009. <http://www.artistshousemusic.org/videos/dave+kusek+of+berklee+college+of+music+on+his+book+the+future+of+music>.
Marshall, Mark. Getting It Out of My Head… A Blog. Retrieved 1 Aug 2009. <http;//markmarshall.com/blog/?p=93>.
Pandora.com. Retrieved 1 Aug 2009. <http://www.pandora.com>.
Pinder, Mike. Official Website. Retrieved 1 Aug 2009. <http://www.mikepinder.com>.
Quan, Denise. “Sponsor Jill Sobule’s Album, Get a Spot on It.” CNN.com. Retrieved 1 Aug 2009. <http://www.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/Music/03/24/jill.sobule.album/index.html>.
Sweney, Mark. “Sunday Times in Davies CD deal.” Guardian.co.uk. Retrieved 1 Aug 2009. <http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2007/oct/12/pressandpublishing1>.
TuneCore.com. Retrieved 1 Aug 2009. <http://www.tunecore.com>.
Walkley, PT. “Mr. Macy Wakes Alone.” PT Walkley Official Website. Retrieved 1 Aug 2009. <http://www.ptwalkley.com>.
Images Used
Britt, Matt. “Partial Map of the Internet.” Wikipedia.org. Original upload: December 1, 2006. Retrieved 1 Aug 2009. <http://www.wikipedia.org>.
Clipart.Com. <http://www.clipart.com>.
The Stock Exchange. <http://www.sxc.hu>.
Tumino, Andrea. “The San Diego Comic-Con 2008.” NeuBlack.com. Posted 23 July, 2008. Retrieved 1 Aug 2009. <http://www.neublack.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/comic-con-1.jpg>.
Xinhua/Gu Xinrong, photo. “CD retailer Virgin Megastores closing all U.S. locations.” Mo Hong’e, ed. China View.cn. Retrieved 1 Aug 2009. <news.xinhuanet.com/…/30/content_11099741.htm>.
“Color blindness is a symptom of racism. Rather than see and acknowledge racial difference, we would rather not see at all…Thus, remaining blind to the effects of the sight of race in a racist culture is a symptom of racism.” (Oliver 166) Philosopher Kelly Oliver articulated a major defect in the neo-liberal ideology of a utopian, post-racist, post-sexist, non-discriminatory Internet. In the early nineteen nineties as the massification of the Internet began to take shape, many saw this medium, in its assumed anonymity, as a means of ushering in a new era of equality and universality. However, the assumption that marginalized groups would chose to conceal their identities behind the mask of the interface was an elitist admission of perceived superiority of the power groups involved in the commercialization of the Internet. Conversely, as the popularity of the Internet grew and as the medium evolved from predominately textual to visual, users began creating cyber identities to showcase education, gender, nationality, race, religion, sexual orientation, and a plethora of other distinctive traits.
In Digitizing Race, Visual Cultures of the Internet, Lisa Nakamura examines the process of what she calls digital racial formation and the ways in which visual capital is created, consumed, and circulated on the Internet (15). Extracting a definition of visual capitalism from Lisa Parks who describes it as “a system of social differentiation based on users’/viewers’ relative access to technologies of global media,” Nakamura welcomes the language of an ongoing process of differentiation in access as opposed to a “haves and have nots” view of technological access (Parks 284). The book serves as an exploration into a variety of visual cultures in unique and presumably uncharted alcoves.
In the very detailed, thirty-five page introduction of Digitizing Race, Nakamura gives a short history of the evolution of the Internet from 1995 when Netscape Navigator made it a widely popular medium. Respectfully nodding to Mirzoeff, Haraway, Bolter and Grusin, Manovich, Jenkins, and other contributors to today’s new media, she provides readers with a working knowledge base of the origins of the current and popular uses of the Internet before weaving it into a discussion of what she considers to be a powerful and important piece of work in studying gendered and racialized bodies on the Internet, the Jennifer Lopez video “If You Had My Love.” Arguing that this video required a new analysis of media than had been previously necessitated, Nakamura sees this piece, which depicts Lopez dancing, singing, and interacting with a variety of viewers from within a website interface, as a major factor in audiences accepting interfaces as more than framing devices but viewing apparatuses. She argues that interfaces inform all media, and as new media continues to emerge and evolve, we are continuing to witness new power differentials in visual capital (29). Nakamura’s introduction then moves into a brief synopsis of the content and goals of each of the five chapters in the text.
Chapter one of the book, “Ramadan Is Almoast Here!” The Visual Culture of AIM Buddies, Race, Gender, and Nation on the Internet, comprehensively explores the creation of identity through chat avatars. Nakamura discusses how these avatars open this type of identification on the Internet to a group that was previously underrepresented in the use of avatars: young girls and people of color. Delving into the world of instant messaging as a form of popular communication, she challenges the new media canon to look at these simplistic chat avatars as valid instruments in the creation of identity that are worthy of critical exploration. Furthermore, she discusses how “amateur” websites circumvent the software companies that create IM in order to form a larger variety of edgy, expressive identifying icons. These websites add to the gift economy of the Internet while allowing users to feel a sense of empowerment through the perception that they are taking more ownership in the creation of identity instead of accepting the identities imposed upon them by mega companies. Nakamura concedes that these chat avatars are ‘tacky,’ low-quality images that rest outside of the caliber of digital art, virtual reality applications, websites, and games, but she asserts that they could provide valuable information about identity construction in this medium.
In chapter two, Nakamura uses the website www.alllooksame.com to study the visual culture of online racial profiling. She selects this website, created by a self-proclaimed diverse bunch, as a means analyzing how people of color, specifically Asian Americans, create and examine their own identities and how others who are not Asian perceive them.
Chapter three is a study of social optics and race, how colors and images consciously and subconsciously affect our perceptions of race. Nakamura further examines interface designs in The Matrix and Minority Report and how these interfaces contribute to constructions or perpetuations of racial bias. Chapter four examines color and images in a totally different way, the creation of avatars to depict pregnant women. This particular chapter explores the divergence from the “traditional” bodies of scantily clad, female gaming figures and other women associated with Internet cultures and the ownership that women take over their identities in this unique way.
The last chapter of Digitizing Race focuses on the power relationships at work in the digital visual field. Nakamura challenges the older discourse of the “digital divide” while looking closely at subject/object relations, choices in production and consumption on the Internet, and how these structures of power continuously shift, evolve, and morph.
Digitizing Race opens an important dialogue on the topics of identity, race relations, structures of power, and commerce on the Internet. Although the book attempts to tackle an expansive, interesting, and relatively uncharted realm of discourse in new media and race, it seems as if she is trying to cover far too much in some areas while being extremely narrow in others. Nakamura spends much time in the text making sure to pay homage to what she calls the “new media canon,” but in doing so, it at times feels as if she’s forcing concepts like Bolter’s and Grusin’s remediation and Manovich’s modularity into her discussion. At times it seems as if she is attempting to shore up her credibility by referring to these new media pioneers, but in doing so, I believe she loses the strength of some of her arguments. Furthermore, much of her discussion of race is linked way too narrowly to the experience of Asian Americans. I think her premises would be well served if she would take a more comprehensive look at race in the medium of the Internet.
Perhaps, because this book was published in 2008, this book may have arrived a bit prematurely. While it is important to look at identity construction in this relatively novel way, so much has happened in the realm of race, identity, and new media over the past two years that would have created a far more interesting dynamic in the breaching of this topic. On the whole, this book is a good start, but I believe that Nakamura could have taken a far more compelling look at race on the Internet via the employment of more provocative angles and instruments in this exciting and widely diverse communicative form.
References
Nakamura, Lisa. Digitizing Race: Visual Cultures of the Internet. Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press, 2008.
Oliver, Kelly. Witnessing: Beyond Recognition. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
Press, 2001.
Parks, Lisa. “Satellite and Cyber Visualites: Analyzing ‘Digital Earth.’” In The Visual
Culture Reader, ed. Nicholas Mirzoeff, 279-92. New York: Routledge, 2002.
How we became Post-Human: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics
Katherine Hayles (1999)
Written in a somewhat linear format, Hayles uses a very linear interpretation of other works through history to present her audience with a perspective that views technology as a utility to man over its intended replacement. As a historical narrative, the text discusses how technology has evolved during the twentieth century and builds an interesting case against Moravec, and his works that suggest that the evolution of technology and the creation of a “post-human” society presented harmful or threatening implications for those in the modern day. As the book unfolds, Hayles describes three periods that have brought us to the post-human state. These periods include the Macy Conferences, cybernetics (reflexivity), and virtuality and could be viewed as developmental, reflexive, and modern/current respectively.
An Out of Body Experience
In the first section of the book, Hayles details how technology began to take information out of the traditional view of the “body.” Explained in historical example and interpretation, she assists in a cognitive understanding of how simple technologies such as the photograph have depended on written forms as a means of preserving the integrity of an artifact and how early attempts at “simplifying” a process were inhibited by the shortcomings of societies newest inventions. While Hayles did not heavily criticize the early post-human environment, she did identify some of the issues associated with relying on forms of artificial intelligence.
Observing/Observer
Hayles addresses the aspect of cybernetics and reflexivity through her discussion of the idea of the observer as a human system that could otherwise be observed. In short, the idea that what we do not see never happened seems to be the central point of reflexivity. Additionally, if the artificial form (cyber form) is capable of observing, it is capable of employing self-organizing skills to rapidly adapt to the environment. In theory, this would support the idea that technology could begin to mimic human behaviors. While her discussion on this area is with a point, the degree of clarity on this theoretical perspective is somewhat clouded.
As a general reaction, it is interesting that Hayles, having authored her text I excess of 15 years ago, could so accurately interpret the manner in which technology has impacted society. Indeed, the theory that technology could take on a conscious of its own and threaten its creator isn’t something that we’ve seen thus far. Instead, the technologies we’ve embraced facilitate
an increased productivity that, while it may challenge the need for some human capital, has not taken the rogue position critics of the 90’s may have predicted. Hayles compares this to Searle’s Chinese room when explaining that technology only makes the environment smarter, while the technology itself still depends on the human.
Modern Realities of Cybernetics
If the technology truly had a “conscious,” it would be able to react and compete against the human with some form of empathy. Indeed, the bio-psychological aspect was missing when Hayles attempted to explain it, and is still missing today. Even in the most modern forms (Wii, virtual pet, etc,), the technological being is capable of employing sophisticated computations to gauge human condition (i.e. did you lose weight, are you feeling tired, etc), but it cannot act without a pre-programmed reaction.
In a second view of cybernetics and reflexivity, Hayles uses Dick’s Schizoid Woman and the Dark-Haired Girl as an example of how artificial intelligence might assume human characteristics and attempt to present itself as human. In such a scenario, this artificial intelligence does take on a competitive form to humans when the intelligence is marketed or sold to others as an original. In more modern media, film seems to have presented this concept in Multiplicity and the field of genetic engineering was quick to follow with a living clone of the sheep Dolly. On a larger scale, it seems possible that the concept of cybernetics has advanced beyond anything Hayles imagined through such applications as Facebook & MySpace, and with the use of modern graphic and video editing tools. With the text removed from its body, a new problem of authenticity of information and the increased capacity of the observer seems to present itself to a global audience.
The Post-Human Experience
The final section of Hayles text attempts to address the impact of virtuality on the post-human society. Here Hayles discusses the challenges artificial intelligence face even in an advancing society. While technology may advance, the ability for non-human forms to understand schemas seems to be central to the plausibility of what could be considered a cyborg- driven takeover of the world. Hayles’ discussion of the potential for a post-human existence is less prescriptive and more rhetorical. In this situation, Hayles seems to be presenting a problem that has been a problem for centuries. While technologies such as public transit, and modern medicine have facilitated higher rates of population, advanced forms of communication could discourage an importance on cross-cultural literacy and the written form. In this sense, Hayles’ question of what will come of society in an increasingly mechanical environment seems genuine.
Overall, this text provided an engaging read into the evolution of technology and the emergence of the “post-human.” Dispelling a rather disturbing opening that painted mental images of a technology so advanced that the human conscious would eventually move into a digital form that would be accessible to many, and thereby venerable to a loss of individuality, Hayle’s collective evidence encourages the “post-human” to approach a digital future with less skepticism. Given this observation, this text was not without any weakness. It seems that her commitment to dispelling the extreme view that technology would take on a mind of its own without a body shifted from a criticism to a form of soft endorsement for its use in the future. Such a position leaves the reader with a broad definition of what probably would not happen and a hint of what the future might look at. Finally, while easy to read, there are times when the flow of material resembles several separate essays or articles that could have been intended to stand alone. Thus, there were points when I wondered whether all of Hayles’ argument was ever intended for the text it was presented as. In this sense, Hayle seems to have demonstrated that all text has not lost its body.
Neal Stephenson’s In the beginning…was the command line is a meditation on the absurdities of monetized models of computer operating systems. Although he is best known for his dense and operatic science fiction novels (Snow Crash [2000], Cryptonomicon [2002], Anathem [2008]) central characters in these works are cyber punks, hackers, and cryptographers descended from his work doing coding: that is, they are deeply engaged in the inner workings of computer culture that are at the core of Stephenson’s extended essay. This work was written in 1999 and remains freely available online.
In this non-fiction piece, Stephenson frames a discussion of computer interfaces by likening them to vehicles. Windows is a repair-prone “station wagon,” or SUV, Macs are “sleek Euro-styled sedans,” the all but forgotten BeOS is a “batmobile,” and Linux is likened to “M1 tanks” (1999, p. 6-7). He uses the automobile metaphor in part because it reminds him of when he first worked with computers, as a late 1970s high-schooler in Ames, Iowa. Back in the day, the father of one of his friends drove an MGB. Even though it was unreliable, when it was running, the driver felt like he was king of the Road.
In a similar fashion, Stephenson had to complete a series of carefully planned steps using Rube Goldberg-like contraptions to complete his computer programming class assignments. When it worked, it was exhilarating. He contrasts this history with the more modern “Graphical User Interfaces, or GUIs” (1999, p. 14) while repeatedly reminding the reader that what we see on our screens as interfaces are still, fundamentally, translations of the same ones and zeroes. Once a programmer knows how to code, s/he will simplify and automate the most common actions, thus making operating systems
“inevitable. Because, at its heart an operating system is nothing more than a library containing the most commonly used code, written once (and hopefully written well), and then made available to every coder who needs it” (1999, p. 35)
He says that the danger to both Apple and Microsoft is that consumers will recognize this, realizing that the GUI is like the Wizard of Oz’s curtain. Accordingly, Apple is continually striving to produce elegant boxes, while Microsoft adds bells and whistles to their operating systems. Both are aiming to make the consumer’s experience transparent as Bolter and Grusin define it: “the computer interface fades into the experiential background and the analogy on which the software is based…is foregrounded” (1999, p. 32).
Stephenson delves deeply into interface culture (1999, p. 46-60), a term he borrows from Stephen Johnson’s book of the same name. (See Palmer’s July 10, 2009 review elsewhere on this page.) To get at the idea of mediation he talks about Disney’s success at convincing tourists to visit their recreated Main Street USA instead of touring America’s back roads, and discouraging readership by rarely mentioning the authors of earlier films or by appropriating “themes and characters in folk tales” (1999, p. 51).
“It’s easy to find the whole [Disney World] environment a little creepy, because something is missing: the translation of all the content into clear explicit written words. … It seems as if a hell of a lot might be being glossed over, as if Disney World might be putting one over on us. … And this is precisely the same as what is lost in the translation from the command line interface to the GUI. Disney and Apple/Macintosh are in the same business: short-circuiting laborious, explicit verbal communication with expensively designed interfaces “(1999, p. 52).
Derisive as this is, Stephenson admits that “we are way too busy, nowadays, to comprehend everything in detail. And it’s better to comprehend it dimly, through an interface, than not at all” (1999, p. 59).
Baudrillard’s Requiem for the media was written before Stephenson was learning how to program a computer. However, a bit of his discussion and notes about the accessibility of mass media allude to the same idea. To wit, Baudrillard observes that the “liberatory” aspect of media is dependent on who is in control and using it (1972, p. 280). In an explanatory note (1972, p. 288) he elucidates that as long as “institutions…are still in the grip of capital” (as Apple and Microsoft are), “their form is rarely questioned” by the consumer or public.
Once Stephenson points out that the GUI has an intermediary function, and that the dominant computer corporations are monetizing what it at heart a code that can be learned (or hacked), his writing turns to extolling the merits of Linux, which he describes as “one of many…implementations of the abstract, Platonic ideal called Unix” (1999, p. 79). He concedes that “Unix is hard to learn,” (Stephenson, 1999, p. 88) to praise the elegance and comparative transparency of the freely-shared Linux operating system with its dynamic community of coders who openly and gladly distribute their work, fix bugs, and add requested functionality.
While an average user might not understand how Unix works, Stephenson perceives it as an “organic,” biological structure, rather than a rigidly configured architecture (1999, p. 89). This is a good thing because it allows a Linux user to customize his or her operating environment, rather than having to accept a one size fits all corporate product. Stephenson’s ideas here parallel Deleuze and Guattari (1980), who likewise use a living model that is embedded within a material and ideological world to explain their ideas. Speaking of language use, they say, “semiotic chains of every nature are connected to very diverse modes of coding (biological, political, economic, etc.) that bring into play not only different regimes of signs, but also states of things of differing status” (p. 7). That is, they link communication to a socio-political context. Perhaps this further explains Stephenson’s automotive analogy for computing systems: Some cannot afford Apple’s style mobile; others hop onto the popular and widely dispersed Windows band wagon, while the intelligentsia go with Linux.
Using Linux takes Stephenson “right back to that small room at Ames High School where I first wrote code twenty-five years ago, except that tty is quieter and faster than a teletype, and capable of running vastly superior software” (1999, p. 119). He admits, however, that using Linux has caused him enough head-scratching “geek fatigue” to fill “three and a half notebooks” (1999, p. 126), so Stephenson turned his attentions towards the BeOS, which had “the great idea…to start from a clean sheet of paper and design an OS the right way” (1999, p. 135). Unfortunately, as he predicted, the BeOS was doomed not because of any flaws, but because the market was already saturated with so many devices requiring so many slightly different drivers that it was simply too much to ensure the consumer that the BeOS would work with every peripheral.
Stephenson’s resigned conclusion to In the beginning…was the command line is that since most of us lack the time or energy to learn coding we will accept the computer interface options we are offered by Apple or Microsoft. To do otherwise would be more work than most would like to do, so we will compromise and accept a mediated GUI.
While I initially described Stephenson’s work as a “meditation,” it is probably fairer to describe it as a rant. If he had written this after seeing The Matrix he would have been shouting, “Wake up, Neo!” At the very least, Stephenson urges careful reflection on how computers mediate our work, as well as an enthusiastic endorsement of using the trouble-free, living Linux interface.
Readers interested in delving deeper might want to look at a Stephenson authorized, updated and annotated version of his original essay. The command line in 2004 (Birkel, 2004) was published after Stephenson agreed (in an online forum) that the work was dated (Coryoth, 2004). Birkel’s conclusion is much softer: what matters is that the hardware and interface allow tasks to be accomplished. I’d like to know what Stephenson thinks of that stance, but I did not find evidence that they had carried on that conversation.
Reference List
Baudrillard, J. (1972). Requiem for the media. In Waldrip-Fruin, N, & Montfort, N. (Eds). The new media reader (277-288). Cambridge, MA : MIT Press.
Birkel, G. (2004). The command line in 2004. Garote’s page. Retrieved July 22, 2009 from http://garote.bdmonkeys.net/commandline/index.html
Bolter, J., & Grusin, R. (1999). Remediation: Understanding new media. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Coryoth. (20 October, 2004). Question 8. BeOS (within Neal Stephenson responds with wit and humor). Miller, R. [Roblimo], Ed. Slashdot: News for nerds. Stuff that matters. Retrieved July 22, 2009 from: http://interviews.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/10/20/1518217&tid=192&tid=214&tid=126&tid=11
Deleuze, G, & Guattari, F. (1980). Introduction: Rhizome. A thousand plateaus. Retrieved July 22, 2009 from: http://www.scribd.com/doc/9692785/Deleuze-Guattari-Rhizome-Intro
Stephenson, N. (1999). In the beginning…was the command line. New York: Avon Books.
A few semesters ago, I had been tasked with constructing a theoretical frame for a study on Wikipedia as a teaching tool. And so I built one piece by piece with the materials I had on hand, with which I felt most comfortable – with literary theory. My initial attempts were not well received, and it was suggested that I ground my work more in either an education or computer context. I wept. I gnashed teeth. And then I found George Landow’s Hypertext 3.0: Critical Theory and New Media in an Era of Globalization.
He assured me that “critical theory promises to theorize hypertext and hypertext promises to embody and thereby test aspects of theory” (2). For Landow, hypertext is a boundary object where “unconnected areas of inquiry, have increasingly converged” (1). It is in this middle space that Landow not only surveys the poststructuralist and deconstructionist nature of hypertext, but he also examines how hypertext reconfigures paradigms of writer/reader/text/narrative, applies his examination to real educational practice, and then reflects on the political implications of these practices.
In his introduction, Landow refers to Derrida, Nelson, Barthes, and van Dam, acknowledging that at least one of these names will be unfamiliar to his readers depending on their background in either computers or literary theory. In the first two chapters, Landow orients his readers to both fields by providing an overview of New Media scholarship initiated with the obligatory nod to Bush and his Memex, tracing the field through McLuhan, Bolter and Grusin, Aarseth, and Moultrop and then establishing links to the works of Baudrillard, Foucault, and Bakhtin.
Landow’s central thesis is that hypertext, which he defines (a definition born from the coupling of Barthes and Nelson) as lexia connected by links, blurs the borders between reader and writer, thus embodying an ideal textuality described Barthes. It is an open textual space where no one thing is given sole authority. While Landow is reluctant to completely do away with the distinct roles of author and reader, much of Hypertext 3.0 examines the narrowing space between the two. Hypertext allows the reader to participate more actively in the text, choosing his/her own pathways, and thus enabling him/her to connect to the text in more meaningful ways. In this sense, hypertext fosters collaboration and removes text from private, individual space into the networked space of communities.
This role of hypertext, as a border space where entities meet, is celebrated, and Landow emphasizes the transformation that this sort of textuality requires. In Chapter 5, for example, Landow notes that many scholars are concerned with the “disorientation problem” (145). They evaluate the quality of hypertext based on its functionality – on how well a user can navigate through the space without getting frustrated or lost. In this regard, disorientation “is presented as such a massive, monolithic problem” (146). He suggests that scholars should instead pay attention to how readers respond to disorientation. He argues that disorientation can be exciting. He compares it to literature such as Dante’s Divine Comedy or T.S. Eliot’s Wasteland. Such textuality is disorienting especially for the neophyte. As one gains more experiencing (either in hypertext or Joyce’s Ulysses), disorientation can become a source of pleasure. He backs his assertion with experiments with student-users conducted with Paul Kahn in 1991. These students reported a love of the possibility found in hypertext – the delight of clicking and finding information by accident, of seeing/making new connections, a pleasure similar to the one we discussed in class, of that moment when you find a book right next to the one you were actually looking for.
Landow does admit that hypertext is not just about linking. A writer cannot randomly link lexia and create a powerful hypertext just as a writer cannot randomly link words and create a powerful text. “Since hypermedia systems predispose users to expect significant relationships among lexias, those that disappoint these expectations tend to appear particularly incoherent and without significance” (Landow 153). Links need to be meaningful. There needs to be a rhetorical structure, and he devotes a significant portion of the book as a how-to, describing specific design and linking strategies and examining the current body of hypertext. Through his citation and analysis of specific works, Landow establishes a canon of hypertext, a set of texts with which the hypertext scholar should be familiar. Such works include Afternoon by Michael Joyce, These Waves of Girls by Caitlin Fisher, and Patchwork Girl by Shelley Jackson. And in Chapter 6: Reconfiguring Narrative, he examines hypertext as a genre, exploring its potential as a poetic and/or narrative form. He acknowledges, however, that digital literature is still evolving, that it might, by nature, not even have a narrative form, but he remains optimistic that hypertext has a place in literature and that “authors will always find themselves tempted to tell stories in any and all media” (Landow 271).
As a Victorian and Postcolonial scholar at Brown University, Landow has an immediate interest in analyzing the role of hypertext in literary education on which, he claims, it “promise[s] – or threaten[s] to have major effects” (272). As with the roles of reader and author, hypertext erases the regulated space between teacher and student. According to him, hypertext can be useful in helping students acquire not just information but the habits of mind to think critically by making meaningful connections and acknowledging multiple perspectives. Hypertext creates a space that enables students to be within academia (traditionally they are on the edges) and are given an opportunity to create “new modes of discourse appropriate for the kind of reading and writing we shall do increasingly in e-space, the writing necessary for the twenty-first century” (Landow 273). In short, hypertext demands an active student and thus requires us to reconfigure our notion of education, de/reconstructing our conceptions of instructor, evaluation, canon, curriculum, and literacy.
While Landow does occasionally question the role of hypertext in education or in narrative, he remains celebratory of its power. He is passionate about hypertext as an ideal text, as a material embodiment of deconstructionist, poststructuralist theory. And I get the sense that he also believes in the power of hypertext to tear down authorial constructs and empower the individual. He teeters on the edge of technological determinism with an optimistic faith in hypertext to alleviate imbalance, injustice, or even just apathy in education. However, he devotes his last chapter to clarifying his claims and responding to his critics such as Aarseth who opposes the use of critical theory to understand hypertext and accuses such theorist of imperialism, as using critical theory to “colonize” a field that is not theirs. Landow reiterates that hypertext does not promise complete erasure of authority or the total collapse of author/reader. Rather, it moves these actors closer together, sharing at least some of their powers with the other. “I have enough hope to believe,” he affirms, “that the libratory potential of hypermedia will enable good things to happen. I could be wrong” (376).
Hypertext was first published in 1992, and Hypertext 3.0 was published in 2006 to include more updated advancements in hypertextual systems including blogs. In recognizing the open nature of hypertext, as a thing that moves, Landow allows his own text to grow and change, reconfiguring the theories he set forth. His notes are not only helpful in clarifying and qualifying his assertions but are useful in tracing the evolution of his ideas. I would not be surprised if he continues to update this text to include even more recent systems such as Wikis and Twitter. While I am slightly disappointed that he didn’t talk more about literary theory, this book is certainly one of my favorites and has had a huge influence in my own thinking about hypertext and digital media. He definitely accomplishes what he set out to do; he uses hypertext to create a space where literary and new media theorists, computer programmers, and educators converge and emerge as something new.
Landow, George. (2006). Hypertext 3.0:Critical Theory and New Media in an Era of Globalization. Baltimore: JHU Press.
Here are links to an interesting take on McLuhan.
The Medium is the Mix, Pt. 1 The Medium is the Mix, Pt. 2 The Medium is the Mix, Pt. 3
Summary:
In Internet Invention: From Literacy to Electracy the second book in the Writing and Technology Series, Gregory L. Ulmer, the Joseph Beuys Chair at the European Graduate School and a professor of English and Media Studies at the University of Florida, introduces a method for writing, researching, and studying in the age of digital cultures. Specifically, he provides a pedagogy that details instruction and guidance on developing a cohesive student-created project/document using the Internet. For Ulmer, the Internet is a means by which egents (in this case, students) can explore issues in the public world by responding to a “public policy question” (p. 298). Instead of a more conventional research assignment accomplished over the course of one semester, egents conduct their writing through a series of Web assignments to develop arguments by way of a collection of wide images to make up what Ulmer calls their “mystory.” According to Michael Jarrett, a professor of English at Penn State, “mystory should be regarded as a laboratory experiment, a pedagogical exercise that requires students to practice the art of speculation and invention.” The mystory is essentially a “thought experiment,” relating to narrative structure, but which electronically generates an egent’s arguments (p. 123).
As the title of the text suggests, Ulmer presents his pedagogy and arguments, suggesting that in the digital age and regardless of field of study, we are moving, not away from literacy per se, but toward a new form of literacy called “electracy”: reading, writing, thinking in electronic environments. One of the driving forces behind Internet Invention is to make a distinction between literacy and electracy. We are familiar with the term “literacy,” as referring to reading and writing. Literacy focuses on an object of thought where writers write concepts directly (p. 220). Whereas, electracy focuses on a state of mind in which composers (egents) image moods directly (p. 220). Electracy addends literacy by enhancing the use of electronic and new media across many forms, including social, video, aural, photographic, and animated. It is Ulmer’s goal “not to adapt digital technology to literacy [ . . .], but to discover and create an institution and its practices capable of supporting the full potential of the new technology” (p. 29). For Ulmer, electracy is an emerging form of literacy, a natural occurrence in today’s electronically charged pedagogical environments.
Ulmer introduces new terms to accompany his pedagogy beginning with “EmerAgency,” a term that can be likened to a “virtual consulting agency” and that “proposes through [Web assignments] to give education a new voice as a ‘fifth estate’ in community problem solving” (p. xiii). Defining EmerAgency as a “consulting agency” further defines the “egent” who assumes the role of a consultant of the wide image. EmerAgency begins with “images of wide scope” to develop a pattern of careers communicated in narrative form on the Internet to digitally and visually contextualize student’s arguments (p. xiii). Dividing each chapter into five sections—Studio, Lecture, Ulmer File, Remake, and Office—Ulmer provides a “next generation” textbook for composing in online environments and focusing on visual presentation of arguments (p. xiii). A supplemental companion Web site, featuring student samples and assignment instructions also offers more insight into Ulmer’s pedagogy and guidance. It is, perhaps, important to note that theory plays a significant role in the presentation of Ulmer’s text. Among many others and sprinkled throughout the text, the theories of Roland Barthes, Walter Ong, Mikhail Bakhtin, and Ludwig Wittgentstein inform and guide readers and egents as they accomplish their electronic and visual arguments. Essentially, Ulmer juxtaposes theory-based readings next to Web-based assignments to become a hybrid textbook in print form. For the purposes of this review it is not practical to cover all theories and examples presented in Ulmer’s text; however, it is reasonable to discuss some of the major neologisms Ulmer highlights to include EmerAgency, electracy, mystory, popcycle, and widesite. It is also important to note that the final section of each chapter—the Office—effectively summarizes the arguments and assignments presented.
Divided into five parts, the text introduces ideas pertaining to four forms of discourse in the first four parts, with the fifth part devoted to designing an emblem to represent the wide image as illustrated by the four forms of discourse. The Introduction establishes the purpose of Internet Invention, suggesting that “[t]he internet brings into potential communication all the institutions of society” (p. 1). Here is also where Ulmer begins to discuss Electracy, confirming the need to integrate image and text: “Electracy is an image apparatus, keeping in mind that ‘images’ are made with words as well as with pictures” (p. 2). Also significant to the Introduction is the emphasis on the outline and purpose of the program/semester-long course as a means for understanding new forms of literacy as they occur in online environments. The course itself is a workshop that practices development of the mystory in such a way that allows students to “move from consumers to producers of image discourse” and they accomplish this in a narrative structure (p. 6). Narrative structure takes shape by way of the four forms of discourse, with all four discourses brought together as “emblems of wide scope.” These are covered in parts one through five, with each part titled as follows: Career Discourse, Family Discourse, Entertainment Discourse, Community Discourse, Emblems of Wide Scope. The four forms of discourse work together to become the popcycle, which Ulmer defines as “the ensemble of discourses into which members of society are ‘interpellated’” (p. 24). Each of the discourses in many ways resembles different modes or genres of writing often encountered in composition courses. However, Ulmer differentiates the mystory from mere narrative and modes of writing by asking students to fully engage in invention practices in an electronic environment. And “Part Five: Emblems of Wide Scope” takes each of the discourses about which egents have been visually and verbally composing their arguments on wide sites to create a final wide image. Ulmer explains in the Office section of Part Five that ”[t]he final major assignment is set here—the making of an emblem in which to represent a version of the wide image. The wide image exists as a pattern that you discern in the four separate websites of the mystory” (p. 276). The emblem, which serves as a sort of leitmotif for the mystory becomes the focusing factor toward completing the final assignment.
What becomes clear with each chapter and toward the close of the text, is that Ulmer is claiming—and doing so through a pedagogy that integrates technology, text, and image—that the Internet is a means by which we can explore issues in the public world by responding to a “public policy question”:
the internet opens a new dimension, a virtual civic sphere, with the potential [. . .] to give citizens access as witnesses to the process by which a society selects which circumstances constitute problems, and what policies are appropriate to guide the search for solutions and remedies. (p. 298)
EmerAgency, electracy, mystory, wide sites, and the popcycle work together to connect the self to the world. Instead of a traditional research assignment, egents respond by way of a collection of wide images to make up their personal narrative—their mystory—as it relates to public or social issues.
Commentary/Connections to Course Readings:
Internet Inventions at first glance appears to be a text that stands on its own, yet many ideas and sections are a bit challenging to grasp. However, much of what Ulmer proposes—both theoretically and pedagogically—relates well with theories and notions that today might be surmised as outdated modes of thinking. Challenges arise as readers wade through numerous theories and theorists before arriving at the purpose of each chapter and each assignment Ulmer is presenting to his students. Although challenging to wade through, what strikes me as relevant are the similarities to Vannevar Bush’s (2006), Christine Hine’s (2005), and Anne Beaulieu’s (2005) arguments about paths, trails, and hyperlinks. Ulmer is suggesting that instead of composing in a conventional paper environment, students compose and report their research in a series of web pages—wide sites—that connect primary ideas and arguments for a common purpose. He is putting to ultimate use the paths and trails discussed by Bush in his seminal and speculative arguments about developing the memex in “As We May Think” and “Memex Revisited”.
Ulmer’s definition of electracy in many ways addends Marshal McLuhan’s (2002) arguments about literacy and his claims that “the medium is the message.” McLuhan suggests that
[t]he American stake in literacy as a technology or uniformity applied to every level of education, government, industry, and social life is totally threatened by the electric technology. [. . .] The electric technology is within the gates, and we are numb, deaf, blind, and mute about its encounter with the Gutenberg technology, on and through which the American way of life was formed. (p. 207)
McLuhan presents a somewhat cautionary perspective about “electric technology”; however, Ulmer confirms the evolution of “electric technology” by implementing a pedagogy of “electracy” to address issues concerning the many forms of literacies in the twenty-first century. He presents another use of electronic technology to emphasize, perhaps unknowingly, McLuhan’s claims that “the medium is the message.” In this case, the Internet serves to communicate egents’ mystories as wide images. Additionally, Stuart Moulthrop’s (2003) arguments in “You Say You Want a Revolution?: Hypertext and the Laws of Media,” address issues concerning twentieth century literacies, specifically, to questions concerning whether hypertext literacy suppresses the significance of print literacy. Moulthrop concludes that “[h]ypertext does indeed have the power to recover print literacy” (p.699). What differs from Ulmer’s perspective is that for Ulmer “electracy [. . .] is to digital media what literacy is to print” (p.xii). Electracy is not necessarily recovering print literacy; it is, however, developing a new method for comprehending new media and its impact on literacy, print or otherwise. Ulmer’s perhaps unorthodox methods for the early twenty-first century in many ways apply the speculative theories and notions expressed by Bush, McLuhan, and Moulthrop.
Companion Web Site:
The companion Web site to Internet Invention may be found at the following URL: http://www.english.ufl.edu/~glue/longman/. The site is a journey into wide images that represent Ulmer’s vision of electracy. One particular example from a freshman level writing course is of a young woman’s expression of her struggle with obesity and not having a clear direction in life; her mystory syncretizes her arguments through a maze of ideas about obesity, the Ashley gang of robbers, and a doll named Rebecca. The three ideas emphasize this woman’s insecurities about life and her place in the world. Midway through the student’s wide image, she states,
A gun, for the Ashley [gang] solved their conflict of collecting money. The nutritionist, for the obese person who needs a healthy body. If these forms of assistance are not available, another mind will begin to control you. [. . .] I seem to be running in circles because I do not know how I want to control my life. I do not want to settle for what comes my way, I want to seach [sic] until I establish a favorable medium.
In many ways, this student’s project emphasizes Ulmer’s attempt to promote a pedagogy that connects the self to the world by asking students to develop a digitally and visually enhanced narrative that presents their research as it relates to some personal event in their lives. The students are conducting research about a social or public issue, yet they integrate formal research methods with the less formal structure of a personal narrative and depict their arguments with visual and digital images on Wide sites. Some may find this integration a hindrance to developing a critically literate student body; however, much of what Ulmer is attempting to accomplish is nudging students toward becoming critically literate across a variety of forms of media and discourses.
Additionally, Ulmer’s personal Web site provides an example of his mystory and pedagogy. A visit to his site reveals a nonlinear view of his teaching practices with links to a brief bio, course syllabi, Ulmer’s mystory, and instructions to access Invent-L a listserv on electracy.
Beaulieu, A. (2003). Sociable hyperlinks: an ethnographic approach to connectivity. In C. Hine, Virtual methods: issues in social research on the Internet (pp. 183-197). Oxford: Berg.
Bush, V. (2006). Memex revisited. In W. C. Keenan, New Old Media, Old Media (pp. 85-95). Cambridge: MIT Press.
Hine, C. (2005). Virtual methods and the sociology of cyper-social-scientific knowledge. In C. Hine, Virtual methods: issues in social research on the Internet (pp. 1-13). Oxford: Berg.
Jarrett, M. (n.d.). Writing Mystory. Retrieved July 12, 2009, from Michael Jarrett’s Homepage: http://www2.yk.psu.edu/~jmj3/myrecipe.htm
McLuhan, M. (2002). The medium is the massge: an inventory of effects. Berkeley: Gingko Press.
Moulthorp, S. (2003). You say you want a revolution? In N. Wardrip-Fruin & N. Montfort (Eds.), The new media reader (pp. 692-704). Cambridge: MIT Press.
School, E. G. (2009, July 8). Gregory Ulmer. Retrieved July 8, 2009, from European Graduate School: http://www.egs.edu/faculty/ulmer.html
Ulmer, G. L. (n.d.). Retrieved July 9, 2009, from Internet Invention: From Literacy to Electracy: http://www.english.ufl.edu/~glue/longman/
Ulmer, G. L. (n.d.). Retrieved July 8, 2009, from Florida Research Ensemble: http://www.english.ufl.edu/~glue/
Ulmer, G. L. (2003). Internet invention: from literacy to electracy. New York: Longman.
Here are a couple of examples of presentations with voice recordings:
My CCCCs Presentation
Daniel Anderson, Kairos 8.1
If you have examples of your own you’d like to share with the class, please post them here using the comments.
Zsuzsanna Bacsa Palmer
Old Dominion University
ENGL 894
Review of Interface Culture by Steven Johnson
The all too familiar image of a desktop with icons and folders appears in front of our eyes when we hear the word interface. Although interface has a much more general meaning referring to the point of connection between two separate entities and also applying to any type of machine, the close connection to computers in our digital age immediately suggests the images of the most important components of computer: the contents of our screen, our mouse, and our keyboard.
Why are we “married” to organizing our virtual files the same way we would organize them on our desktop in our office? How did the current elements of computer interface come to exist and what advantages and disadvantages do they have over other type of interface designs? And what effects do the most common interfaces have on the way we think, work, write, and act as social beings? These are the questions Steven Johnson answers in Interface Culture.
Johnson approaches digital culture at the point where the everyday user meets it: on the screen. His vivid description of the memory palace designed by Simmonides in the ancient Greek times engages our spatial awareness to the point where the reader can catch herself exploring the spatial qualities of the protruding letters on the black and white printed page while at the same time exemplifying why it is useful for interface designers to appeal to our sense of space. Johnson explains how our interface designs make use of our spatial orientation and spatial memory by translating the ones and zeros of the computer into a symbolic system that is not only easy to understand, but also enables the user to manipulate the tasks more visibly. Making the computer to do something by memorizing and typing in often obscure DOS command lines requires a lot more effort from the user that diverts his attention away from his original task. Using the mouse to manipulate objects on the screen not only is easier but also gives the user the impression of doing something directly rather than telling a machine to do it.
The different chapters of Interface Culture focus on different elements of the interface by describing how these elements were created, how they work and, more importantly, what kind of implications they have on the way we view our world, and how they impact our culture. In the chapter on desktop, Johnson explains the significance of selecting a spatial metaphor of an office desktop as the major information organizing principle. He uses the example of the location of medieval cathedrals within towns and the layout of modern shopping malls to illustrate how architectural designs can reveal so much about the thinking and value system of societies. Today, the desktop metaphor through its widespread use has come to represent how we organize data which shapes the way we think about information. Johnson points out that it is extremely efficient to be globally thinking about information using the same desktop system, however this metaphor also limits our imagination and inhibits the development of other possible, perhaps more effective, visually appealing, or user friendly interface designs. Taking the spatial qualities of the desktop metaphor too literally, according to Johnson, leads to the failure of many different software designs.
One example Johnson uses to describe how the spatial design should not be used for every application is a software called The Palace that was designed in 1995 to be used for creating online communities. This social networking program creates a space in which people who are logged in can participate in chats. This sophisticated environment has all the elements of a real palace, complete with drawing rooms and stairwells. Users can create their persona visually using different accessories, such as hats and glasses, rather than screen names only. However, despite the architecturally interesting designs, the software does not fulfill its main mission: to create meaningful connections between people. The chats that take place between users are rather simplified, according to Johnson, since the focus is on the visual background, which instead of creating a comfortable background for conversation become distractive if not outright the direct representation of how isolated the individuals are in this virtual place. Using this example, the book illustrates how taking a metaphor too literally can lead to undesirable results in interface design. Johnson predicts that social networking sites will be dominated by text- based approaches, a prediction which 12 years after the publication of the book proves to be mostly correct.
Interface Culture also devotes a chapter to windows explaining that the most important benefit of using windows comes from the users’ ability to switch between documents and modes. This allows people, according to Johnson, to multitask on their computer just as they do, and have done for centuries, in their lives. Critics however point out that it feeds into the culture which created attention deficit disorder and further fragments the individual’s experience of reality. Johnson explains that the most direct way windows/frames influence our culture is how the frames are used to accumulate news on the same topic from different sources, and how individuals selecting the news sources that best fit their own opinion can form public opinion using this tool.
The next chapter which describes the contribution of links to our interface culture points out the significance of links in creating order in the overwhelming amount of information that the Internet as information space contains. Johnson traces the origin of the idea of using links back to Vannevar Bush’s “As We May Think” essay, and shows that while part of Bush’s vision is fulfilled by our computers and the Internet, the links that we use today are far from the sophisticated connections Bush envisioned. Web surfing in Johnson’s opinion means following the trail of links that other people built for us, but it has not reached the point yet where different types of links are possible and where building your own trail of associations can be done in an easy, user friendly way. Since the book was published in 1997, many attempts have been made to help users create their own links and tags, such as on the website del.icio.us, that take us closer to Bush’s vision of building and sharing our own semantic trails. These folksonomies, according to Peter Morville, not only engage users in link creation, but also serve as community building tools.
The next topic Johnson discusses in a chapter is the role of text in user interface. He introduces this topic by explaining how the word processors used today have not only changed the way we write (instead of composing a sentence and then writing it down on paper, we compose and write at the same time), but have also changed the thinking process applied when writing. The easy to use graphic interface of word processors has not only enabled the masses to turn directly to computers when writing but also had an effect on the level of complication of the language used. However, as Johnson points out, the trust in graphic interface has gone too far, and the text as organizing principle has been neglected. He suggests a way of organizing files semantically, where documents would be automatically grouped together according to their meaning rather than to a metaphorical location on the desktop. The type of semantic organization Johnson hopes to see at the end of the 90’s can be identified in certain Internet applications today, such as organizing by hashtags on Twitter. Although this is a way of organizing information using text, it is only the first step to the level of complexity that could be achieved when semantics is used to its full potential in interface design.
The last major element of interface design that Johnson mentions are agents, also called bots. Bush in “Memex Revisited” has already outlined the possibility of a computer “building trails for its master” (2006, p. 93) which would require the existence of an intelligent agent, similar to today’s bots. But Johnson does not have his complete trust in agents. He explains that while agents can be very useful in doing simple tasks, such as emptying the trashcan, their role in more complex tasks, such as selecting movies and booking cruises for computer users becomes questionable from an ethical standpoint, because it is not quite clear who these bots are working for. Are they really looking out for you in trying to find the book that best fits your interest, or are they trying to sell you a book whose publisher thinks you might be the kind of person interested in his product? In this sense, there is a real danger in letting your computer decide what you are after. Used this way, agents take a hold of our most personal properties, our likes and dislikes.
“The original graphic-interface revolution was about empowering the user-making “the rest of us” smarter, and not our machines. Agents work against that trend by giving the CPU more authority to make decision on our behalf. It’s this new authority … that endows the intelligent agent with its intelligence. The question of whether this intelligence is a good thing turns out to be a very old and mysterious one.” (1997, p. 180)
Agents can also influence our culture by increasing interest in certain topics based on a feedback system: how many times did we click on “most popular” on the Internet. This, according to Johnson, can be good and bad at the same time. While it can bring previously unknown people and topics into focus, it has a danger of making everything mainstream by not giving subcultures enough exposure.
Johnson concludes his book with his own vision of the future of interface design. This vision is a careful one. It warns us constantly that although interface design may appear as simply the surface layer of our computer, it has much deeper, less visible effects on our society and our way of thinking. The following quote sums up his view:
“Our interfaces are stories we tell ourselves to ward off the senselessness, memory palaces built out of silicon and light. They will continue to change the way we imagine information, and in doing so they are bound to change us as well-for the better and for the worse. How could it be otherwise?” (1997, p. 242)
Notes:
Johnson’s book deals with the interface designs prior to 1997.
A more up-to-date overview of cutting-edge interface designs can be found at http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/08/17/10-futuristic-user-interfaces/
Sources
Bush, Vannevar. (2006). Memex Revisited. In Chun, Wendy & Keenan, Thomas (Eds.), New Media, Old Media. New York: Routledge. pp. 85-95.
Bush, Vannevar. (2003). As we may think. In Wardrip-Fruin, Noah & Montfort, Nick (Eds.), The New Media Reader. Cambridge: MIT Press. pp. 35-47.
Johnson, Steven. (1997). Interface Culture. San Francisco: Harper Edge
Morville, Peter. (2005) Ambient Findability. Sebastopol: O’Reilly
Diane Cooke Old Dominion University Book Review:
Hamlet on the Holodeck by Janet H. Murray
Having looked closely at issues pertaining to longer-form musical narratives in the digital age, I was interested in reading Janet H. Murray’s Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace. I had hoped to find perhaps perspectives from either an educational or audio/musical perspective but instead, Murray focuses primarily on the world of digital fiction, as found in simulator software and early versions of digital and video games. Rarely does Murray speak of other uses, though she later articulates that experiencing the world through others’ eyes can elicit transformational power (171).
What I initially thought a drawback was that I was reading this book 12 years after it had been written (1997). The gaming industry it describes already has changed by leaps and bounds. However, the book still proved very provocative as Murray spends a great deal of time suggesting possibilities for future improvement in the world of digital narrative. As Vannevar Bush envisioned the personal computer in his article “As We May Think,” decades before the microchip, Murray accurately predicts several phenomena which hadn’t yet occurred at the time she wrote this book.
The book is separated into four sections. In the first, Murray maintains that “satisfactory” storytelling is possible in new media. To her, “satisfactory” narratives are those that create immersive, interactive, transparent and imaginative spaces which engage the mind (24) without drugging it (21). Ironically, Murray spends a great deal of Part One warning us of the potential dangers of creating worlds which are more addictive than engaging of the imagination (24). In Huxley’s “Brave New World,” a format for future entertainment is the “feelies,” a type of immersive narrative which engaged the user’s neurons, but in a base (sexual or thrill-seeking) and addictive way, than say the more intellectual or imaginative virtual diversion of the Holodeck, as described in Star Trek: The Voyager. The “Holodeck” is an immersive and interactive experience which is controlled by the imagination of its user (25). It can be stopped and started at any time, and its users “have a life.”
However, Murray doesn’t fully explain how an addictive vs. non-addictive balance is successfully negotiated in actual, narrative design. As with a glass of wine, some people can take a drink and walk away, while others with more addictive personalities (or genetic predispositions), run the risk of becoming alcoholic and moving alcoholic beverages to an improperly central focus of their lives. Gaming designers may attempt to create a world that is meant to engage and bring out the best of its users, but what people do with or how they respond to the content really isn’t entirely in the hands of the designers… or is it?
Murray warns that that branching hypertext narratives and putting too much control in the hands of the user can be frustrating. Some users may not be sure where a story begins (39), how it trees into another virtual sector, how it relates to where the user has already come from, or how it ends. Designing controls in these spaces can create some safeguards, but most likely cannot totally eliminate potential abuses. Later Murray will declare that with too much branching, “postmodernists are privileging confusion itself” (133). So, technology can have a utopian vision as well as a dysutopian one where technology is “both diversion and dictator all in one” (24).
Murray describes an intriguing “chatterbot” called ELIZA, developed by MIT. ELIZA was a text-based psycho-therapist simulator which would yield surprisingly appropriate responses to a potential human client’s issues (69). Its responses were triggered by input typed by the user (you can still find an ELIZA simulator online). Examining and enhancing where ELIZA went right will lead to more elaborate algorithms in the future (Murray mentions more of these in Chapter 8). It is Murray’s belief that technology will catch up to current science fiction wherein it will be possible to completely surround one’s senses with the world (the holodeck) of fictional stories–the ultimate escape.
To move away from addictive uses of technology, designers need to be aware that digital environments are procedural (they must follow rules), participatory (interactive), spatial (exploratory and navigational) and encyclopedic (storing a lot of information and able to borrow from many sources) (71, 84). Another text-based game Murray cites as a successful example was ZORK, a role-playing game based on the user’s ability to “move round” inside a world, have choices and act and react to the results of those choices (74).
In Part Two, Murray discusses “The Aesthetics of the Medium,” highlighting three main qualities she views as critical in creating satisfactory narrative experiences: immersion, agency and transformation and that need to be expanded upon and improved.
Ironically, Murray believes that to create an immersive experience, one has to establish distance with the actual world (101). To Murray, breaking the fourth wall in theatre or film (when a character addresses the audience) is a major infraction in the believability of the story. However, I wonder why does audience participation or breaking the fourth wall make a work cease to be art, as Murray maintains (101)? She also asks a particularly provocative question: “How can we enter the fictional world without disrupting it?” (103). Murray believes that we need to find a digital equivalent of a fourth wall and define clear boundary conventions (103), and yet with agency, we want to have the “satisfying” power of seeing results of our actions, decisions and choices (126).
In chapter six, “Transformation” (154), Murray reminds us that inside a computer environment, everything can change and change needs to occur in a controlled way. In fact even one’s consciousness can change as users move in and out of different character points of view. When a user assumes an avatar, they enter the narrative as if it’s our own experience (170). This could lead to more empathic understanding (171) or to more violence (172). We need to be responsible in developing these games.
In Part Three, “Procedural Authorship,” Murray lets her imagination get the best of her, I believe, by suggesting what the trajectory should be in digital narratives. She calls for more controls given to the user, but is noticeably vague in the particulars of how designers can anticipatie “all the twists” and “all the actions of the interactor” (185). Murray says there need to be more expressive “primitives, or basic building blocks of story construction” (190), “a focus on “textured relationships rather than on puzzle solving and gunfights”(193) and a sense of fluidity in transition points (194). She doesn’t get specific as to the programming and hardware requirements necessary to accomplish her ideas, but perhaps this book in the right hands, could give a programmer a challenge or two to solve.
In Part Four, “New Beauty, New Truth.” Murray looks at the possibilities for the future. Murray encapsulates the main points of the previous sections into how it all can synthesize into more meaningful or satisfying digital narrative experiences. As she wrote the book over a decade ago, we can see where she predicted accurately the expansion of digital television, and how TV and the computer are merging more. Before blogs, she predicted that “the world wide web is becoming a global autobiography project” (252). Before Youtube, Murray predicted that the Internet would become “an alternate broadcasting system” (253).
She may have overestimated the draw of what she calls “hyperdrama,” where serial broadcasts (like “ER”), would offer what Jenkins would refer to as converging cross-platform multimedia. A viewer watch the “ER” TV show (for example), but then visits a virtual ER admitting room, where you would find supplementary elements that pertain to the show in various media formats (255).
Murray says there are three audiences to consider: 1- real-time viewers who will only view the original “broadcast” once, 2- reflective, “long-term viewers who will look for coherent patterns in the story as a whole” and 3- navigational viewers who will make “connections to other parts of the story and discover multiple arrangements of the same material” (257). Today, we see Youtube mash-ups and machinima videos where people have actually hacked into the codes of 3D worlds to create their own narratives.
Murray warns us of the addictions of alternate worlds, but doesn’t really say how a developer would ensure that an addictive personality wouldn’t or couldn’t be sucked into an alternate existence. She doesn’t spend much time on non-entertainment uses of new media, such as educational uses or even socially beneficial or charitable uses of gaming: for instance darfurisdying.com requires that you put yourself in the place of a man, woman or children from Darfur who want nothing more than to find fresh water without being attacked or killed by Janjaweed militias as soon as they leave their camp. Freerice.com distributes rice through the United Nations every time you win a round of an ongoing vocabulary game on their website. These sites weren’t around in 1997, but Murray seems to focus more on entertainment benefits of digital media rather than educational ones.
Since so much of multimedia is grounded in commerce, I feel Murray missed an opportunity in explaining her thoughts on how digital media companies won’t try to keep their users addicted to some extent with the way they develop their products—much in the same way as nicotine is added to cigarettes. Why wouldn’t a company try less noble strategies in developing digital narratives to ensure their sustained existence? Perhaps that was just too far out of the boundaries of her focus to mention.
She doesn’t seem to address issues of crossing back and forth from actuality (for lack of a better word) to virtual reality. Walter Benjamin warned in The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, that “Since the historical testimony rests on the authenticity, the former, too, is jeopardized by reproduction when substantive duration ceases to matter.” In other words, authenticity of an original object is diminished when it is reproduced. If we immerse ourselves into virtual worlds with simulated characters, is something lost in our lives? Murray never tackles that matter as she is too busy maintaining that immersive worlds have their merits.
The reason the book is called Hamlet on the Holodeck is because Hamlet “represents something significant in literature” (274). That is what she’s hoping lies ahead in digital media—a call to return to meaning (274).
Despite the gaps I’ve cited, overall I enjoyed this book. Murray’s writing was human and approachable and impassioned. I appreciated her sense of wonder with it all and in a way her possibly rosy view of what’s possible could “infect” approaches of future programmers—even today. I think designers could find this book useful, though not specific in its instructions as to how to achieve what she is envisioning. Perhaps the book might have been more aptly subtitled, “Why I Think We Should Submerge Ourselves into Digital Worlds and Stay There Forever.”
Work Cited
“Artificial Intelligence Simulation.” Retrieved July 9, 2009 from http://www.eliza-ai.com.
Benjamin, Walter. (1936). The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction. Retrieved May 14, 2009 from http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/ge/benjamin.htm.
Darfur Is Dying.” Retrieved July 9, 2009 from http://www.darfurisdying.com.
Free Rice. Retrieved July 9, 2009 from http://www.freerice.com.
Murray, Janet H. Hamlet on the Holodeck. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press, 1997.
