Deklan IH
It wasn’t until I found myself clicking on the various body parts of Shelly Jackson’s digital portrait that I began to sense the deeply personal and transgressive nature of the literature I was exploring. Jackson’s my body – a Wunderkammer allows the reader to explore written memoirs revealed through interactive HTML links mapped onto an artistic image of her person, and as such forms a quintessential example of digital Hypertext literature – the distinct genre of linking, non-sequential writing.
Image: (CC) Pixabay.com.
As simple as that definition may be, Hypertext literature finds nuance through its specific engagement of its literature’s audience and eschewment of traditional narrative structures. Sound complicated? Perhaps you’ve come across a choose-your-own-adventure story before, a little novel with a compelling narrative that you control as you seek to find the best of five or so predetermined endings. Digital Hypertext literature is that format’s sugar-high child on Halloween night, five minutes past their bedtime. Consider Michael Joyce’s hypertext Twelve Blue, which contains 296 distinct link within the single work. And while you’re considering that, take a moment to examine the sprawling, confounding format Joyce employs to group his experts together – a side bar of twelve threads, each changing in shape and proximity with every click, each change as uninformative as the last. How is one to follow any sort of narrative when the user interface is so unintelligible?
At its core, Twelve Blue radically embodies the main definitive principle of Hypertext literature: a focus away from a traditional narrative arc (exposition, rising action, climax, denouement) towards the self-led exploration of the reader. This distinctly sets Hypertext apart from even the familiar choose-your-own-adventure, where the narrative still follows a typical arc leading up to a definite ending of some sort. Hypertext literature uses links to create pathways between the bits of information a hypertext story contains, but the narrative structure is provided through the active interaction of the reader. Hypertext literature is generally not concerned with any specific ending; without a specific goal to reach, the kinesis of a story’s narrative is provided by the readers self-determined exploration. With this in mind, Twelve Blue becomes a little more palatable – there really isn’t any one particular the story is meant to be read. Quite the opposite, whichever way you choose to read Twelve Blue is the right way! By creating a format that plays off of the reader’s active engagement with the text, Hypertext literature can create a far more personal experience between the reader and the author of the story.
Invariably, the Hypertext format is not without its containers, and for good reason. The sprawling nature of the linking text is limited to the total amount of information the author puts in, and in this way the depth and topic of a story can still be controlled while allowing the reader the self-determined interaction fundamental to the hypertext format. While this concept is integral to the presentation of the text, the integration of digital publishing provides the technical backbone for Hypertext literature to exist. As noted in Chia-Jer Tsai’s early paper on hypertext, the non-linear linking of individual information units freely perused by the user leads means that the “implementation of hypertext is virtually only possible on computers”. Indeed, every google search you make on the internet is an act of hypertext, with your search for information creating the narrative of your own digital story. While the literacy of Hypertext literature is formed through the thoughtful creation of text published in the hypertext format, the development of the digital technology necessary for hypertext to effectually exist has also contributed to the greater development of Hypertext’s literary art. The ability to include graphics and audio into a textual work opens a variety of avenues for an author to express their story, something which Hypertext literatures have taken full advantage of.
Back to my body – a Wunderkammer: the initially rather simplistic point-and-click nature of the story is actually a slickly integrated process by which I, the reader, have become drawn into a narrative of my own decision. Jackson could have simply published a memoir online, but by laying out her digital being for all to peruse, the impact of her memories become much more real, and much more impactful. After all, it’s I who decide which piece to begin with, and the story only ends when I am satisfied in my knowledge. Hypertext literature gives a wink and a nod to the reader, and in doing so draws them deeply into their stories, allowing them to make what they will within the parameters of their digital context. So far, I have found those stories quite compelling indeed.
Bibliography
Bell, Alice. The Possible Worlds of Hypertext Fiction. Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.
Jackson, Shelley. my body – a Wunderkammer. Electronic Literature Organization, collection.eliterature.org/1/works/jackson__my_body_a_wunderkammer.html.
Joyce, Michael. Twelve Blue. Electronic Literature Organization, collection.eliterature.org/1/works/joyce__twelve_blue.html.
Miall, David, & Teresa Dobson. “Reading Hypertext and the Experience of Literature.” Journal of Digital Information [Online], 2.1 (2001): n. pag. Web. 21 Mar. 2019
Slatin, John M. “Reading Hypertext: Order and Coherence in a New Medium.” College English, vol. 52, no. 8, 1990, pp. 870–883. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/377389.
Tsai, Chia-Jer. “Hypertext: Technology, Applications, and Research Issues.” J. Educational Technology Systems, vol. 17 (1), 1988-89, pp. 3-14.