Re: [-empyre-] various posts

[Patrick Lichty <voyd@voyd.com>]

> I've read both yr emails Patrick,  and agree (to the degree that I
> understand you ) that these  different cyber environments you mention might
> produce very different types of multi-dimentionsal structures, and ones
> impossible in print.  However structure isn't the same as narrative, while
> navigating information seems to be something different again, so I'm not
> sure that you can necesarily talk about them all in the same breath.    I'm
> intrigued by your use of the word narrative here which seems to imply some
> kind of story element: of course once you start to push narrative to its
> limits you often end up with the breakdown of narrative and the
> predominance of poetic (the one exists in the other).    But it does seem
> to me that the kind of multidimensional environments you describe could
> push narartive into much more complex spatio -temporal realisations and
> reader /writer relationships than we've previously experienced,  and  that
> these structures  could still be recognisable as narratives,  however
> overlayed and multiplicitous they might be.

Thanks for your insight, Hazel.  I also apologize if I am juggling too many 
concepts at the same time. as I'm spread rather thinly, and that can cause 
me to operate under a fairly abstracted mindset...

I don't actually mean to imply that narrative and structure are the same, 
but I would posit that they are interrelated.  In addition, navigation is 
related to both of these, so therefore I was speaking of them 
synergistically, which can be confusing, as to me I have trouble speaking 
about one element in this representational web without perturbing the other 
elements.  However, I do realize that others consider these elements in a 
textual representation as distinct and separable aspects of a composition.

Secondly, I want to give my respects to those who are speaking of the 
manipulation of symbols and words to create pieces, and my apologies for 
going to the meta level.

Therefore let me go to a concrete example.  My piece, Grasping at Bits 
(http://www.voyd.com/gab) is an example of what I'm talking about.  The 
essay was written as stand-alone lexia that convey concise pieces of 
information regarding issues of art and intellectual property in light of 
the Internet. The essay was then 'structured' (in the narrative sense) so 
that each paragraph could have numerous links, creating an 
associative/probabilistic sense of flow.  Note that this is very different 
from a hyperlink which infers a singular link to a given item.  In this 
case, I was giving 4-5 simultaneous links to a given topic.

What does this do to narrative? It takes the link or the linear progression 
(and I believe that in hyperlinking there may be non-linearity, but it is a 
distinct causal linkage taking you from one point to another) and creates a 
narrative 'range' of relations.  I've always considered this as a 
sculptural form of writing, as I _am_ creating a narrative, but in very 
different terms than traditional hyperlinking.  But that takes it back to 
synaesthenic relations by adding a more haptic element to reading. In this 
case, narrative flow has been interwoven with the structure, and the 
structure is part of the HCI.  Perhaps narrative is breaking down and 
giving rise to a more poetic form, but I would argue that what is happening 
is the construction of a different form of narrative.  I realize that this 
is an atypical example of the convergence of narrative, structure and HCI, 
but hope that my referencing it makes more sense.

For reference, I am also not going into the layered narrative structure 
inside the piece, as I wrote it with five possible configurations from 
which the reader can go through the essay, and this is not even including 
the embedded footnotes.  I had to literally think/write in terms of 
multivalence, which was exceedingly difficult at times, but became merely 
difficult once I devised a schema for outlining that was 
spatial/probabilistic in nature.  In many ways it was akin to going from 
working in 2-d to 3-d or higher.

If I could devise a way to continue using such interfaces in ways that I 
can set up rather easily (unfortunately, Plumb is difficult to use, and The 
Brain has stopped being available to individuals), I would like to explore 
creating literary works using such devices.  Of course, Borges comes to 
mind, and that brings us back to Bookchin's Invader.  However, I do think 
that poetic/prosaic works that use my narrative 'style' might be 
interesting, and I'm talking with a NYC playwright about doing just this.

I realize that I could expand my thought here a great deal, btu my hopes 
are that I am communicating the gist of the idea here.