MSA: New expectations come with new capabilities
I found Lexia to Perplexia to be a little too ergodic. It wasn't the physical effort to explore and find links, but the mental effort to make sense of it that wore me out.
I think a large part of my experience was shaped by the "medium ecology". While the work explores how our human experience is shaped by technology, it was exactly this environment that undid any initial enjoyment of Lexia. When I'm sitting at my computer--as I do so many hours of the day--I'm in information processing mode--answering student questions, grading assignments, writing webpages and programs, and surfing for quick, accurate answers. When I surf webpages in this mode, I'm constantly evaluating whether this page is reputable and useful, and I'm skimming it for the gist. Lexia reminded me of those times I've taken a wrong turn somewhere and ended up on some incomprehensible "crazy's" website, where normally I quickly hit the Back button--time is short and I can find what I'm looking elsewhere. (And having to wait for Lexia to preload over a 28.8k connection, and then needing to switch browsers and download again, already wore on my patience.)
However Hayles chapter did improve my estimation of Lexia somewhat. Lying back on my bed, I could peruse her examples. Following her orientating lead, I better understood the work's intent. Then I was able to catch the wittiness of constructions such as "cell.f" and "I-terminal". It reminded me that many (fine) things in life--wine, beer, literature, jazz--need to be studied closely to understand their subtlety to be enjoyed. Yet this means more ergodic expenditure on my part, overcoming my Web-based expectations of clear structure, quick information, and obvious navigation.
I also wasn't all that impressed with Memmot's code "creole." I've seen much better examples of witty and insightful "code poems", clearer both in the code and the underlying sentiment. Admittedly, these were mostly very short works (usually on T-shirts).
Though I'm embarrassed to reveal how impatient a "reader" I was of Lexia, I do think much of this was shaped by my expectations of the Web medium. I think being aware of this is important for Web authors, as well as for me, next time I try to approach a piece of digital literature.
posted by Zach @ 1:09 PM
1 Comments:
I'm also a very impatient reader of digital literature, and I'm always having to force myself to spend just a little more time with a piece that's getting on my nerves. Sometimes there's a payoff, sometimes not.
I do think that there are important implications for the aesthetics of digital lit in your observation about how the "schema" of your more routine web-browsing activities inflects your reception of a text like Memmott's. For me, this question has to do with the way a work of digital art "figures" (that is, distorts or deviates from) conventional uses of technology and design. Along with the tropes that compose the verbal literary text, I look for techno-tropes in the design and scripting of the piece to determine just how artful--that is, literary--a piece really is. But literary figures generally don't simply annoy and confuse the reader, as do so many techno-tropes. It's when a piece calls my attention to my naturalized practices of computing that I care. I care even more then the artist's technical solutions have some clear and powerful connection with the poetic/linguistic solutions in the verbal text.
I sort of wish writers of digital lit would stop reflecting quite so much on the medium they're working in. It's as if all late nineteeth and early twentieth century novels were about typewriters. If the computer and the network really are literary media, then we should get on with the work of writing literary texts with/in them and not fret so much about the tools. That's one of my concerns with Lexia to Perplexia and, to some degree, with Hayles' criticism, which I otherwise find marvelously perceptive.
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