Huxtaburger cravings: On Unlecture #6

I have already written on how cool I think Hypertext and storytelling is. It sets up a kind of ‘choose your own adventure dealio which I cannot wait to study academically in Integrated Media 1 next year’s focus on Kosakow films! It will be great to see if Jasmine’s fascinating comment “take away a story’s linearity makes us experience stories in a completely different way”. 

Hyper-textual stuff thinks about narrative seriously. When I first heard about it I thought it sounded a bit gimmicky, like getting a box of cards and arranging them to form a 400 page novel does not sound like a fulfilling reading experience for me. Of course I am of a completely energised mind set now about the wonders of Hypertext!

I liked the discussion of small parts and how they are created multiple points of connection, to many other meaningful pieces in a multitude of meaningful ways. Until now I’ve usually thought of Hypertext as something super empowering for the reader but Adrian made the great point that such systems give agency to the computer… for example we have Hootsuite to publish status updates 50 years into the future, to every hour on the hour depending what your company needs.

Now I’ll just describe briefly some secondary takeaway ideas:

I liked the discussion of Hyptertext as a musical, poetic form of repetitions and loops.

Reading for the same intent as the author, nope, we all interpret and reapporiate meaning with a snap of the finger.

POP culture leaves smaller gaps in meaning, art has bigger ones, placing more importance in the reader/viewer. No one can guarantee that meaning will come across.

Expressing ideas helps us form them.

Blogs do not exist until the moment someone requests to see them. We are writing publicly whether we have an audience or not.

Write for audience we imagine, if we do this well the audience will come into existence.

If there are fewer books does this mean there are more creators with the rise of self publishing