W8: The Unlecture from Week 7

I felt like last week’s symposium was full of controversial claims about reality and authorial intent.

Elliot stated that documentaries make statements about reality, and hypertext presents alternatives to this reality. Adrian said that Wikipedia isn’t documentary but it is non-fiction – an interactive collaborative work of non-fiction. He also raised the point of how we look at Wikipedia as not being 100% reliable yet it’s the first point of call for when we want to know something… Perhaps in this highly technological age of easily accessible information convenience sometimes triumphs over quality of information.

Then came this idea about whether or not you can gauge an author’s intent through a piece of their work, or if they could really influence the way their work is read. Was this an attempt to discredit literary theory? I disagree with Adrian’s point that a work speaks for itself, and you have no access to an author. Sure, we don’t ‘have access’ to their thoughts directly, but there’s always an intention and any kind of work has been produced with that in mind. Of course, readings of that work change over time and in different context, but this just refreshes the relevance of the work, which could perhaps be their intention all along.

I’d lean a little more towards Elliot in what he said about causality and structure in the rhyming trick that Adrian used – these things are created to influence our responses. They’re not 100% definite, but they’re likely to prompt a particular result. Which I suppose is after all just design…

I walked away from this ‘unlecture’ thinking ‘well if you can guarantee intent, and authorship is such a flimsy notion, then why do we create? Why distribute work or present our thoughts in this way? Is it just to fulfill the need of others to find meaning for themselves, or is it a (arguably failed) attempt at expressing our own ideas?’

Haven’t figured out the answer yet!