Portal by Rob Swigart

This interactive novel is a mix between a computerized novel and an interactive game. There are four  different participants, which are mainly important for this work: the author Rob Swigart, the producer Brad Fregger, Activision the responsible publisher company, and Nexa Corporation who are responsible for the programming process.
     The player plays an unnamed astronaut protagonist which came back to the earth and sees that there are no more humans at all. The player gets assisted by a storytelling mainframe called Homer.
     Every done task leads to new unlocked data, which are links of information. And only with the help of these links, the player can find out what happened with the humans and reach the end/goal of the game.

     For more information about Rob Swigart and his works follow this link.

Swigart, Rob. Portal, A Computer Novel. Activision, 1986

K-R. Pekgüven

Night Film by Marisha Pessl

Night Film is a mystery thriller written by Marisha Pessl, who was born on October 26th, 1977. Before starting writing novels, Pessl worked as a financial consultant and only wrote in her free time. Nowadays she is known as an American writer and her debut novel was “Special Topics in Calamity Physics”, which was published in 2006.
     The novel is about the daughter of the legendary russian reclusive horror-film director Stanislas Cordova. Her name is Ashley Cordova and she is 24 years old. Ashley was found dead in an elevator in Manhattan. The elevator was not working. Supposingly she just commits suicide. Her father, Stanislav, who was not seen in public for a while, is despised from the peope, because of his movies.
The journalist Scott McGrath thinks, that Stanislas Cordova had something to do with the death of his daughter. So he and two others are interviewing several people to crack the case. They interview people who do know both of the Cordovas. At the end they discover that truth of the mystery could have some beyond natural, scientific reasons.
     The author also uses newspaper articles and screenshots, which were printed in the book. This is a new and not very common structure of novels.
    The book leads the reader to interactivity, because there is an App which scans so called Easter-Eggs. Those Easter-Eggs are hidden all over the novel. When the reader finds an Easter-Egg and scans it with the App, he will get a lot of extra information, about the story. Those added information gives the reader a whole new view about what he just read. 

K-R. Pekgüven

Three Views On Hypertext

1: Hypertext and the Changing Roles of Readers (Nancy G. Patterson)
     Summary, assess and reflection:
Patterson analyses the use of hypertext and digital literature at schools or as a tool for students, giving even various games. Further she reflects on the role of the author in digital and print media and the attitude brought towards literature in both cases. She puts print and digital media in contrast and focuses on the accessibility. But she also discusses the negative arguments of digital media. She cites several authors and their opinion on hypertext and how they are killing literacy. In the last passage Patterson talks about the “naturalness” of Hypertext and how literature has emerged throughout time.
     This article might be interesting for students researching the topic of digital media and hypertext because it sums up all the aspects of digital literature. The author discusses the history of hypertext, the roles of readers, compares print to digital literature and looks close onto the negative aspects around the topic. What could be seen as really helpful is the focus on school and students and how hypertext and digital literature could be used as a tool at school or at the university.
     In my opinion it is a useful source because it doesn’t chose sides and the author talks value-neutral of the pros and cons of digital literature.

2: On Generalizing the Concept of Hypertext (Michael P. Bieber, Steven O. Kimbrough)
     Summary, assess and reflection:
The article describes how a hypertext is build and what a hypertext is all about in general. It talks on the system level and the core ideas of hypertext. It focuses not on the texts itself or its content and provides a deeper view into the making of a hypertext. It shows how to build a hypertext and what is important to know about. It gives a discussion and conclusion on hypertext and how it can be used as a method for reducing the human operating costs. It shows the core of a text and its efforts needed to create such digital literature.
     In contrast to my first source this text is more useful to technical interested students. If you really want to research on hypertext, you could say that it is useful to know how they are made and which technical knowledge is needed to create such a text. The article tries to explain the different kinds of hypertext and puts them in contrast. I found it very interesting to see what it takes to build something “very easy” at first sight and that not only the story of a text can be difficult but the system of it too.


3: Digital Texts and the New Literacies (Allen Webb)

     Summary, assess and reflection:
Allen Webb focuses in his article on the use of digital literature instead of classic print media at college. His use of digital media should help his students focusing on reading carefully and closely. Students should be enhanced to find their way around the internet to find poetry and literature. His article puts a light on how big the world of literature is on the internet in contrast to print media. Students are connected to living poetry and living poets and to a lot of additional information a single textbook couldn’t provide. Webb argues that the internet allows students to work with poetry and literature free and to even be able to change poetry. Another of Webb’s arguments is the possibility to access additional information or simply additional texts in seconds. Online archives provide in Webb’s opinion a lot more information at once than a single bibliography could provide.
     Regarding to my other two sources, this article focuses on how students can work with digital literature and which possibilities can be found working with them. If a student is researching on digital literature, this article could provide additional information focusing on traditional digital literature and in times of technology at school, such articles can be useful to broaden a becoming teachers mind. A Webb state that today’s students are used to the medium and therefor can work with it more freely what is in my opinion very true. Researching digital literature shouldn’t only focus on hypertext and advanced literature, it should take a deeper look on its beginning and its roots lying in texts provided on the internet.

Works Cited:

Patterson, Nancy G. "Hypertext and the Changing Roles of Readers." The English Journal 90.2 (2000)

Bieber, Michael P., and Steven O. Kimbrough. "On Generalizing the Concept of Hypertext." MIS Quarterly 16.1 (1992)

Webb, Allen. "Digital Texts and the New Literacies." English Journal 97.1 (2007)

K. Freeman

George P. Landow - HYPER / TEXT / THEORY

Landow, George P. (Ed). Hyper / Text / Theory. Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 1994.

Hyper / Text / Theory, edited by George P. Landow, is a collection of several essays from different authors. These essays deal with the superordinate topic of hypertexts. Furthermore is this book divided into three subtopics: Nonlinearity, The Politics of Hypertext and The New Writing.
     At the outset, the editor himself, George P. Landow, gives an introduction to hypertexts, its structure and he gives umpteen different examples. Landow goes into the importance of the feature of the electronic links. Subsequent, he states that hypertexts offer possibilities as well as problems and that they can also be seen crucial. The following essays are going to have a detailed look at these problems and possibilities.
     The chapter Nonlinearity deals with the narrative of hypertexts. This chapter contains five essays. Espen J. Aarseth writes about nonlinear texts and this essay is not primarily concerned with hypertext; she rather looks at the repertoire of textual forms. Nonlinear texts are objects of verbal communication, which are not fixed sequence of letters, words or sentences. These texts rather differ in their words or sequences of words from reading to reading because of the shape, conventions or mechanisms of the text. In the essay of J. Yellowlees Douglas, he writes about the closure of a story. Thereby he compares the narrative and especially about indeterminacy of print books and interactive narratives and how essential a closure to our readings of narrative is.
     The second chapter The Politics of Hypertext contains three essays and deals in the foreground with the impact these hypertexts, interactive narratives have on the society and the politics. Charles Ess for example discusses the issue if the new technologies like hypertexts democratize communication and society appears as a central justification. Stuart Moulthrop afterwards writes about the change and increase of technologies and its impact on the society and the culture.
     The last chapter The New Writing has two essays. In these essays, the authors establish ties of hypertext with philosophy. It discusses question like: can we use philosophy using hypertext? What kind of work might a philosophical hypertext do?
     This book is of avail if someone wants to research in detail about hypertexts. It offers a detailed introduction to hypertexts and its different variations and delivers further insight into its structure/ narrative and influence on society. Furthermore, this book has a look on this topic in a crucial way and does not just depict facts. 

S. Lamouchi