Untitled - witz cultural

203RECONFIGURINGWRITINGothers incrementally produces text. Lyons's poem, which he implementedin HTML, Storyspace, and Visual basic, was, he tells us, originally written tobe read on paper with the intention of questionin g "hierarchical modes oforganization" found in post-Chomskian linguistics and implicitly confoundedby hypertext, since, as Nelson has pointed out, the shortcomings ofclassification systems, all of which require hierarchies, explain the need ofhypermedia inthe firstplace.TThe pleasures of reading (box(ing)),I propose,come from the discoveries of text the reader produces and of the meaningsof that quite difficult text.Stephanie Strickland's Vniverse (see Figure 11), a much more complexproject than (box(ing)), represents a comparatively rare example of literaryhypermedia that aims at producing both delighted surprise and the virtuesassociated with information hypermedia-reader empowerment and multivocality,or multiple approaches to a single general subject.8 Upon openingVniverse, one encounters a night sky-a black screen speckled with starsinwhich the central portion rotates. A small circle appears at top right anda slightly smaller one appears diagonally opposite at lower left. Movingone's mouse across the sky halts the rotation and reveals various constellations.Meanwhile instructions scroll across the bottom of the screen: "Scanthe stars . . . click once or click tvrice . . . click the darkness." Clicking ondarkness brings forth a constellation, a particular star with its assignednumber, and text that appears when one keeps onek mouse over the point atwhich one clicked. Typing a number in the top right-hand circle produces thestar with that number and its surrounding constellation. Like many hypermediaprojects that employ Flash and similar software, Vniverse boasts animatedtext. Unlike many such projects, it also emphasizes a high degree ofreader control.Coherence. Rich linking, plus a substantial degree of reader control, thusappear to characterize success in both informational and literary hypermedia.Another necessary quality, I propose, is some sort of crucial coherence.Since hypertext fiction and poetry often employ disorientation effectsfor aesthetic pu{poses, coherent and relevant linking might not seem to benecessary, but I suspect it's simply that coherence not take as obviousforms as it does in information hypermedia. For example, our experienceof reading pioneering hyperfiction, such as Michael foyce's aftemoon,proves definitively that much of what we have assumed about the relationsofcoherence to textuality, fixed sequence, and the act ofreading as sensemakingis simply false. Reading afiemoon and other fictional narratives