From Page to Screen - WRAP: Warwick Research Archive Portal ...

chapter), a too direct application ofthose theories might undermine and oversimplify the
work done in this important area ofcontemporary literary criticism.
3.4: A NewDefinitionofInteractivity
Neither "interactivity as conversation", "interactivity as performance" nor "interactivity as
exploration" or literal interpretations ofrecent literarytheory can fully satisfy the need for
a definition ofthe changing relation between author (text) and reader that a shift to the
electronic writing medium entails. It seems that to make interactivity a useful category,
the definition ofthe term has to be redefined awayfrom just a 'buzzword' to describe acts
ofreader activity in the reading process.
I would like to suggest an approach to interactivity which is not based on the degree of
input a reader has on the construction ofa text and its textual meaning, be this influence
literal or metaphorical, but on the effect this initiative has on the text-object and
subsequent readings of it. And here lies the problem with most so called interactive
fictions, the interactive games, but even more so with the exploratory hypertext fictions
of]oyce, Moulthrop,]ackson and McDaid. Though assigned the potential to obscure or
even dissolve the boundary between author and reader, they in fact confirm the notion of
a single authorwith authority over the hand-crafted, original literary work.
Instead ofdisappearing, the authority and presence of the author can be sensed in every
reading of the hypertext fictions when, rather than an empowering experience, their
seemingly random complexity results in a frustrating reading experience. This happens
precisely because of the associative nature of the writing process, which is
accommodated so well in hypertext, but in which, without the organising constraints of
the print text, it can be very difficult for readers to successfully recreate the associative
act of the author. Instead they are led through the text, not by their own motivated and
active choices, but rather following what can seem to be rather random trails constructed
at the author's whim. This can not only be read as the failure of the project
"interactivity"in many postmodern hypertext fictions, it is this hidden confirmation of
the position of the author and his/her authority which is (under the surface of newness)
in fact deeply conservative.
Chapter 3 -page 127