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

Electronic text processing and distribution systems can be described as having two
opposing characteristics: on the one hand they allow authors to leave their work in a
constant state of flux and to write and re-write not in one solitary act, but in acts of
constant feedback and collaboration, with awork embedded in a network ofother texts.
On the other hand theygive authors muchgreater control over any aspect of their text
and cut out the collaborations ofthe traditional print production process.
Alternative X and, one could argue, the whole avant-pop project, tries to straddle the gap
between those two extremes and, in the process, inevitably becomes tangled up in
contradictions. On the one hand it not only fully accepts notions of interactivity but
implements them in practice as much as possible; due to its internet existence it can
exploit the possibilities of electronic links to other texts to the full. Consequently it has
to accept one of the premises of intertextuality, namely the changing role of the author
not as original creator, but as re-arranger or, as Raymond Federman puts it - pla(y)giariser 71
{I}magination does not invent the SOMETHING- NEW we too often attribute to
it, but instead how (consciously or unconsciously) it merely imitates, copies,repeats,
echoes, proliferates - plagiarizes inotherwords - what has always been there. I...}
By cutting itself from the authority of its creator and his precious imagination, art
evacuated from itself (from its center) the imposture of originality. {...} As a result,
contemporary (postmodern!) culture could no longer produce original works of art
(masterpieces), nor could it have great artists (masters). It could only produce
works orart that resemble one another, and artists who imitate or plagiarize each
other's work" .
The idea of pla(y)giarism is not a new one (Federman first used the term in his book
Surfiction in 197f 3 ) but does become more acute in the electronic medium, where
copying, repeating and plagiarising is so easy to do that it develops from a mainly
theoretical proposition to everyday practice» .
But at the same time the medium puts authors in a stronger, more self-sufficient
position, and Alternative X embraces the possibilities of direct, unfiltered internet
71 deliberately "with a Y because I am also playing", Raymond Federman, Critifiction: Postmodern
Essays (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1993), p.p.
72 Raymond Federman, Critiftction: Postmodem Essays (Albany, NY: State University of New York
Press, 1993>, p.p; 56.
73Raymond Federman (ed.), Surfiction: Fiction Now ...and Tomorroui (Chicago: The Swallow Press, 1975)·
74 And in some contexts to a real threat, as the continuous debates about copyright, copyright
protection and, on the other hand, freedom ofspeech/information show.
Chapter 4 - page 154