Notes and Quotes: Koskimaa on page 129

Notes and Quotes

Raine Koskimaa (beginning on page 129)

Cyborg author: complex combination of human and machine jointly producing texts with literary qualities. Machine is no longer seen as only a tool but also as a partner in creative processes (129).

Temporality of cybertexts: through analysis of temporal experiences of dynamic cybertexts, we should be able to better grasp the temporality of the digital culture we are living in (129).

Digital literature: 1. Digital publishing 2. Scholarly literary hypertext editions 3. Writing for Digital Media (129).

When we talk about digital literature, we do not talk about digital literature alone because all of this is relevant to more traditional forms of print literature as well (130).

The challenge facing teaching literature could be described as a need for “media-specific analysis” of literary works, as argued by N. Katherine Hayles (130).

All digital works are in a very concrete sense experimental writings not to break down established conventions but to establish new ones (130).

Cybertexts can be located within a triangle: cinema, literature, and games (131).

                        I know the author says “roughly speaking,” but isn’t this a bit limiting?

Systematic analysis of a given work requires an understanding of the specific nature of cybertextuality and the logic of the work. Without this it is impossible to accurately describe the work (132).

                        Weighs in on the conversation we had during our last class period.

Textons: deep structure. Scriptons: surface structure. Traversal Function: mechanism to turn textons into scriptons (132).

Seven more variables and their possible values: Dynamics, determinability, transiency, perspective, access, linking, and user function (133).

We lack adequate classifications of digital text types (133).

Interpretative, explorative, configurative, and textonic functions (134).

Ergodicity refers to the extra effort required from the reader in addition to the interpretation (134).

Temporal dimension is the most underdeveloped part of the cybertext theory (134).

One way to classify temporal possibilities in programmed texts: Limiting reading time, delaying reading time, limiting the reading opportunities, temporally evolving texts (135).

Pseudo time: the amount of text used to describe an event as measured in lines of text determines the speed of narration. It is not a temporal measure at all but a spatial one. It is counted (136).

We have at least four temporal levels for cybertexts with narrative content: user time, discourse time (pseudo time and true time), story time, and system time (136).

It seems that one of the most promising areas of research within digital literature is the reorganization of these temporal issues through the dynamics of system time, reading time, and textual time (136).

“The significant aspect of this sort of machine relationship is that it is very hard—maybe even impossible—to exactly define who is responsible for the final outcome, and it is this combination I call the cyborg author” (139).

                          Impossible? That seems to be a stretch.

The plethora of WWW communications seems to be a close enough approximation of the human unconsciousness to serve as a source of machinic creativity (140).

                          I think “close enough” is an extremely dangerous concept and this                            argument is pretty weak.