Fall 2007 Annotated Symposium Notes

I have created an annotated version of my presentation at Hypothesis?, the first ever Monmouth University English program symposium (which I organized with Toni Magyar). My presentation was titled Remixing The Canon: Electronic Literature & Distributed Narratives. After defining and offering examples of various forms of New Media and electronic literature I discussed the most recent evolutions in Barthes’ writerly text, including what Jill Walker-Rettberg has termed distributed narratives. I call for a look at “remixing” the canon to be more inclusive of electronic literature due to their often literary tone. The primaries examples I use comes from authors like Caitlin Fisher, Scott Rettberg, Nick Montfort, and Shelley Jackson. (PDF)

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Planet Of Evil

Planet Of Evil.JPG

I recently watched the newly released Forth Doctor adventure, Planet Of Evil.  I am always happy to view another serial with The Forth Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith, but this serial was not that impressive.  There is a lot of filler and a very boring villain with really cheesy, even for Doctor Who, special effects. 

Destiny Of The Daleks

Destiny Of The Daleks.JPG

I recently viewed the newly released Destiny Of The Daleks DVD.  This serial serves as a sequel to perhaps the finest Doctor Who serial, Genesis Of The Daleks.  The serial begins with Romana freshly regenerating into Romana II, played by the stunning Lalla Ward.  The playful relationship between The Doctor and Romana II gets off to a great start here, including the matching (but pink, ugh) outfit Romana picks out to match The Forth Doctor's trademark outfit. 

Overall the story is pretty sold-The Daleks return to Skaro in an attempt to find their leader Davros.  There is a humorous reference to The Hitchhiker's Guide To Galaxy when The Forth Doctor is seen reading The Origins Of The Universe. 

The best part of this serial is Romana II and The Forth Doctor playing rock/paper/scissor to try to teach the Movellan a lesson about endless war.  By far, however, the highlight of this DVD is the bonus Prime Computer ads starring Lalla Ward and Tom Baker, which includes this totally adorable one parodying their recent marriage. 

Overall, not the best adventure for The Forth Doctor, however very significant because my favorite companion is introduced.  It is hard to go wrong with Daleks as well, although the Movellans are pretty bland. 

Feral Hypertext : When Hypertext Literature Escapes Control

A new idea!  Instead of a weekly update of what I am reading for my thesis and the project Toni and I are working on, how about I just blog my research daily as it goes on.  Bear with me: I am bouncing between a number of sources so posts will go back and forth between them often.  My goal is to upload one per day.  In fact, if all goes well the focus of this blog will shift for the time being to my current, in progress, research and writing almost exclusively.

Oh, I will get back to War Prayers soon.

History Lesson
My first entry will be for Jill Walker-Rettberg’s Feral Hypertext : When Hypertext Literature Escapes Control.   Dr. Walker’s paper offers a lot of useful information on two fronts.  There is plenty of good historical information about hypertext and many useful arguments for what Toni and I are working towards in our project, which is moving towards a focus on how texts have been, and are, defined and how this effects electronic literature.  Walker argues that hypertext before the World Wide Web is “domesticated…bred in captivity” (1).  She continues by arguing that hypertext was, however, always intended for individual users.  In 1974, Ted Nelson insists that ordinary people need to have access to personal computers.  Thirty years before, in an essay for The Atlantic in 1945, Vannevar Bush also argues for this:

Consider a future device for individual use, which is a sort of mechanized private file and library. It needs a name, and to coin one at random, “memex” will do. A memex is a device in which an individual stores all his books, records, and communications, and which is mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility. It is an enlarged intimate supplement to his memory.

Continuing the historical look, Nelson creates the term “hypertext” in 1965.  Two years later, Julia Kristeva does the same for Intertextuality.  What becomes important here for my own thinking is, as Walker notes, the similarities between contemporary critical theory and hypertext have been pointed out numerous times, including, the work I am most familiar with, George Landow’s Hypertext 2.0 from 1997.  Walker is quick to point out, as Landow is as well, that the “relationship between hypertext and critical theory is not that simple” (3).

Walker continues by offering a brief history of preweb hypertext systems like Hypercard and Storyspace:

Though the first personal computers became available in the late seventies, the first home hypertext systems weren’t available till the late eighties. Peter Brown’s GUIDE [8] was followed by HyperCard, a hypertext authoring system that was packaged with Macintosh computers. Soon afterwards, Eastgate’s Storyspace became available, first for the Macintosh and later for the PC.  Tinderbox, released from Eastgate in 2001, is probably the tool that most closely follows in the footsteps of these systems, which were very much created in the spirit of Vannevar Bush and the desire for an intimate extension to memory. These hypertext authoring systems allow an individual to organise his or her personal notes and create his or her own self-contained hypertext which can be shared with others by copying it onto a diskette or CD or by emailing it as a single file. While Tinderbox and HyperCard were primarily intended as organisational tools, Storyspace was explicitly developed as a tool for fiction authors.

The Evolution Of The Writerly Text
Distribution of literary hypertext before the World Wide Web still shared many of the characteristics of the bounded text.  Like a copy of Sorrentino’s Aberration of Starlight in paperback, a CD of Shelley Jackson’s Patch Work Girl still restricted readers to a “sustained reading of a self-contained work” (5).  The rise of cheaper personal computers and the World Wide Web began to allow anyone with an Internet account to publish on the web, link, and be linked to.  This led to what Walker refers to as “feral hypertext,” hypertext that is “no longer tame and domesticated” (1).  For my own work, the most important point here is that hypertext on the World Wide Web in general cannot be tamed any longer.  Hypertext is very unruly and rather disobedient!

As Walker points out, literary hypertext that has gone, in her words, “feral” demands of the reader “to accept structures that are neither predefined nor clearly boundaried” (2).  Collaboratively written works like The Unknown and digital poetry like Megan Sapnar and Ingrid Ankerson’s Cruising defy the boundaries of the bounded text.  An interactive memoir like Caitlin Fisher’s These Waves Of Girls is an unruly and rather untamed account of growing up told with audio and visual links.  After making sure to note that Landow and others have pointed out the differences between critical theory and hypertext while pointing out their similarities, Walker expresses the idea, which I strongly agree with, that theorists involved with critical theory and intertextuality are already arguing that texts are unruly and extremely disobedient.  Literary hypertext on the World Wide Web is an evolution of the writerly text.  Hypertext that is feral is, as I see it, an interactive expression of the writing of the work on authorship of theorists like Foucault, Derrida, and Barthes.

 

The Keeper Of Traken & Logopolis

(No pictures this week…forgot to take them!)

This week’s I received and watched, The Keeper Of Traken and Logopolis, the final two serials for The Forth Doctor. 

I really enjoyed The Keeper Of Traken.  The opening banter between The Doctor and Adric is hilarious.  Tom Baker is especially good in this scene.  This serials also introduces Nyssa as a new companion.  Nyssa is smart and, while she does fall into peril, keeps up with and challenges The Doctor.  Oh, and you cannot forget the big surprise of the serial’s villain being The Master in disguise.  Actually, it is not that big of a surprise, at least to me, and is significantly downplayed surprisingly.  The bonus documentary confirms that The Master’s appearance was added late in the script writing process and would serve to introduce his newest incarnation.  His possession of the body of Nyssa’s father so he could regenerate seems to be the main reason for his being in the script at all.  Nyssa looking for her absent father is a well done, and pretty sad, way to finish the serial. 

Overall, this is one of the better Forth Doctor serials in the later years.  Anthony Ainley is wonderful as The Master and is my favorite incarnation of him until the most recent at the end of the 2007 series.  Something cool in the extras: At one point the actors are discussing Tom Baker’s leaving the series and a news clip is shown on the screen announcing a rumor that the next incarnation of The Doctor would be played by a woman!  How cool would that have been?  I remember rumors when Billie Piper left a few years back that she has desires on becoming an incarnation of The Doctor (which I think could be amazing…or pretty horrible…but I do see a lot of potential) but I had never heard anything going back that far.  I think it is about time for a female Doctor. 

As an aside, speaking of The Master, and female Time Lords, I don’t think The Doctor and The Master are the only Time Lords to survive the Time War.  There have to be more Chameleon Arches out there…perhaps Romana?  Some have speculated The Rani was the woman who picked up the remains of The Master at the end of Last Of The Time Lords.  Since the new series seems to have a lot of focus on Forth Doctor serials and companions (although the Children In Need special for this year with The Fifth Doctor was quite lovely) it would make sense for Romana to appear someday. 

Anyway.

Immediately following the events of The Keeper Of Traken comes Logopolis, which becomes the final serial for Tom Baker as The Forth Doctor and introduces yet another new companion, Tegan Jovanka.   I have not seen many serials with Tegan but she has never impressed me that much.  Anthony Ainley’s Master returns in this serial and does quite well, as does Tom Baker in his send off.  The story is fine, but perhaps a little slow.  It is quite amusing that years and years later The Doctor still has not fixed his Chameleon Circuit. 

The Forth Doctor is done, but we move onto Peter Davison’s portrayal of The Fifth Doctor next.  I will get to that soon.  In fact, it may be a short while because the freshly released Forth Doctor, with the lovely Romana II, serial Destiny Of The Daleks came in the mail from Netflix today.  Stay tuned. 

 

Weekly Reader

Here is the last few weekend’s worth of weekend reading…