complex written or pictorial material > 22/07/05

Hypertext as a literary form rapidly became an abused term both among its defenders and its opponents. Among its defenders hypertext was something of a sesame-open-you to non-linear, open-ended structures where “links and nodes” replace pagination in books. Its opponents rejected hypertext on the grounds that it does not use the technology of new media in new innovative ways – hypertext is still text that could be printed.

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response (0) tagged: digital writing filed under: on writing

the metaphor of the conjugal bed > 18/05/05

Is the marriage of binary opposites such as heaven and hell, male and female the reconciliation of (wo)man? Is the goal of (wo)man to reconcile with the man and the woman in her/him and thereby to take over the conjugal bed of his/her father and mother which in its turn brings forth the birth of something completely new, that is to say, their child? In other words, is the integrational process of these binary opposites and the child in becoming our coming into our own?

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response (0) tagged: fantasm :: oedipe filed under: speculating :: metapsychology :: the Other

human poverty > 22/04/05

Everywhere I look I come across, on the one, social narcissism, behaviourism, cognitive therapy, infomania and, on the other, anorexia, bulimia, people being burnt out and other bodies in disorder. That is, I come across both the symptoms and the effects of a society that has rid itself of its humanity. Instead of investing in human potential we rely on quick solutions and material welfare to cover up for the lack of faith in human resources. The result is meagre, poor in spirit, rich in bodily disorders.

response (0) tagged: filed under: the Other :: in the absence of the Other

as browsing turns to clicking > 05/04/05

In 1999, William H. Gass wrote in his In Defense of the Book that readers of books will become increasingly better readers as the internet would be the end to ‘good’ reading. He also regretted the loss of browsing in the sense that you can browse the book shelves in a library and, by serendipity, find what you never would have looked for in the first place.

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response (0) tagged: digital culture :: the spectacle filed under: metatexts :: on reading :: the new screen