ENGL 668k: Digital Studies (Spring 2004)

Critical Distance & "Going Postal"

A couple random thoughts to illuminate your weekend (yeah, like anyone is going to read this over the weekend).

Harkening back to last week's discussion of Manovich...

In his "where were the theoreticians" litany on page 6, Manovich decries the lack of critical attention re: new media (with some reason). I think one thing that complicates any sort of critical study of new media is that we are so immersed in it. In the past, when new phenomena arose in areas of art and culture, they (and the discourses that accompanied them) were generally situated within discrete, isolated locations (books, museums, even cinema houses)--locations you could visit and then leave. But how, in the early 21st century, do you get away from new media? How do you study something, find critical distance, when you are daily in the midst of it? When your cell phone is buzzing in your pocket, as you sit at your computer, downloading files to your PDA, listening to music, thinking about that film or television program you're going to see tonight?

It seems that in order to say something intelligent about new media, you need to turn a few things off first. That's one reason why I don't own a TV, why I don't have a PDA or a cell phone. Because I feel I need that critical, even contemplative, distance in order to work in the field of new media (as a web and graphic designer, not to mention high-tech academic). I need to be able to get away from it in order to think about it (I need to be able to escape the badgers!). I need a life outside of my field, which is to say I need a life.

But then perhaps the critical distance I aim for is just a myth. Which takes me to Katherine Hayles work.

Am I the only one who gets a little anxious when humans are described as "post," that is, "as information-processing entities who are essentially similar to intelligent machines" maintaining "homeostasis using feedback loops" (7-8)? I understand it, but being likened to a machine sure makes me squirm in my epistemological seat.

Then again, as a zen buddhist, I can certainly see myself as a "collectivity, an 'I' transformed into the 'we' of autonomous agents operating together to make a self" (6). This is remarkably similar to what one of my teachers, Thich Nhat Hanh, says about buddhist psychology. Is it OK when he says it, because he puts it in such anodyne terms, but less OK when it's in robot (or theory) speak?

One final observation. Yesterday I was angsting over the temporary filling that has fallen out of my mouth. It's not that I was assailed by pain as by the anticipation of pain to come. At the same time, my fairly new computer has been doing some very weird things lately, and I spent a few hours troubleshooting. After some time I noticed that the anxiety I was feeling about my malfunctioning computer was remarkably similar to the anxiety concerning my malfunctioning mouth. Truly my computer is as much a part of me as my teeth are, perhaps even more so, since a good part of my consciousness might be said to be contained within my external hard drive, whereas my teeth (on good days) just grind things up.

That said, I should return to my reading, to see how much more of a cyborg I am than I want to be.

[Here is not a link to dancing anything]

Variability

Yes, you're in the right place; I've simply reskinned the blog.

If the consensus is that the old stylesheet looked better I'll gladly change it back; or, if you have a suggestion for another skin/stylesheet, post it here.

Steven Johnson in Town

Stephen Johnson, author of Interface Culture and Emergence (we'll be reading a short excerpt later in the semester) will be in town talking about his new book, Mind Wide Open (subject: brain science), at Politics and Prose this Monday.

Politics of Information

IMMEDIATE RELEASE

ALT-X PRESS LAUNCHES NEW CRITICAL EBOOK SERIES WITH "THE POLITICS OF
INFORMATION: THE ELECTRONIC MEDIATION OF SOCIAL CHANGE"

BOULDER, Colorado, February 23, 2004 --The Alt-X Online Network, a space
"where the digerati meet the literati" and celebrating its 10 year
anniversary, announces the release of a new Alt-X Press ebook entitled
"The Politics of Information: The Electronic Mediation of Social Change"
edited by Marc Bousquet and Katherine Wills. "The Politics of
Information" title officially launches our new Alt-X Press critical
ebook series:

The Politics of Information: The Electronic Mediation of Social Change
Edited by Marc Bousquet and Katherine Wills

Contributors include Charles Bernstein, Bennett Voyles, DeeDee Halleck,
Fran Ilich, Bruce Simon, Mark Amerika, Katherine Wills, Geert Lovink,
Ricardo Dominguez, David Golumbia, Tiziana Terranova, Nick
Dyer-Witheford, John Monberg, Matt Kirschenbaum, Donna Haraway, Lisa
Nakamura, Mark Poster, Kembrew McLeod, Caren Irr, Tara McPherson,
Anne-Marie Schleiner, Paul Collins, Harvey Molloy, Marc Bousquet, Ken
Saltman, Timothy W. Luke, Stephanie Tripp, Katie King, Laura L.
Sullivan, Susan Schreibman, Chris Carter, Gregory Ulmer, and Victor
Vitanza.

"The Politics of Information" is an essay collection in five parts
covering a broad panoply of discourses, practices, and institutional
change that can be garnered under the rubric of "materialist
informatics." The editors, Marc Bousquet and Katherine Wills, have
brought together a strong and authoritative collection of essays in the
context of this synthesizing, yet at the same time diversifying concept.
Recalling that Donna Haraway's cyborg was never meant to be a wired,
blissed-out bunny, Bousquet and Wills recover the political dimension in
socialist-feminist thought. "The Politics of Information" brings class
back into cultural studies, considers the Web as crucial to the
expanding "informatics of domination," and recovers the cyborg as a key
figure for an entire world of labor and lifeways. The authors in this
wide-ranging collection, most of them pioneers in the development of
Internet content, address the concerns not only of designers and users,
but of everyone in the service and homework economy: janitors,
perma-temps, motherboard assemblers, and all who provide the feminized
labors of reproduction that include child care, health care, and a
deeply instrumentalized education.

Unconstrained by the hidden assumptions of print publication, where
discursive weight is too often held in check by the literal weight of a
fixed edition, this critical e-book is unapologetic in its length, its
scope, and its degree of engagement. Essays appear in combination with
interviews; critical discourse alternates with story-telling; conceptual
writing plays off first person reports from the field. Through
massiveness and a direct encounter with materials in multiple media,
this volume is literally unbound in energy and offers both incisive
insights into the technocapitalist condition even as it achieves a Web
credibility unusual in scholarly writing. The ebook's orientation is
given by Bousquet's five section introductions, and the publication's
technical bookmark feature allows readers to navigate through this
enormous body of text with the simple click of a mouse.

"A wonderful addition to the ALT-X catalogue. Indeed, it is a worthy
volume to be considered as the first critical book in the ALT-X.ebr
ebook series. If there is such a thing as the 'right' volume for such an
honour, it should be a book that addresses the informatic turn in
culture." - Darren Tofts, author of "Memory Trade: A Prehistory of
Cyberculture" and editor of "Prefiguring Cyberculture: An Intellectual
History" (MIT Press, 2003)

"The thought of what America would be like, if academic cultural
criticism found its activist edge and a worldwide distribution, disturbs
my sleep." - Joseph Tabbi, series editor, Alt-X/ebr critical e-books;
author of "Cognitive Fictions" (Minnesota, 2002)

You can download "The Politics of Information" ebook as well as other
Alt-X ebooks for free at http://www.altx.com/ebooks/

The Second Coming of the Second Coming

My friend Doc recently reminded visitors to his site about a project he needs help with, and it occurred to me that it related to some of Manovich's ideas, and even Ong's. Doc says, with infinite world-weariness, "I really ought to be studied. Many would agree. Many would contribute money for my prolonged scientific incarceration." I try to do my part.

The Second Coming: A New Presentation

Things to think about when approaching the Second Coming project:

- The modularity of the new media object, and beyond that, the modularity of text itself. Paragraphs break down to sentences which break down to words, and web sites are built up from words and pictures... what happens when we break down the text, then build it back up with new media?

- On page 131, Manovich says "As became apparent by the early 1980s, culture... no longer tried to 'make it new.' Rather, endless recycling and quoting of past media content, artistic styles, and forms becaome the new 'international style' and the new cultural logic of modern society." Obviously this project relates to the collagist creative culture Manovich is referring to, but does it do so in the way he expects?

- What happens to the content? Is the content, the practical upshot, of "The Second Coming: A New Presentation" the same as the content of "The Second Coming"?

- What is the role of material objects here? As Manovich would put it, Doc is effecting a "shift from a material object to a signal" (132). But the material objects are the only things that lend the signal its interest or validity.

I don't have particular answers worked out for these questions, and they may turn out not to have answers or to have boring/irrelevant answers, but I think that the relation between this particular project and Manovich's new media theories is potentially pretty complex.

Also, if you guys liked Badgers, check out this one from the same site. Like Badgers, on my initial viewing I was in tears from laughing and could not pinpoint why.

Forget Norway! Kenya!

So scholarly, us.

Last Night's Links

Good discussions last night, all. Here are some links:

Lev Manovich's homepage.

International Children's Digital Library.

Textfiles.

Nick Montfort, "Continuous Paper."

And, of course, the badgers.

Andrew, please go ahead and add the address for the Brown conference.

Douglas Gordon in DC

This is particularly relevant for our class considering the discussion for today. Perhaps we could meet before...?

Douglas Gordon and the 24 Hour Psycho

NOTE: You do have to sign up with the Washington Post in order to view this article. To co-opt Ed's referencing, like the Borg, we all must assimilate....

Don't delete that SPAM just yet...

I came across this woman named Kristin Thomas who uses SPAM to create poetry. Here's her latest piece:

American Patriots,
How can we serve you better?

Win a laptop computer?
Win a trip to Florida?
Win a NEW LEXUS?
We give you more of what you want.

American Patriots,
How can we serve you better?
Want free movies?
Want to date a supermodel?
Want a bigger penis and stronger erections?
You will love it!

American Patriots,
How can we serve you better?
We have decided to increase your credit,
Increase your penis size, now
Give you free money.

Just Vote Bush. Your wife will never know.

Every line of each poem is from a piece of SPAM that she has received and I thought her technique dovetailed nicely with Manovich's discussion of the creation of "electronic art" as the result of industrialism. Although Manovich was referring to visual art that is assembled from ready made parts, I think Thomas's creations lend themselves to his theory. It's also worth looking at the distinctions between these poems and the poegrams that were blogged earlier in the month. From a reader's standpoint, I feel more comfortable defining the SPAM poety as art (and therefore recognizing its vaue) versus the poegrams. Thomas reminds me of the example Manovich gave about the DJ selecting and combining existing elements to create a new artistic form. We could simply say that the art is in the synthesis, yet I can't help but feel that when a human mind does the synthesizing versus a machine the output has more artistic value.

Here's the URL for the site:

http://www.sperare.com/spam_poetry/blogger.html

Kuleshovs

Howdy Folks,

Throwing something up on the Blog at the last minute...

I was very intrigued with the tidbit that Marc offered us last week about gamers working on technologies to evoke, and manipulate, sensations and feelings. It made me think of the Kuleshov effect, which made me (inspired by Manevich) jump into Photoshop, and then Dreamweaver, to play around with the concepts.

I won't say much else. If you're game, follow the link below and try out some of my "kuleshovs." And if you want some explanation, there is a link at the bottom of the page that takes you to a "Method" page. I would just ask you to hold off on reading the "cheat" until you've at least sampled some of the wares on display.

http://www.wam.umd.edu/~byrnejo/kuleshov/kuleshov.html

JosephB

P.S. It is strongly suggested not to take a hit of acid before accessing the "kuleshovs." Other hallucinogens, however, are fair game.

On the "Greatness" of cybertexts

I was very interested in Ed’s final question last session because it went to the heart of my general feeling of reluctance concerning cybertexts and especially interactive games. His question was something like,” Do we want games or cybertexts to work more like regular texts ? ( I hope that is a fair paraphrase).

My internal response to that question was a hearty ”Yes.” However, it isn’t so much that I want cybertexts to “work” any particular way, but that I want the experience with them to be as important and satisfying as my experience has been with print texts. My limited experience with interactive texts (D and D, computer games, computer generated lit etc.) has not convinced me that something like “Shade” or “ Adventure” can offer the same quality of experience that, say, a great work of literature like The Brothers Karamozov can. Can a cybertext ever achieve the same greatness (defined, I guess, by simple endurance) as so many print texts have? Is this worry simply due to my prejudice, my inexperience, the infancy of the medium and the authors in the medium, or is there something limiting in the cybertext scenario itself ? I rarely think about the medium of the book when I read one, while I find it hard to forget it when encountering a digital text. Thoughts?

Haptics, Sonics and You

Although I'm still desparately searching for the article I read on emotional manipulation in gaming, these articles will do for now (thanks to Jason Rhody for pointing me in the right direction a while ago):

First, a discussion of haptics that considering "the relationship between touch and vision" and how this can be incorporated into a more immersive gaming experience:

What is Haptics?

Next, a short article on the apparently successful use of electric currents by Japanese researchers in simulating gravity in games:

Electric Currents

Finally, a link to the game The Wild Divine which uses bio-feedback loops "to combine...science...with a beautiful, enchanting and entertaining multimedia experience":

The Wild Divine

I think that, at the very least, the possibilities inherent to this science really force us to question the degrees with which we can interact with current media lacking these bio-manipulators. In other words, can we truly say that haptics and bio-feedback loops will provide a more immersive (narratological) experience? To what degree do these technologies help us to navigate the "twisty little passages" of cybertextuality and the infosphere? Would our habits as readers/ players (expectations, need for closure and linearity [i.e. the natural tendency to make the non-linear linear], etc.) and the moves we make to interact with a "text" be drastically different with this technology? What remains of the text in this incorporation?

And on a (somewhat) unrelated note, a post on Jason Rhody's blog on what could be considered a random encounter with a cyborg author or, at least, a cyborg spam ad exec:

Aarseth's Accidental Author

Links of interest

I thought people might enjoy Everything2, which I think is a very interesting phenomenon from the cybertext standpoint. E2 is an attempt at a multi-user catalog of... well, everything. Individual subjects ("nodes") can have one or more writeups by different users, and those writeups can be factual or fictional depending on the subject (some nodes have both). All writeups must include "hard links" (words within the writeup that link to other nodes) and "soft links" (links at the bottom of the page, which mark the paths followed from that node -- when you go from one node to another, you automatically create a soft link, and the most commonly traversed paths are higher in the list). Soft links are always the names of existant nodes, since you have to actually go to another node to create the link, but hard links can be any part of the text... so if a user clicks on a hard link that says, say, "ye cannot get ye flask," and sees that there is no node of that name, he or she can create one. Users can also vote on writeups, so the really bad ones get nuked.

Here's the writeup on cybertext, to get you started. Click anywhere that's blue.

http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=533631

Also, and this is significantly sillier but equally addictive, I found this text game version of Hamlet. Easier than ADVENT, less annoying than Shade, judicious hints provided by me if you get sucked in:

http://www.robinjohnson.f9.co.uk/adventure/hamlet.html

(Note that the avatar is "I" instead of "you"... hmm. Can we make anything of that?)

Facade

Here's Stern and Mateas's forthcoming Facade, which I discussed briefly towards the end of class last night. And here's Nick Montfort's Twisty Little Passages site.

Anyone care to follow-up on aspects of last night's discussion?

A Short Manifesto for Online Readers

OK, maybe this isn't the most appropriate forum for this, but I'm really sick of

reading long, single-spaced-equivalent, small-font, Times-New-Roman (which

isn't easy to read on a computer screen) online documents (e.g. the

Cybertext review).

One major distinction between codex and online writing is that online writing

is not limited by page size. You can scroll to infinity if you like (though infinity

would certainly be too much of a good thing). This means you can have a larger

font and can have the equivalent of double spacing without too many folks being

bothered.

Online writing (there is a reason I am avoiding the term "cybertext") also

allows for coding possibilities usually ignored by those composing/publishing in

an online environment. You can code into your documents the things mentioned

above (larger font and double spacing), and also indented paragraphs.

Why have we jettisoned such textual innovations? Maybe to distinguish the

codex from the electronic text, or maybe out of some kind of textual anxiety. But

I believe it is a mistake to eliminate the technological breakthroughs of print

culture when they can enhance and facilitate reading in an online environment.

I aim to change this deleterious situation. I am hereby inciting a revolution

against what will heretofore be known as scrunch-text. I suggest that,

for anything you are publishing online you insert the code below (in the attached

image) into the document header (doesn't matter where, but must be in the

header). You can do it with any text editor, even something as simple as

Notepad. And if you don't know enough about HTML, go to

webmonkey.com

I also suggest that, for any HTML document you are assigned to read for a

class (such as this one), you download the document to your hard drive, insert

the code into the header of the document, and THEN read it in a browser (before

your eyes fall out of your head).

Here is the code. You'll thank me when you brain has not exploded and you're

not completely blind when your reach 50.

P.S. I noticed, much to my chagrin, that when I hit preview Moveable Type took

Sorry. We must take the revolution to MT.

In the News

Via GrandTextAuto: An AP wire service story on the rapidly emerging field of Ludology, or the study of (video) games:

"Rejecting the stigma that games are only for kids, researchers around the world are making computer games the subject of serious academic pursuit alongside literature, music and art. They are staking out space in universities -- with Ph.D. programs, research centers and online journals."

Espen Aarseth gets a mention.

Plotkin's Shade

In the dark about Shade?

I've posted a big hint below.

The to-do list on the table will tell you what you need to do to progress. Check it whenever you seem stuck.

Recursive Sims

From Wired News:

"The Russian Nesting Doll of Games. The object of The Sims, a popular video game, is to keep the characters happy in their daily lives. Now comes a fan-made plug-in that lets the in-game characters amuse themselves by -- what else? -- playing the SimCity video game. By Daniel Terdiman."

Full story here.

Thy Dungeonman

Straight from the land of Homestar Runner and Strongbad comes a humorous example of a text-based adventure that does a nice job commenting on the structure of this type of game. You can actually play the game at the end of the cartoon, so stay tuned...:

Strongbad and Video Games

Numeric, Mathematic, Discrete

Been thinking about my exchange with Walter on the relationship between the numeric and the digital. I think (Walter, please jump in here) that what we might have is less a difference in terminology than in emphasis: the digital, by virtue of being discrete, is always inherently numeric. That is to say, discrete objects are objects that we can count. Yes, agreed. That the digital is by definition numeric, however, is not the same as saying its mathematical nature is always equally essential. Again, see the Ada Lovelace epigraph to Knuth's essay. Or in the Photoshop Sharpen example I gave at the very end of class, an autographic image is suddenly subject to formal (and mathematical) manipulation by virtue of its being reduced to an allographic set of discrete elements (pixel values, which--theoretically--could be manipulated by a group of rules other than those of the binary mathematics built into my microprocessor).

Cybertext Ruckus

Nick Montfort's review of Cybertext on the electronic book review site raised quite the ruckus. Read Nick's review, and then follow ups by the likes of Kate Hayles, Marjorie Luesebrink, Jim Rosenberg, Scott Rettberg, Markku Eskelinen (don't miss this one), and yours truly.

A more recent review of Cybertext is available on the excellent RCCS site run by UMD American Studies alum David Silver.

Finally, have a look at this very smart discussion of Aarseth's blindspot with regard to the diachronic dimension of cybertextuality.

Poegram

Ok, I was so geeked when I read in "Cybertexts" about the poegram by Hopkins that I had to go and hunt it down. Hacker poetry I have seen before, which is more like an ASCII joke than a poem, but never a full blown program. The idea of poetry in a programming language intrigued me--though it was not the first time I encountered the idea. But to make it actually functional--that was impressive.

However, aparantly, it's more (at least in this case) a theoretically functionality. According to friends of mine, it references non-existant modules (I think that's a network thing, don't ask me, I don't know Perl. :)).

Still, it was neat enough that I thought it deserved a blog so we could at least nose it in class tomorrow:

#!/usr/bin/perl

APPEAL:

listen (please, please);

open yourself, wide;
join (you, me),
connect (us, together),

tell me.

do something if distressed;

@dawn, dance;
@evening, sing;
read (books, $poems, stories) until peacful;
study if able;

sort your feelings, reset goals, seek (friends, family, anyone);

do*not*die (like this)
if sin abounds;

keys (hidden), open (locks, doors), tell secrets;
do not, I-beg-you, close them, yet.

accept (yourself, changes),
bind (grief, despair);
require truth, goodness if-you-will, each moment;
select (always), length(of-days)

#listen (a perl poem)
#Sharon Hopkins
#rev. June 19, 1995

-----

I am wondering if there are more of these out there--it wouldn't surprise me. I love it when art meets tech. My apologies that, with a cold at midnight, this is the best my brain can come up with in terms of stimulating thought.

Kell

ps - This is one example of hacker poetry:
(Caveat, it's probably a joke more than a culture thing, but I got a kick out of it.)

<> !*''#
^"`$$-
!*=@$_
%*<> ~#4
&[]../
|{,,SYSTEM HALTED

Translation:
"Waka waka bang splat tick tick hash,
Caret quote back-tick dollar dollar dash,
Bang splat equal at dollar under-score,
Percent splat waka waka tilde number four,
Ampersand bracket bracket dot dot slash,
Vertical-bar curly-bracket comma comma CRASH."
--Unknown

Those krazy black & white hats. :)

Presentation Schedule

The class list and presentation schedule is now posted (see the link column to the right). There's no one signed up for the last class (May 5, English: The Once and Future Discipline) but perhaps that's for the best: it is the end of the semester, after all, and I know this will be a set of issues about which everyone has something to say. So we'll let the presentation go for that day, or else use it as a make-up if someone needs to reschedule.

On and On and On and Ong...

Thanks to everyone for a very lively discussion about Orality & Literacy as well as "The Book as Machine."

I have uploaded the sheets I made as an entry into the discussion. Again, I recall for you the puzzle I found myself in while preparing for an oral presentation of a text, while writing down ideas I would iterate in speech, and while trying to demonstrate flecks and notes of the nature of orality, literacy, and textuality.

The first file (orality&literacy1.pdf) are the text-formed words. I wanted to play with the idea of how we engage a text and whether a text works for us or whether we'd have to work for (to engage) the text. The second file (orality&literacy2.pdf) are the same quotes in standard, "readable," conventional format, which also includes discussion questions.

Download orality&literacy1.pdf
Download orality&literacy2.pdf

I still have leftover questions and thoughts lingering in my mind. The blog is a perfect opportunity to thread through different ideas such as:

What are the tensions and extensions between orality and literacy?
What about the notion of 'backward scanning'? What about orality that is recorded, edited, replayed?
What do we do with the negative connotations of 'illiterate'? How do we position orality in a culture that prizes literacy (e.g. No Child Left Behind Act)?
What about access to reading, writing, and the very technology of literacy? Ostensibly the web allows anyone to 'publish'? What about the digital divide?
Plagiarism is the ugly child of print culture--discuss. What happens to idea of 'intellectual property' in a growing cut-and-paste culture?
What do we think about the attempt at policing cyberspace? Filtering? Netiquette?

I guess I feel as though I still have to redeem Ong a little bit. I enjoyed how accessible O&L is and for the questions he raises about orality, literacy, and texts. I'm wondering whether we could have an extended discussion about orality, literacy, and some form of visual literacy (which I coined "videocy" in a paper I wrote a million years ago), the ability to read / understanding of / critical eye for visual texts like film, video, television, and computer screens.

I look forward to futher lively discussion. (And for those people presenting later in the semester, don't fear--our class is very good at taking the ball and running with it.)

Blake Games

did I really get here first?

do you think walter ong would approve of writing without capital letters?

i wanted to shamelessly exploit our brief discussion about blake to say that i did a project on blake in a seminar last semester and it's going to get published in romantic circles and i've spent the last two days revising it and i wanted to invite you all to see it.

my argument is that blake's songs of innocence and of experience (the images of which we looked at last night on the wall) is a "game in virtual space" and i also created a hypermedia "machine" that enables the reader to compare plates from the two books.

so as an example of new media, i offer you...

http://www.rc.umd.edu/praxis/designsonblake.ns/byrne/contraries.html

or go directly to the hypermedia machine...

http://www.rc.umd.edu/praxis/designsonblake.ns/byrne/contraries_machine/game_frame.html

i want you to know i spent twenty minutes writing this post and proofread it three times.

Joseph Byrne

Open Season

Okay gang, all of you should now have authoring privileges on the blog. You should know your username and password from last night (if it doesn't seem to be working, mail me). To login, go here:

http://www.otal.umd.edu/~mgk/MT/MT-2.6-full-lib/mt.cgi

That URL is kind of a mouthful, so you probably want to bookmark it.

All of you also have permission to upload files to the blog. This should be very useful for presentations. So Ed (for example), you can upload copies of your handouts and then link to them from an entry.

The blog interface is pretty straightforward, but don't hesitate to mail me if you have a question about how it works. Happy posting! I'd love to see someone pick up the pieces from the Ong discussion last night . . .

On Neterature

[The following from Joseph Byrne (thanks Joseph!) I'm still mulling over the options for group authorship on the blog and will do something soon--stay tuned.]

There was an interesting article in yesterday's post (Feb. 1 2004) on "neterature," which consists of writings native to the internet and the web (including blogs!). I was particularly intrigued by the following:

"When you're sitting at a computer and reading . . . says neuropsychiatrist Richard Restak, author of "The New Brain: How the Modern Age Is Rewiring Your Mind," 'you're looking at a visual media. You're using the same part of your brain you use to watch TV.'

"As a result, you respond differently to the screen than you do to paper. It brings out different aspects of the brain.

People writing on the Internet, Restak says, tend to be 'laconic, and overly rude.'

"He adds: 'Your critical faculties are in abeyance.'

"The technology is changing the way we think. And act.

"Some of it may be for the better. It is, after all, a complicated world, and perhaps we are discovering new ways to deal with -- and explore -- complex, multi-level media. Middle-school kids who instant-message incessantly while they study either learn to juggle writing tasks or suffer as a result.

"Some of the changes may be for the worse. Barraged by bits and bytes, people are being reprogrammed to write and speak in shorter sentences, Restak says. The brain is losing its ability to keep track of complex phrases and clauses.

"So even if we want to read -- or write -- more textured, complex prose, we may not be able to. The result is slapdash, small-vocab, shallow, callow writing that seems to be devolving with the technology rather than evolving."

I find Restak's critique rather shallow and callow. His critique is not that dissimilar to those (such as Plato) who thought the invention of writing was a harbinger of the end of civilization. Certainly, as Ong points out, the technology
of writing in effect re-wired the human brain. We can expect no different when we're dealing with newer forms of technology.

But digital literature is in its infancy (it's incunabular, if I might use one of my favorite words!) and too early to say whether "neterature" will turn all our brains to mush. I believe we will see geniuses of neterature in the coming years,
those who take the technologies now available and use them to create great works of art.

Will they be different than the products of writing technology such as we've seen for the past 2 millennia? Certainly, as much as the products of writing differ from the products of oral culture. But there's plenty of time for artists to arise
who can turn "neterature" into art, creating a web-native writing that is plenty "textured" and "complex."

Here's the URL for the article:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1993-2004Jan31.html

William Gibson Reading in N. Virginia

William Gibson (who coined the term "cyberspace") will be reading at the Borders in Bailey's Crossroads (http://www.bordersstores.com/stores/store_pg.jsp?storeID=45). The store is in Northern Virginia, at the intersection of 7 and 244 (Leesburg Pike and Columbia Pike). It's taking place on Feb. 16th at 7:30 pm.

Thanks Jess!