Writing Machines Review of chapter 3/4

 

Seems in these two chapters Hayles is back to her old tricks again. Using her imaginary persona ‘kaye’ as a way of putting forward her ideas and using the strongly coded language that I still find is a hard pill to swallow, even after deciphering through the previous chapters.

Along with her old habits the layout design of the text seems to be becoming even more intrusive as the chapters unfold, even to a point that in places the sentences seems to branch out into the opposite page. She seems to be testing the boundaries through the book design by highlighting the changes that printed text has endeavored since the intervention of Electronic Literature.

‘Hayles’ begins by explaining that she two is a ‘digital immigrant’. Born in a generation that was not accustomed to living their lives with technology, but she does not fear this new concept and actually embraced it, even if it was tedious to program in the early stages. She saw the similarities from her writhing classes and made connections with the modular computer. She was processing and coming to grips with the fundamental changes the occurred when printed text turned into Electronic literature and that now it seems imperative that her theories on MSA are critically evaluated.

As computer hardware and software were developing at a rapid rate so too was E literature. Even though it had made the transition, its principles were still relatively similar. It was still in as she calls it ‘the first generation’ The text followed a pathway that moved from Lexia to Lexia just like moving from page to page of a book. It was not until ‘Shelly Jackson’s Patchwork girl’ that something very distinct arose. Text and machine began to merge. Boundaries between the organic and the mechanical began to be broken down. Now the computer became more than just a carrier but it became part of the work.

 

This idea elevated higher after ‘ Hayles’ encountered ‘ Califia’ an electronic hypertext novel by a close friend  ‘M.D Coverley. Upon her first read she misunderstood its importance and function because of her preconceptions that existed from literature, as she knew it. She concentrated on the words without using the medium to access a whole new world where word exists.

I feel that the significance of these changes was brought home when writers such as ‘Michael Joyce’ left E literature to resume back to print. It becomes apparent that it is not the process from print to the computer, but all the ambiguities in between that are the main concerns. The words and meanings uncontrollably change through the medium with or without the consent of the Author.

 

 In chapter four we learn of the work by Talan Memmott’s Lexia to Perplexia which suggests that subjects become part of the medium and that they become structured by his or her interventions with it. To portray his concepts the viewer must believe that a Digital age already existed and goes on to devise a new language from a collaboration of English, as we know it and computer code. This is called ‘Creole’ and insists on merging machine instructions with the English language. Here we see the changes that the human body endeavors through information technology as it is re-invented by these new writhing machines. This is referred to as ‘ Communification’ where human beings and the computer become encoded in a network together.

  While a still feel a little confused about this book and maybe even more after looking up ‘ lexia to Perplexia’ on the Internet .It has opened a thought process that a never would have embarked on. Print will never be the same again but for a lot more complex reasons that I could have ever imagined.