Sean T. Pangia, Brown University '97 (English 111, 1996)
Hypertext, as we know, consists of chunks of text
connected in various ways to each other. Essentially,
it provides a means of creating multilinear text, or
linear blocks of text connected together in a non-linear
fashion. This web explores the possibility of expanding
the potential of hypertext by incorporating multilinear
material into the lexia itself.
The Storyspace version of
DisSimulation attempts to accomplish this idea through the
possibilities presented by layered sound, and sound combined
with with written text. Most of the sound in the Storyspace web allows
various readings as it has been cut, pasted, and layered
from various different sources. Some lexias contain
animated text which hopefully further question the
confines of textual space within the web. Due to the limitations
of the World Wide Web, the sound and animated text do not
appear in the html version. However, both versions share common
structural characteristics, and the content presented herein
remains otherwise unchanged.
Derrida expounds upon the fundamental nature of all
texts in general. Central to the construction of
DisSimulation are the Derridean critiques of textual
boundaries such as framing, the exteriority/interiority
binary, and scission which points out that the text
"begins with its own division" (D300). This web serves
as a close examination of the lexia with its own closed
frame, and the spaces existing between textual elements
such as units of sound, written text and the lexia itself
which purports to contain them all.
Inevitably, the combination of sounds and text from disparate
sources allows some questions of authorship to arise; questions such as those
raised by Barthes in "What is an Author?" This web also questions the
importance or even the possibility of recognizing sources. Is the
"author" the creator of the sampled sounds and/or text? Can I as
the writer claim the title "author" for splicing the materials
into a complex format? Are you the "author" as it is your active
reading from which meaning is created? Or is it a partnership
between all parties, a collaboration? These are questions purposely
left open as you explore the web.
WWW version
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