Language, Texts, and Technology

A blog for students in Dene Grigar's course, DTC 375 "Language, Texts and Technology"

Readings for next week:

I have put a link to Plato's Allegory of the Cave in the Links section of this blog. Please make sure that you read this very short "essay" for class on Monday. Also required reading is Benjamin's essay entitled ""The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" from the book Illuminations. I will pass out this essay in class today.

We are having a pop quiz today. . . on Hayles's Writing Machines.

-Dene

posted by: grigar at 22:20 | link | comments |

Reposted from Leonardo Digital Reviews, March 2003:
http://leonardo.info/reviews/mar2003/HAYLES_grigar.html

Writing Machines

by N. Katherine Hayles.
MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2002.
144 pp., illus. Paper, $17.95.
ISBN: 0-262-58215-5.

Reviewed by Dene Grigar

Anyone following the scholarship of N. Katherine Hayles since the publication of her article, "Virtual Bodies and Flickering Signifiers" (1993), knows that she has been working steadily on some notable activities: first, encouraging the continued development of the art of electronic literature; and second, building a field of study and theory of electronic textuality. Her new book, Writing Machines, follows the award-winning How We Became Posthuman (1999). While in that book she investigates embodiment and self in light of human interaction with informational technology, in Writing Machines she reflects her current interests by tracing materiality in light of the machines humans use to write with and the literary artifacts those machines help to produce. The result of her decade-long journey is a theory and methodology for understanding media and, ultimately, ourselves as both constructors of and beings constructed by communication media. Hence, the title of the book evokes both "inscription devices"——technologies such as the printing press and computer——and the texts that make visible "the machinery that gives their verbal constructions physical reality" (26). Thus, Writing Machines is not just about electronic texts produced in these days of posthumanity, but also "what the print book can be in the digital age" (9).

Laid out in eight chapters, the book makes its point verbally and visually.

Rhetorically, it points to hard evidence concerning the material property of texts, beginning with Talan Memmott’s Lexia to Perplexia, an electronic literary work that, through its construction of "the user as well as the interface" (48), reveals the "digital performance" of the text (61); to Tom Phillips’ A Humument, an artist book that treats text as image, forcing the reader’s awareness of the "page" and so "insist[ing] on the book’s physicality (96); and concluding with Mark Danielewski’s House of Leaves, a best-selling novel that remediates the electronic medium "inscrib[ing] preexisting thoughts" and ultimately "transform[ing]" its messages (130).

To underscore her point about the materiality of the text further, Hayles embodies her ideas in Writing Machines as two characters reflecting unique voices and viewpoints——creating a "double-braided text" (106) that eventually gives way to a synthesized third and final voice. First, we meet the voice of journeying author who talks about the theories underlying the analysis of texts; second, we are introduced to "Kaye" who speaks experientially about the way we read and make sense of texts. The dynamic interplay between journeyer-author and Kaye simulates the dynamism that takes place when "a literary work mobilizes its physical embodiment in conjunction with its verbal signifiers to construct meanings in ways that implicitly construct the user/reader as well" (131). The third voice that emerges in the last chapter is that of a much-wizened knower, who, after a decade of traversing multiple texts and paths, has reached a place where everything comes together. It is the proverbial meeting of the minds, the antithesis of a forking path.

Hayles’ verbal argument, as convincing as it is alone, is augmented with a visual representation of what she is talking about. Designed by Anne Burdick, the book simulates the "technotexts" Hayles writes about as well as remediates electronic texts on its printed pages. So, when Hayles comments at the end of the book that "artifacts such as this book serve as noisy channels of communication" (130), readers are prepared for this conclusion because throughout Writing Machines they have encountered the image of computer noise running lengthwise from the top of the pages. Actually, that the book makes its metaphors material is obvious from the very start. Text printed on the edges of the pages announce the book’s title ("writing" seen when flipped one direction; "machines," the other) and then bleed onto or merge into each page inside; information is provided as if written on a computer screen; text is stretched and inflated as one would do with word processing software; words appear in all caps suggesting hyperlinks; citations emulate the electronic text the author investigates; appendices in the back of the book give way to "Source Material" that reprints the exact pages of the works cited; and references appear as playful and informal notations in an "Endtroduction." The result is a book that is as fun to read as it is provocative to think about.

Without a doubt, Writing Machines is an important book, and the ideas Hayles posits in it have the potential of changing not just the way we think about and make sense of texts—— print and electronic——but also how we do literary criticism in the future.

posted by: grigar at 19:25 | link | comments |

Donna asked for the communication model that John and I dveloped be posted. It is below. You should be able to download it to your computer easily.

posted by: grigar at 17:50 | link | comments |

Ah, midsemester is quickly approaching (can you believe it?) and, so, dear students, it is time to recap the focus of our course . . .

You may remember that I pointed out, during the first week of school, seven basic principles underlying digital media. We have been hitting on these ideas with the various reading assignments and in-class activities. My methodology has been to combine theory AND practice so that you are encouraged to embody the knowledge you are encountering. And I am taking this approach because I because deep learning occurs not only when the brain takes in new information but the consciousness does as well.

So far we have addressed the first four principles and will continue to do so in the coming weeks.

1. A computer is not a tool or prosthesis that helps us to accomplish something; rather, it is the medium in which we work. (Oliver Grau, New Media Art History, 2007 )

2. The medium affects the message. (Marshall McLuhan, The Medium Is the Massage, 1967)

3. Text is any form of information by which we communicate an idea, feeling, or concept. (Mats Dahlstrom, “When Is a Text Text?,” 2002 )

4. Digital media are material texts. (N. Katherine Hayles, Writing Machines, 2002)

5. Criticism of digital media should be specific to digital media and relies on the sensory modalities of the body for that critique rather than abstract ideas or theories. (N. Katherine Hayles, Writing Machines, 2002)

6. The artifact of new media is just as important as the process it took to produce it. (Jan Van Looy & Jan Baetens, Close Reading New Media, 2003)

7. New media involves an interdisciplinary/transdisciplinary study of art, science, and technology (Edward Shanken, Telematic Embrace, 2003 ) & the Humanities.

posted by: grigar at 20:18 | link | comments (1) |

Since we will be working with sound files tomorrow, you guys may want to bring a device for copying your work. I recommend a CD, flashdrive, or an external drive. You could also use an iPod or other MP3 player. That way you can work on your project outside of class.

Remember that you are expected to polish four of the in class activities during the semester. These will go into your portfolio and will be assessed at the end of the semester.

--Dene

posted by: grigar at 05:54 | link | comments |

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