vogmae interactive networked video practice

This essay combines film and hypertext theory to reformulate a hypertextual question that, to date, has been poorly framed. This question addresses the particular relation that may exist between the discursive domains of film and hypertext in terms of a possible affinity between the cinematic edit and the hypertextual link, with a view to reimagining the genealogy that has been imposed upon hypertext as a reading and writing practice. It is hoped that along the way a productive recasting of the relation between cinema theory (of one sort or another) and hypertext can occur, and that this will provide a possible methodology for a hypertext writing practice that is yet to be invented.

This paper proposes that within the practice of writing small scale, local hypertext, critical questions of relevance to all hypertext researchers are foregrounded, in particular problems of excess, context, and teleological interpretation.

The hypothesis I wish to pose is simple. Within link node hypertext it is clear that context is fundamental to link interpretation, and that context is largely reader (i.e., pragmatically) determined, in no manner is the significance of the link exhausted by any particular context in which it may occur. Furthermore, a significant factor in the contextual interpretation of the link is the development of narrative schemas, and such schemas determine meaning retrospectively. This suggests that structure in hypertext is produced pragmatically, and its principal meaningful structures are defined retrospectively. The tension between links as pragmatic, open, and excessive, versus the teleological imposition of coherence, is the space within which hypertext writing defines its own practice.

This is a close hermeneutic come narratological reading of "Singin' in the Rain" which was written and published as a hypertext. The work was written in Storyspace and includes embedded video of the sequence that is analysed.

A hypertext essay that argues and explores the relations between hypertext and cinema. Primarily this is via the isomorphic relation between hypertext links and cinematic edits.

My series of critical responses to the contributors of the "Hypertexts and Interactives" section of the First Person Reader.