The World Without Cybertext >>
Stuart Moulthrop
Stuart Moulthrop, cybertext author and theorist, poses the possibility of
The World Without Cybertextä as a mechanism for pondering the future
of cybertext. Concentrating upon the realm of narrowly defined esoteric
cybertext (hypertext fiction, interactive games, and virtual environments),
he accepts the immutability of broadly entrenched exoteric cybertext
(financial trading, e-business, chat rooms and e-mail). He argues against
the notion that such a public and potentially manipulative interface as the
Net should ever become as transparent as books and film have become.
Moulthropâs future of esoteric cybertext: Games. More than interpreting
the configurations of a set system, games demand that we interpret to
reconfigure the system.
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||| HIAFF 3.0 | university of colorado | department of art and art history | digital arts area | in conjunction with alt-x | atlas | blurr
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[Intro] If we need to kill the literary priest and the cinematic king,
the turn to games could provide an occasion.
I use these fighting words without any claim to innocence, suggesting that
we enter a period of direct contention between existing and insurgent
cultural forms. Since hard knocks will follow, let me define my assertion
as carefully as possible. First, I do not suggest that literature or film
studies have reached the end of their usefulness as disciplines, any
more than Coover in his "End of Books" contemplated the abandonment
of writing. Further, I would not rule out interdisciplinary exchanges, such
as Cayley's enlightening readings out of late poststructuralism, Adrian
Miles' importations from Deleuzean film theory, and other important
boundary crossings. I insist only that nascent cultural formations around
the theme of cybertext--and to be honest, I am thinking mainly of academic
programs--not be conceived as subsidiaries of either literature or film. As
Murray teaches, we should not stifle what is "new" in new media.
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