Navagating Electronic Literature

"Navigation is an element of electronic literature that uniquely affects the ways in which we read and interact with digital textuality. Unlike print literature, electronic literature does not consist of stable, inscribed marks on a print page; rather, it emerges as a processural performance across codes and circuitry within the computer and in response to interactions from the reader." A quote from Navigating Electronic Literature by Jessica Pressman.

Truly, navigating this new form has proved to be one of its challenges for me. It is something so different from a traditional piece of literature, and it must be approached in a different way as well.

"Navigation is not just how readers move through electronic literature but how they read digital works. When and how the reader inputs a command, whether it is a mouse-click or a typewritten word, this action affects the work’s performance and the reader’s engagement with it."

Electronic literature, and the means by which we interact with it as readers, quantifies our understanding. Whereas a reader's interaction with traditional literature happens mostly in the mind and is difficult to measure, a reader's interaction with electronic literature can be measured by the rate at which they click a button, type a word, etc. Electronic literature forces the reader to interact with the work not only through our thoughts, but through our physical actions as well.

"How one navigates a hypertext determines what one reads and in which order." Everyone experiences a literary work differently, but now the difference can be measured and tracked by the means of how one physically navigates through a hypertext work. Not only are the readers each experiencing something different through their individual minds, they are also coming at the story in a completely different way depending on where/what/how they click through it.

It is as if electronic literature has taken what could only ever happen in someone's individual mind and made it accessible for all to experience.

"Navigating a nonlinear narrative such as a hypertext, or a related form like Andrews’s stir frys, demonstrates how electronic literature challenges expectations associated with and codified around print-based reading practices." As I mentioned in my previous post, electronic literature challenges the concepts we have formed as readers of traditional literature. Those concepts cannot be brought into the electronic experience because they often do not apply.

For example, "Since hypertexts are structured as networks rather than linear plots, they lend themselves to openness and disorientation." There is no linear story; a hypertext can bring you round and round in circles without even ever ending. This can be a difficult concept to wrap one's mind around (it certainly is for me) because we are so used to linear works.