Some rough notes on Stuart Moulthrop’s “You say you want a Revolution” (1991)

Moulthrop, S; "You Say You Want a Revolution? Hypertext and the Laws of Media",

in The New Media Reader, edited by Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Nick Montfort, Cambridge and London, MIT Press; 2003.

Stuart Moulthrop's essay "You Say You Want a Revolution?" originally appeared in 1991 in Postmodern Culture, edited by E. Umiran and J. Unsworth.  The fluidly written text is divided into roughly six distinct sections: a theoretical introduction, examinations of hypertext according to each of Marshall McLuhan's "Laws of Media", and a brief conclusion.  As a point of departure Moulthrop reviews the history of the concept of Hypertext.  He argues that when the essay first appeared, hypertext was relatively unknown, yet the concepts hypertext enables extends as far back as Vannevar Bush's Memex.

Moulthrop focuses his discussion on Theodor Holm Nelson as a central theorist of Hypertext.  Nelson, working in the 1960's, coined the term hypertext, and developed a model for a worldwide network of information he called 'Xanadu' many years prior to the advent of the internet, even prior to the advent of the personal computer.  Moulthrop outlines and examines Nelsons propositions in great detail, focussing on Nelsons statement that "tomorrows hypertext have immense political ramifications".  Yet, at the time of writing, Nelson points out the startling absence of the information revolution that was anticipated to change the way we read, write and think.  Nelson touches briefly on many other theorists who in their work anticipated the change brought about by hypertext, and sets out the shifting interest, and expectations, from one 'bleeding edge' technology to the next.  It is at this point that Moulthrop arrives at the central proposition of this text, the (mis)understanding of technology and revolution within the postmodern framework.  In the examination of the political and social ramifications of hypertext and other information sharing systems that follows Moulthrop continually returns to the definition and expectations of revolution, contrasting and comparing.

In all of these investigations Nelson's conceptualisation of Xanadu takes centre stage as the analysed example.  Eventually Moulthrop arrives at the uncompleted final work of Marshall McLuhan, the fourfold "Laws of Media", which where to "form a framework for a  semiotics of technology" (Moulthrop ,697).  These laws pose four questions that can be asked of any invention, assessing the extent of which it is transformative in its field.  Moulthrop proceeds by asking each of these questions of Hypertext, and evaluating the results.  What does Hypertext Enhance or Intensify?  What does Hypertext Displace or Render Obsolete?  What does Hypertext retrieve that was Previously Obsolete?  What does Hypertext become when taken to its Limit?

Moulthrop examines these questions in relation to hypertext in great detail, concentrating on a post-modern analysis of socio-political implications, again returning occasionally to Xanadu to concretise the theory in practical example.  In conclusion he returns to the question he posed at the beginning of the text: "Do we really want a revolution?" (Moulthrop, 703)  As well as using Xanadu to concretise the question, he examines the political climate at the time, sighting examples of resurfacing conservatism and economic pressures.  His conclusion still however remains hopeful, if cautionary:  "Yet, in the face of all this we can still fond visionary souls who say they want textual, social, cultural, intelectual revolution.  In the words of Lennon: Well, you know… We all want to change your head.  The question remains: which heads do the changing, and which get changed?" (Moulthrop, 703)

Some Rough Notes - On reading Alexander Halavais’ "The Hyperlink as Organizing Principle"

I have just finished reading Alexander Halavais' article "The Hyperlink as Organising Principle" published in the recent collection edited by Turrow and Tsui The Hyperlinked Society. (The collection is most certainly worth a look and, as an added bonus, the full text is available free on line.) Halavais' essay offers an insightful account of the nature of the hyperlink and its influence in determining the structure of networked space, opening with the provocative question: "What does a hyperlink mean?" Halavais notes that "this meaning is neither unitary nor stable" before turning to the crux of his argument:

As hyperlink networks become more easily manipulated and reach farther into our social and physical lives, we will have a continuing need to understand the hyperlink as more than a way of automatically requesting documents from a Web server. (39)

The article functions as an exploration of this need rather than offering answers to the questions it poses. Originally Halavais offers a short history of the hyperlink, offering citation as a precursor, and using that as a springboard into his discussion. Halavais considers the meaning of a hyperlink as entirely dependent on the greater context it is in, the nodes it connects or the use it is put to. I would argue to the contrary - I think there is a case to be made for the hyperlink itself as the carrier of some meaning, be that as an add-on / mediator / determining factor to the more central and significant meanings of its greater context and use. This is what my research centers on: the hyperlink as site of signification in its own right. Even more applicable to my own research is his statement further on suggesting that

the ultimate trajectory of hyperlinks may indeed be invisibility, the blue-underlined text merging with light switches and voice commands to become one of a superset of links. (52)

I find this concept, the shift towards invisibility of the link, fascinating. In the past I have argued that hyperlinks necessarily need to be self revealing constructs in order to function. That while the link is naturalised and even disguised the user still needs to be made aware of its artifice to be able to make use of it – therefore links are concurrently masking and revealing their presence in order to create meaning. Halavias gestures towards this when he says that

as the hyperlink becomes more ubiquitous, it is also layered with more meaning. (52)

The article concludes rather abruptly, and I found myself wishing that Halavais had pursued some of his suggestions and allusions in greater detail. His final statement is a re-iteration of the need for a developed understanding of hyperlinks:

In understanding what a hyperlink means, we need to look at what a hyperlink does. Over time, it has come to do more and more. At present, it stands as the basic element of organization for the Web, and as more and more of our lives are conducted through the Web, it becomes increasingly important that we understand how hyperlinked structures are formed and change. (53)

Overall the article is very useful, well written and easily accessible it opens many areas for debate and future study, consistently pointing to the need for a more nuanced view of the hyperlink. A need I feel cannot be overemphasised.

In this post I will be discussing Neal von Flue’s webcomic 'Halycon Redux' – Last Ditch. http://ape-law.com/hypercomics/images/halcyon/lastditch/redux/content.html Neal von Flue is a freelance artist, and well known comic creator, researcher and critic. He has written extensively on experimental webcomics for the online magazine The Webcomic Examiner, and has created several comics exploring his interests in this field (all of which are published on www.Ape-Law.com). He is possibly best known for the WCCA award winning collaboration with Alexander Danner 'Five Ways to Love a Cockroach'. 'Halcyon Redux' is an experimental online comic. The tile, like the comic itself, relies on layered meaning, conflating the mundane with the mythical. The comic is littered with road signs referring to ‘Halcyon Road’, and ‘Halcyon’ itself as an area or place. This is obviously not the only meaning of Halcyon: the Halcyon is a mythical bird, identified with the King Fisher, which has the ability to calm the sea and storms. Halcyon has come to mean tranquillity, and peace. The ‘Halcyon years’ refers to a prosperous time, a golden age. Halcyon Redux – Last ditch indicates a reliving or a reworking of such a golden age. Von Flue describes the project as “A redesign of my final Halcyon Years instalment, using the Infinite Canvas webcomic delivery system to create a non-linear interaction.” In a very condensed nutshell: the comic appears to be autobiographical, the author often refers to the work as ‘self indulgent’. The comic is highly self referential – it contains other older self contained works, both ones created digitally and ones pre-digital (in his career) and scanned in. It has a circular ‘flow’ - the eye leads viewer over page - from centre / bottom right as entrance point, then reverts to reading habits, comes in at the top left - but circles right. Vignette stories combined in larger narrative. Combination of printed text, handwritten text, drawings and photographs. Keywords describing the thematic concerns would be all the postmodern catchphrases – meta text, inter text, hyper text, and palimpsest. On opening the page the viewer is presented with a single panel view with simple ‘forward’ and ‘backward’ navigation buttons at the bottom. Underneath the comic’s title is the simple instruction “Mouse over the comic for hotspots”. Once the control has been activated, the reader can hover over the panel, causing ‘hotspots’ to appear. Thematically, this designates areas in the image as areas of significance; temporarily marking the image, and establishing hierarchical relationships between visual elements. This marking is however very subtle, and echoes the patterns and panels already visible at first glance, it also fades relatively quickly leading to a ghosting of possible transitional points – remembered but not seen – adding to the effect of the palimpsest. Technically these ‘hotspots’ designate starting points from which the reader is directed through the comic. Clicking on one will start the reader on a sequence – comparable to the traditional strip – but unlike in a traditional comic where the possibility of reading and rereading is central the readers direction is dictated by the flash sequence of zooms and scrolls that are triggered. The pace of the comic is also affected as the fast scrolling momentarily reveals and conceals elements of the work that fall outside the created ‘panel’. (Construction of ideas of ‘panel’ in this comic are quite complicated so I’m not going in to that at the moment.) While the navigation is largely automatic, it can also be over ridden to enable a manual click and drag navigation. All forms of navigation in the comic require active reader participation. The Navigation buttons, allows reader to go forward and back, when the screen moves too fast and something is intentionally sped past the reader, the back and forth process of trying to see it becomes important - frustration is used repeatedly as a strategy to encourage reader engagement with the work. This adds to the strong, but disjointed rhythm created in the comic by the repetition of imagery. In addition to the hotspot starting points, the comic is riddled with Easter eggs these include hyperlinks to other ‘separate’ comics that are part of the same work, external web-pages, and even trigger pop-ups. While the comic appears to be free-form, the reader is able to engage with the panels in any order, yet there is still a strong sense of structure in the work. – Will Eisner’s structure - guiding a reader through the comic by manipulating the movement of the eye over the page. This guiding is both subtle through visual cues etc, and overt, through actual movement of the page view. As von Flue mentioned, the comic was created using the ‘Infinite canvas application’. Named for the influential theory of the ‘infinite canvas’ posited by Scott McCloud in his book Re-Inventing Comics, the InfiniteCanvas application was developed by Markus Müller (as a computer science student) as practical training and final thesis project at the University of Technology Vienna. InfiniteCanvas is an attempt to implement an environment for an infinite canvas. The application was designed with Apple’s iApps in mind. It was envisioned as an easy to use and intuitive application to outline and design an infinite canvas. The application consists of two components, an editor implemented in Objective-C Cocoa (an Apple-Framework) and an online viewer written in Development started in February 2003 and a first public version was release 1 1/4 years later in early July 2004. The first versions featured a Java based viewer. This viewer was replaced by a Flash based viewer in IC version 1.3.

(the following segment has been taken from a lecture i gave on digital landscapes with Pippa Stalker.)

‘“Pup” Ponders the Heat Death of the Universe…’

In the “Pup” comic, ‘“Pup” Ponders the Heat Death of the Universe…’ artist Drew Weing uses the extended canvas available to him through the webcomic medium to more accurately express the tone and themes of the work. The comic is laid out as a long horizontal spread, viewable only through slowly scrolling and changing the view visible through the window of the monitor. In the first panels the character, Pup, is shown in a conventional format. The panels are clearly defined, bordered by black gutters, and in an easily accessible strip like layout, with each panel almost filling the screen at its central most position. As the reader scrolls, the next panel is revealed in stages, while the current panel slowly recedes. This causes a situation where the ‘current’ moment visible on the monitor, is the gutter, the pause signifying action between the depicted stills, while the ‘past’ moment and the ‘future’ moment are both still partially obscured.



The first panels of this comic serve as the conventional establishing shots. Pup is presented sitting on a doorstep in a country setting. The second panel is entirely ‘empty’, except for Pup, sitting on nothingness, in the exact position and pose as the first panel. This loss of the establishing landscape cues the reader to a shift in Pup’s frame of reference. The character is isolated, with the reader’s, and also his own attention focused solely on him. The connection to the third panel, in which the landscape re-appears, is made through the repetition of Pup’s pose from a different angle.

With each passing panel the image ‘zooms out’, showing – by implication – a suburb at the same location, then a city, the country, the planet and the solar system. The zoom out takes place not only through space, but also through time, with each passing scene depicting a future moment. This is established through the third panel, in which Pup looks down at the house he was at, and sees it about to be demolished, with all the trees shown in the first panel already chopped down. It is therefore fair for the reader to assume that the panels indicate a development through time, at the same location, but viewed from an ever increasing distance.

Concurrently, the format of the frames also begin to change expanding to echo the growing scale of the landscape, a luxury very seldom available to print artists. As the scope increases the conventional panels appear to fall away, with the gutters receding out of the monitor window. The focus of the narrative remains on the character, but the increasingly expanding landscape encourages the reader to change the view, searching for the familiar gutters, shifting the gaze over a greater area. This movement of the view in the monitor constitutes a non-trivial action by the reader. ‘“Pup” ponders the heat death of the universe…’ is an ergodic text, requiring active participation from the reader to successfully traverse, and understand the narrative.