Image and Text, page 5

At a more metaphysical level, as reflected in the Ho images that are strategically placed in the text of the poem, the Zero (associated with Sand) alludes to the emptiness or nothingness of Zen Buddhism, and the number One (associated with Harry Soot) to the contemplating self. But Soot verse shows that he has a hard time letting go as he continues to see what is inside him as what is outside. Thus, he continues believing that he is "watching" or looking for Sand outside. Sand is both in and outside time; a reality that eludes him.

The hypermedia work also plays with the idea of inverting the traditional understanding of the internal and external environment, by turning what is inside into what is outside and vice versa. The scale inversion refers to the central theme of the ballad, which is the relationship between Sand and Soot. Sand as a character is the poetic realization of Soot's creative potential, for which he is "searching." This reading is supported by Alexander Heilner's microbe images. The contributor statement states that Heilner's work deals "primarily with the intersection of organic and human-constructed landscapes and environments." Heilner's microbe series, the Airplane Microbes, Helicopter Microbes and Manhattan Microbes re-imagine airplanes, helicopters, and the island of Manhattan as they might be viewed under the microscope. The microbe images are images of built environment transformed into organic entities that occupy internal spaces. The image Transmission Helix uses radio transmission towers to depict a DNA structured molecule which stores and codes information in living beings. The image is accompanied by the following verses about Sand and Soot.

1

Harry is no fool. Harry Soot is shrewd.
Harry has allergies and moods.
Harry lies—he can't
help it.
Harry has structure—genes and grammar.
Harry is a detective, but he can't find
an answer. Harry is violent
and violently quiet;

01000011

Sand is sand.

Whereas Soot is solid and has structure, genes, and moods, Sand is ubiquitous. Here, Sand as a character in the ballad becomes one with the sand as a medium—the literal and metaphorical levels coalesce. The sand is everywhere and yet nowhere and perhaps for that reason the sand (and by analogy, the online computer-generated electronic space) is defined by its own mediumistic potential rather than by its material composition.

0

Sand religiously stops. And starts the next thing.

1

Bluesy Soot can't conclude.

Sand realizes itself as a discontinuous succession of creative acts. The discontinuity can also be seen as a continuous renewal, which embodies both novelty and surprise. Sand's existence is not marked by the sterile repetition of the same, but rather by the repetition with a difference. The same logic applies to the reader's position with respect to the hypermedia work, which enables multiple readings. Each reading is unique, intricately linked to the reader and the context in which the reading takes place. Soot is, however, associated with time and memory, and he can only realize himself in terms of linear progression. He has yet to unlearn his attachment to his personal history in order to fully experience the present moment in its fullness—a moment that is imbued with multiplicity as it comes into existence only to be displaced by a succession of other similar moments filled with creativity and novelty. Soot's encounter with Sand in the ballad can thus be seen as his opening up to a worldview where creative discontinuity rather than continuity contributes to the enlightened perspective.

To conclude, then, creating hypermedia literature is more than simply linking text and image. It is becoming apparent, as some have pointed out, that in order for hypermedia literature to become mature, the writers need to pay attention to the overall coherence of the narrative when they mix media and create a hyperlinked work. In a creatively crafted work like Strickland's Ballad, linkages are not merely formal techniques for navigation purposes, nor visual elements just for decorative purposes. Instead links create a shifting dynamics between the form and the content. The formal techniques enhance and multiply the thematic import conveyed through the visual and textual elements. In a well-crafted hypermedia work, each facet of the work reinforces every other facet by entering into a relationship with it, thereby creating complementary or contradictory narrative fields, which spill out in multiple directions. There is an ongoing interpenetration of the text and the context, of the foreground and the background. The discontinuity and the perpetual overcoming of the discontinuity thus becomes a guiding principle of the work. As Gilles Deleuze commenting on complex works says: complex works are not self identical, rather "the identity of the object read really dissolves into divergent series" in a similar fashion "as the identity of the reading subject is dissolved into the decentred circles of possible multiple readings. Nothing, however, is lost; each series exists only by virtue of the return of the others." (5) In complex works that can be approached from multiple perspectives, each reading is thus dependent on the possibility of every other reading. The hypermedia work by Strickland et al illustrates very well how artful conceptualization can result in the work spilling outward into diverging series and how the existence of each series is directly dependent upon the return of the others.

Hypermedia literature is still in the process of defining itself and that keeps the attention of the majority of writers working in the medium focused more on innovative ways of mixing the media through hyperlinking and less on overall coherence of the piece. Most of the critical writing on electronic literature has primarily focused on describing the techniques that have gone into creating the work. Though descriptive analyses of the techniques employed have their place in the critical evaluation of electronic literature, some effort also needs to be devoted to interpretive analyses where the form and content are seen in a dynamic relationship with one another and become the engine for generating diverging or converging readings.

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References

1. Hayles, Katherine N. "Cyber|literature and Multicourses: Rescuing Electronic Literature from Infanticide." http://www.altx.com/ebr/riposte/rip11/rip11hay.htm
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2. Strickland, Stephanie and Janet Holmes. "The Ballad of Sand and Soot." Word Circuits. http://www.wordcircuits.com/gallery/sandsoot/
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3. Strickland, Stephanie. "The Ballad of Sand and Soot," (Print Form) in Boston Review. http://bostonreview.mit.edu/BR24.5/strickland.html
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4. Strickland, Stephanie. "Seven Reasons Why SandSoot Is the Way it is," Proceedings of the Cybermountain Colloquium Technical Report AUE-CS-99-05, Aalborg University Esbjerg, Computer Science Department, 1999. http://www.wordcircuits.com/htww/strickland.htm
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