The Addressivity and Rhetoric of Computer-mediated Textual Art: RS4 Report

by Gavin Stewart

September 2003

 

Report Context

In his 1995 work Being Digital, Nicholas Negroponte, Wiesner Professor of Media Technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, noted that digital computers had become a “means for creative expression” (Negroponte 1995: 82). In making this observation, Negroponte recognized that by the mid-1990s a small, but growing, number of practitioners, from a wide range of creative disciplines, were using digital computers as a fundamental part of their artistic practice. In the literary arts, Michael Joyce for example, had attracted considerable attention by writing and publishing afternoon: a story using a CD-ROM based hypertext system built by Eastgate systems (Joyce 1987). Since the publication of Being Digital, Negroponte’s ‘means for creative expression’ has flourished in the literary arts and several thousand writers (including the author of this report) have authored and disseminated works of computer-mediated textual art (for examples see Electronic Literature Organization’s directory).

These computer-mediated literary works have attracted considerable critical interest; both hostile (Birketts 1994) and enthusiastic (Coover 1992), and a number of theorists (Aarseth 1997, Bolter 2001, Douglas 2000, Joyce 1995, Landow 1997, Sloane 2000, Snyder 1996) have sought to give a theoretical account of this new form of textuality. However, to date these theorists have focused on the role of the reader in creating meaning within these works. Their accounts do not provide a full account of the role of the author. This lack presents a number of difficulties for creative writers, scholars and creative writing tutors engaging with these new works of art. In particular, the absence of a theory of their authorship makes a discussion of their rhetorical qualities highly problematic. It also presents pedagogical difficulties for academic creative writing tutors facilitating the production of these works.

Aim of Research

It is, therefore, the aim of my research programme to give an account of the role of the author-participant of a computer-mediated textual work of art. In particular my research aims to: -

• to give a theoretical account of the participative rhetoric of computer-mediated textual works of art;
• to provide a detailed typology of the various kinds of participative rhetoric being used currently by author-participants of computer-mediated textual works of art;
• to argue for the cultural value of the participative rhetoric of computer-mediated texts; and
• to demonstrate the participative rhetoric of computer-mediated texts in an original work of art, in order to provide a first-hand experience of the cultural value of this rarely-used aesthetic.

Structure of the Report

This report outlines the academic context of the new theory of authorship. It will then provide a description of the original contribution to knowledge that will be made at the PhD stage by outlining the rhetorical opportunities presented by computer-mediated texts. It will conclude by highlighting the value of this contribution.

This report begins by placing existing computer-mediated textual theories into the wider context of contemporary theoretical notions of authorship and textuality. In doing so, it will firstly draw attention to the historical context that gave rise to the current reader-based theories, and then secondly, argue that these theories are rooted in a theoretical notion of authorship that is now being contested. It will then develop an alternative theory of participation, derived from the dialogic thought of Mikhail Bakhtin. In particular it will argue for the importance of the ‘dialogic’ concept of addressivity as a means to understand the rhetorical opportunities available to authors of these works. This ‘dialogic’ theory will then be further refined by utilizing the concept of the ‘textual condition’ developed by Jerome McGann and Katherine Hayles. In doing so, a new theory will be stated that specifically addresses the role of the author-participant in the production of computer-mediated textual art. The report will conclude by outlining the rhetorical opportunities presented to the author of a computer-mediated textual work and by discussing the value of the participative aesthetic of computer-mediated creative writing.

Context of Study: A Historic Review of the Changing Notions of Authorship

In his introduction to Authorship: from Plato to the Postmodern Sean Burke makes a key observation. He observes that idea of authorship has varied “in fact and principle from one historical context to another” (Burke 1995:x). In developing this argument, Burke sets-out a number of overarching historical views of authorship – the classical view, romantic view, new criticism and structuralist view, and the post-structuralist view – which will be used to identify the historical context that gave rise to the current theories of computer-mediated textuality.

A Historic Review of the Changing Notions of Authorship

In his introduction to Authorship: from Plato to the Postmodern Sean Burke makes a key observation. He observes that the idea of authorship has varied “in fact and principle from one historical context to another” (Burke 1995:x). In developing this argument, Burke sets-out a history of authorship that progresses from the Classical view, through the Romantic view, to the rapidly changing views of the twentieth century. In setting out this timeline Burke fully recognizes that these views were not universally held by all in any particular period and that they represent something of a generalization. However, his scheme does provide a framework for the further discussion of dominant and marginal notions of authorship in a particular period. Therefore, his framework will be used in this report to critique the historical view that gave birth to the current theories of computer-mediated textuality.

The Rise of the Author: Classical and Romantic Views

Both Plato and Aristotle famously set out mimetic theories of art that were highly influential in the formation of Western cultural notions of poetics and aesthetics (Plato 1979:421 and Aristotle 1996:10). However, Plato also advanced an inspirational view of the origins of authorship in the dialogue, Ion. In this dialogue Socrates says to the orator: "This gift you have of speaking well on Homer is not an art; it is divine power" (Plato 1995:15). Burke argues that this ‘inspired’ view of authorship has been influential in West, mainly because during the medieval period this conception of authorship was most easily reconciled with orthodox Christian doctrine. In the reconciled view, the authority and inspiration of an author’s work derived either directly from God, or from the scriptures and the classics.

This Classical/ Christian conception of authorship was, in turn, instrumental in forming the Romantic notion of the artistic genius. However, in this view God and Tradition had been displaced as the sources of the inspiration and instead, the Romantics placed the key attributes of authorship “within the self" (Parrinder 1991: 52).

The Fall of the Author: The Twentieth Century

The twentieth century witnessed a wide range of highly-diverse (and often antagonistic) literary theories. However, despite the significant differences between schools of thought as diverse as New Criticism and Post-structuralism, there was a general trend throughout this century to increasingly marginalise the romantic conception of the author. For example, the Anglo-American New Critics removed the author as the central figure of focus by placing text at the centre of their thinking instead. They developed the notion that “the literary text contains its own meaning within itself” (Barry 1995:17). The romantic view of the author was further challenged by the notion of the ‘intentional fallacy’. Wimsatt and Beardsley argued that “the design or intention of the author is neither available not desirable as a standard for judging the success of literary art” (Wimsatt and Beardsley 1991:334). In parallel, the European Structuralist similarly reduced the importance of the author in their theories, by arguing that the meaning of a particular work was realised in the codes and structures of the language system.

Later in the century, a wide range of theoretical approaches, for example Marxist and Feminist criticism, also rejected the romantic notion of authorship. As Sean Burke notes, these disparate kinds of criticism were “united in opposing the idea of the author as an autonomous creator who transcends history and ideology" (Burke 1995: 215).

The Death of the Author

Arguably the most extreme anti-authorial position was reached in literary criticism in the 1970s and 1980s with widespread acceptance of the philosophies of Foucault, Derrida, Lacan and Barthes. In his now famous article on the subject, Roland Barthes, for example, argued for the ‘Death of the Author’ noting that “we know now that a text is not a line of words releasing a single theological meaning…the message of the Author-God” (Barthes 1988:170). Barthes concluded his essay with his legendary rhetorical flourish:-“The birth of the reader must be at the cost of the death of the Author” (Barthes 1988: 172). In this view, authorial intention becomes an irrelevance, as meaning is created by the reader engaging with the text, and the language- and sign-systems from which it is composed.

The ‘post-structuralist’ view was one of the dominant views of authorship in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the period of time in which Michael Joyce and others developed an interest in using computers to produce literary works of art. It is not surprising therefore that the literary theorist, as well as the authors themselves, turned to the post-structuralist view of authorship to explain these new works. Landow’s theory of hypertext fiction, in particular, reflects the pronounced anti-authorial stance of this historical context.

Context of Study: Hypertext Theory

In a recent essay George P. Landow describes hypertext as “text composed as lexias ( blocks of words, moving or static images, or sounds) linked electronically by multiple paths, chains or trails in an open-ended web” (Landow 2000: 154). He develops his theory by pointing out that, as a result of the inclusion of these links between the lexia, the small sub-sections of the text can be read in a number of different orders. For example, on the title page of Patchwork Girl, a computer-mediated textual work by Shelley Jackson, the reader is presented with six different links – ‘a graveyard’; ‘a journal’; ‘a quilt’; ‘a story’; ‘broken accents’ and ‘sources’ – to six different lexia each of which will provide a different starting point for our reading (Jackson 1995:[title page]) . Landow characterises this type of reading as being “multisequential” or “multilinear” (Landow 2000: 154). Landow has argued that the multisequentiality of hypertext is of great importance because it ‘permits readers to choose their own paths through a set of possibilities’ and by doing this it ‘dissolves the fundamental fixity’ that is the cornerstone of the traditional rhetorical triangle made up by the author, the text and the reader (Landow 1994:33). Reviewing Landow’s argument, Adrian Page notes that the chief claim that Landow makes is that:

“Barthes' statement that the 'death of the author' would make the birth of the reader possible, is vividly illustrated by the example of hypertext." (Page 1998:86)

As I noted above, the Barthesian ideal of textuality is an open, plural text characterised by a myriad of readings in which the reader is liberated from the control of the ‘Author-God’. In his review of Hypertext 2.0, Page describes this notion of text as the ‘hypertext ideal’, that is, the Borgesian notion of a “reading experience in which all boundaries evaporate and infinite connections open up” (Page 1998:88). In this idealised state, the text is thought of as “an absolutely unstructured form which can be processed in innumerable ways” (Page 1998:88). However, it is important to note that Page does not argue that such an ideal can be or should be fully realised, far from it, instead he warns that this “would appear to dissolve all meaning rather than validating the reader's experience” (Page 1998:88).

Paradoxically, Landow is keen to explore the exciting possibilities that this notion of hypertext presents for reconfiguring the author, as well as narrative and literary education. For in following Barthes, Landow’s theory should logically focus on the reader to create meaning in the text. Reconfiguring the author should simply mean eliminating it from discussions altogether and focusing on the reader. For as Barthes notes (in his famous essay ‘The Death of the Author’):

“there is one place where this multiplicity is focused and that place is the reader, not, as was hitherto, the author. “(Barthes 1995: 129)

It is significant, therefore, that a number of contemporary theorists have convincingly argued against the kind of textuality described in ‘Death of the Author’. Séan Burke, for example, points out that Barthes is actually inventing a construct, the Author-God, and that the “the author in ‘The Death of the Author' only seems ready for death precisely because he never existed in the first place” (Burke 1992:27). By following Barthes too closely in this respect, ‘The Death of the Author’ presents the hypertext theorist with a number of apparent paradoxes, such as the nature and theoretical status of hypertext rhetoric. Also, hypertext theory provides a description of a text characterised by total freedom, and yet a number of critics have described the experience of reading these texts as being like lost in a labyrinth (see Gaggi 1997:122, Aarseth 1997:91). Clearly the ‘Barthesian’ aspects of hypertext theory can not account adequately for the role played by the author in creating the meaning of these texts. In Patchwork Girl, for example, although it is possible to follow at least six different paths from the [title] lexia this does not mean that the text has not been structured by the author. The program does not present the lexia like a pack of cards that can be shuffled into any order. Instead it presents a carefully-crafted map which depicts radial nexus leading to a number of long-looping paths. The text is multi-sequential not sequence-free.

The new ‘dialogic’ theory outlined below resolves this ‘hypertextual paradox’, by recognizing the participative role played by the author, as well as, the considerable role played by the reader and the reading context.

Beyond Lexia

Hypertext theory is also inadequate, because it attempts to explain computer-mediated textuality solely in terms of fixed sections of alphabetic texts called lexia. In many contemporary computer-mediated textual works it is hard to identify such lexia. For example, in Self Portrait(s) [as Other(s)] by Talan Memmott a series of aleatoric procedures produces a unique textual configuration each time the work is viewed (Memmott 2002).

The new ‘dialogic’ theory outlined below also addresses these aspects of contemporary computer-mediated texts by dialogizing the materiality of these texts as well.

What is Dialogism?

Dialogic thought was originally developed by the Russian scholar Mikhail Bakhtin and his close circle of colleagues (V.N. Voloshinov and P.N. Medvedev), in the late 1920s and 1930s, in reaction to the writings of the Russian Formalists and the European Structuralist. Bakhtin et al used dialogic thought to address a wide range of issues, such as the social nature of language and the aesthetics and poetics of the novel. Michael Holquist brings the diversity of this body of work together by arguing that the central tenet of all dialogic thought is that: -

“All meaning is relative in the sense that it comes about only as a result of the relation between two bodies occupying simultaneous but different space” (Holquist 1990:20)

The Current Applications of Dialogism to Computer-mediated Textuality

Due the political climate of the Soviet Union, the work of Bakhtin and his colleagues did not have a significant impact on Western thought until the late 1970s. However, since their re-discovery, their work has attracted considerable interest and dialogism has been applied to a number of academic fields, including literary studies (see Lodge 1990). It is not surprising therefore that dialogism has been used in a very general way to discuss computer-mediated art work. For example, Landow briefly refers to the theory of polyphony (Landow 1997:33) described by Bakhtin in Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics (Bakhtin: 1984). He also mentions the dialogic notion of becoming (Landow 1997:78). Ilana Snyder also briefly introduces the notion of the dialogic in her work on hypertext fiction (Snyder 1996: 79) and Janice Walker makes use of Bakhtin’s notion of the utterance in making a passing comment on the rhetoric of hypertext (Walker 1997). However, none of these scholars develop or utilize the dialogic concepts of addressivity, explored below, to describe the rhetoric of computer-mediated textual works.

Responsive Understanding

The dialogic account of meaning, described by Holquist above, allows literary theory to make a break with the romantic notion of authorship without ‘killing off’ the author. Instead dialogic thought argues that “meaning belongs to a word in its position between speakers; that is, meaning is realized only in the process of active, responsive understanding" (Voloshinov 1973:102). From this term ‘responsive understanding’ it is possible to see the value of another concept developed by Bakhtin and Voloshinov, namely ‘the utterance’. For the utterance, as Voloshinov notes, always “makes response to something and is calculated to be responded to in turn. It is but one link in a continuous chain of speech performances."(Voloshinov 1973:72). Meaning, for Bakhtin et al., is in a constant state of becoming and it is not closed-off or set in stone for all time because meaning is established in an interaction between particular individuals, spatially- and temporally-located in a particular social situation.

Addressivity

In his late essay, ‘The Problem of Speech Genres’ Bakhtin refines the notion of an utterance by developing the key concept of addressivity. Bakhtin notes that addressivity is “the quality of turning to someone” (Bakhtin 1986:99). It is this act of turning (and of being turned to) that defines the dialogic utterance, because it is establishes an addressee (a particular other[s]) who will participate in the creation of the meaning of the utterance (Leith and Myerson 1989:88). Bakhtin also notes that the addressor takes “into account possible responsive reactions” of the reader-participant (Bakhtin 1986:94) when constructing their utterance. This means that the addressor seeks to anticipate the responses of their audience.
It is important, therefore, to note that addressivity is a highly-charged recursive relationship. The author-participant is never free from their audience in this model of understanding because ‘anticipation’ forms the vital mechanism by which the social situation establishes the basic structure of their utterance.

Speech Genre

From this point Bakhtin further argues that language is always stratified (Bakhtin 1981:288) and subject to social forces that produce this stratification (Bakhtin 1981: 290). Bakhtin develops the concept of the speech genre to describe the effects of this social stratification of language. Bakhtin gives the following as an example of the role of a speech genre.
“When we select words in the process of constructing an utterance, we by no means always take them from the system of language in their neutral, dictionary form. We usually take them from other utterances, and mainly from utterances that are kindred to ours in genre, that is, in theme, composition, or style. Consequently, we choose words according to their generic specifications. A speech genre is not a form of language, but a typical form of utterance.”(Bakhtin 1986:87)

It is important to note that speech-genres are constantly being formed. They are waxing and waning, fusing together with other speech genres and being abandoned as the social situation changes. In a classical example of Bakhtinian thought, they are always in a state of becoming.
For Bakhtin, the concept of speech genre was able to cover the full range of language activities. He recognised that literary and philosophical works possess key differences from spoken dialogue, but he also noted that they “are by nature the same kind of units of speech communication” (Bakhtin 1986:75). Bakhtin even defines the novel as “a diversity of social speech types (sometimes even diversity of languages) and a diversity of individual voices, artistically organized” (Bakhtin 1981:262).

Addressivity, therefore, is a highly-charged contingent social activity involving speaker and listeners and authors and readers. It involves the critical judgments of which words and signs and which speech-genre to use in which situations (Bakhtin 1986:77) to ensure the successful creation of any utterance, including a literary text.

Following Bakhtin, this theory recognises the importance of addressivity to author-participants as they strive to create effective computer-mediated texts. For it is the continuing, self-aware engagement of particularised participant-readers, through the rhetorical opportunities provided by these forms of mediation, that is the goal of the participant-authors. In my original contribution, I will argue that the peculiar modes of addressivity available to the author-participant of a computer-mediated textual art facilitate a range of participative forms of rhetoric rarely used in printed texts.

However, before discussing these opportunities, this new dialogic theory needs to address the two key issues:-

1. How does the author-participant stabilise the meaning of their work?
2. How does this general dialogic theory of meaning, provide a specific account of the character of computer-mediated text art.
   

Context, Re-accentuation and the History of the Word

For Bakhtin, language is always situated in a social reality. This meant that he was acutely aware of the role of context. He notes:

"we cannot, when studying the various forms of transmitting another's speech, treat any of these forms in isolation from the means for its contextualized (dialogizing) framework." (Bakhtin 1981:340)

At the end of ‘Discourse in the Novel’, Bakhtin tackles the issue of the context in the act of understanding. He describes this dialogic interaction as a process of re-accentuation (Bakhtin 1981: 420). However, there is a danger of an inconsistency within Bakhtin’s theory. By recognizing the dialogizing role of context it makes it hard for him to then argue for any kind of stability of meaning (for example – in the addressivity of a novel’s author as she attempts to address a future reader). In this situation the participant-reader’s understanding can have little basis in an original authorial contribution. In effect, this kind of theoretical model would produce the post-structuralist model of authorship discussed earlier.

David Shepherd tackles this problem by breaking down the binary opposition of determinancy and indeterminancy, by pointing out that any process of re-accentuation has a social history. He states:

"a text continues to bear the marks of its past historical engagements which, as well as being open to recontextualisation, must also place some limit on the nature and degree of that recontextualisation. If the activity of reading is based on dialogic relations between reader and text, and text and context, then there are relations which have a past as well as a present." (Shepherd 1989: 98).

History, as we are often told, is written by victors, and victory, in this sense, is largely achieved by rhetoric. The author-participants’ contributions fight in a Valhalla-like state of eternal battle with the word of the other. The degree to which stability of the meaning is maintained over an extended period of time is also achieved by successful rhetoric as well; as the multiple rhetorical acts by which author-participants, former readers and earlier critics use to convey their own arguments will go some way to stabilising the dominant meaning of a text. In fact these arguments will go a long way to stabilizing the text as a text as well, helping it to resist its own disintegration into an inter-textual aggregation of other’s words. To summarize, a text continues to be and to mean certain things, because a cast of concrete, historical, social-embedded actors (author-participant, critics, readers, publishers, editors, etc.) utilising the rhetorical potential of semantics and their social setting, have successfully argued it so, up to the present time. This is why, as critics, we still talk paradoxically about ‘our reading of Barthes’ Death of the Author’ - despite its subject-matter!
This does not, however, mean that any reading of a text is entirely author-determinate. To stabilize meaning does not mean to fix it for all time. Any reading encounter with the text is still dialogic, involving the reader’s responsive understanding as well as the re-accentuation of its utterances by changes in context. The recent history of literary criticism has shown that a powerful participant-reading of a text, for example, the ‘Madwoman in the Attic’ reading of Jane Eyre (Gilbert and Gubar 1979), can alter the subsequent history of a text. This dialogic concept of the ‘history of the word’ resolves the ‘hypertext paradox’, for it allows for the development of the theoretical description of an open, contextualised text (see Eco 1989) without arguing either for a wholly author-determinate or wholly author-indeterminate one. This dialogic concept of the ‘history of the word’ also flags-up the importance of rhetoric for any understanding of the role of the author-participant.

Making the Distinction between Speech, Writing, Print and Computing

One of the most striking features of the Bakhtin circle’s discourse on language was their continuing use of the metaphor of ‘speech’ to describe all forms of language activity. Most of the key terms developed by Bakhtin and Voloshinov reflect this predilection (e.g. dialogism, speech genre, utterance, heteroglossia etc.). In doing so, the Bakhtin circle sought to emphasize that language use is an embodied, performative activity, involving socially-situated individuals (what Bakhtin called ‘speech subjects’) (Bakhtin 1986: 71). However, in applying their arguments directly to computer-mediated textuality there is a danger of ignoring the differing properties of speech, writing, print-mediated and computer-mediated texts noted by scholars like Havelock (1982), Ong (1982), Eisenstein (1979) and Bolter (2001). It is, therefore, necessary at this stage to revise Bakhtin and Voloshinov’s original theory in order to consider the dialogic relationships between the participants (the author and the reader) and the materiality of the text. For as Katherine Hayles notes, “we have little hope of forging a robust and nuanced account of how literature is changing under the impact of information technologies” without a theory that includes materiality of texts (Hayles 2002: 19).

Materiality: The Textual Condition

Hayles characterises materiality as an event, brought about by the interaction of humans and texts. She notes that:-
“Materiality depends on how the work mobilizes its resources as a physical artefact as well as on the user's interactions with the work and the interpretative strategies she develops - strategies that include physical manipulation as well as conceptual frameworks. In the broadest sense, materiality emerges from the dynamic interplay between the richness of a physically robust world and human intelligence as it crafts this physicality to create meaning (Hayles 2002: 32)

It is important to note here that Hayles is not advancing a ‘hard’ technological determinist view of these texts. Instead, she is trying to draw attention to the dialogic relationship between the artefact and the reception of the art. The textual scholar, Jerome J. McGann, developed a similar concept in his methodology for editing critical scholarly works. He notes that “a text is not a "material thing" but a material event or set of events” (McGann 1991: 21). These material events give rise to what McGann calls the ‘Textual Condition’. McGann argues that “the textual condition is a scene of contest and interaction, a scene where specific textual decisions are made (or unmade) in a context that involves many people” (McGann 1991:21).

The Dialogic Genre of Computer-mediated Texts

There are a number of aspects of the textual condition of computer-mediated texts that currently characterise these texts as a distinct sub-set of literature. Firstly, the culture of production and of dissemination used by author-participants of these texts differs from the norms of the publishing industry. This is due to a number of features including: - the increased use of PCs by authors and readers in the 1990s; the widespread adoption of the world wide web in certain key communities; the increased recognition of the availability of tools for creating computer-mediated texts; the increased availability of training in the production of computer-mediated texts (in basic programming, web-site design etc.) and the relative obscurity of computer-mediated texts as an art form. This has had a number of effects on the culture of programmers, writers and artists working with computer-mediated textuality; in particular, it has facilitated a challenge to the tradition of demarcation of semiosis that characterises the modern printed book. In the traditional model, the ‘author’ has long been solely responsible for producing a long, alphabetic string of characters (which is privileged as ‘The Text’). The cover, the typography, the illustrations, the marketing and distribution of these texts were all the responsibility of others. As a result of this mode of production, a ‘Fordist’ culture has grown up which encourages the separation of these text-producing functions. In particular it has caused the separation of the production of the visual, material and semantic aspects of the text (there are some very notable exceptions to this situation of course, for example, in the original publications of poet-artist William Blake). This in turn has encouraged a literary culture in which most writers are not trained, encouraged or empowered to take responsibility for the material or visual aspects of their texts. It has also created a culture in which the written word has been elevated over the image. In contrast, author-participants of computer-mediated texts have been encouraged by circumstance to be responsible for both the visual and semantic aspects of their texts. Most author-participants consider them simultaneously when they produce their work, and they are coming to see both as integral elements for the creation of meaning in their texts.

This renewed interest in the non-semantic aspects of textuality have also encouraged a number of fruitful collaborations between artists trained in differing traditions (programmer with visual artist, novelist with web-site designer etc.) who are working in close collaboration to produce works that explore the widest possible notions of textuality.

Secondly, following Richard Wise, another key feature of computer-mediated texts is that they are digitised, and this digitisation makes them highly ‘amenable to manipulation’ (Wise 2000: 2). As I discuss later, it is possible to structure these texts in ways that would be very complex or expensive to achieve with a printed book or film (e.g. the real-time, variable structuring seen in Talan Memmott’s Self Portrait(s) [as Other(s)]). This is important because it facilitates the artistic culture noted above, and it also facilitates the use of the participative rhetoric discussed later in this report. As George P. Landow notes, it seems now to be a rule that author-participants of computer-mediated texts will employ “any feature or capacity that can be varied and controlled to convey meaning" (Landow 2000:160). These capacities currently include elements drawn from the oral, visual, programming and literary arts.

The combination of these two aspects has meant that author-participants of computer-mediated texts are exploring a wide range of rhetorical strategies that are rarely used by print-based authors.

The Dialogic Genre(s): Plural

It is important to note that, although computer-mediated texts share the material conditions noted above they are also a very diverse and diversifying object of study, mainly because of the wide range of highly-variable elements being used in their production, mediation and reception. These works of art are drawing on a number of traditional art forms, with their own norms and practices, which are attempting to stratify these works into different genre (with varying genre expectations). For example, these works have been variously described technotext (Hayles 2002); e-poetry (Glazier 2002); cybertext (Aarseth 1997 and Ryan 1999); interactive fiction (Sloane 2000) new media writing (Campbell 2002); interactive narratives (Douglas 2000); flash poetry (Howard 2002); digital narrative (Murray 1997) and hypertext fiction (Joyce 1995, Landow 1997, Snyder 1996).

In categorizing this diversity a number of scholars have tried to appropriate Bakhtin’s terms directly and have begun to describe this diversity as the different ‘speech genre’ within computer-mediated textuality (see Walker 1997). However, this involves classifying programs (including ones involving the manipulation of images) as speech. This kind of attribution obscures the very materiality that the theoretical term is trying to draw attention to. Another classification has been suggested by Bolter. He has suggested the term ‘writing spaces’ to describe the different kinds of textuality now being realized (Bolter 2001). However, the word ‘space’ suggests that we are dealing with something that is exclusively spatial- rather than being socially determined.

This research will, therefore, characterise computer-mediated texts by the new term ‘dialogic genre’ to recognize the fact that any categorisation is in itself contingent and fluid, and that when seen over time that we are dealing with social phenomena that “present the picture of a ceaseless flow of becoming” (Voloshinov 1973:66). In its original contribution this research will develop this classification in order to facilitate the rhetorical analysis of these works discussed below. However, it will stay true to the theoretical arguments noted above, by arguing that this classification represents a socially constructed ‘snap shot’ of this emerging art form at a particular moment in time.

Work undertaken at the MPhil Stage

Theoretical Work

On my RS1 form, I noted that my aim for the MPhil stage of my research was to extend the existing theoretical models of computer-mediated texts to help account for authorship. However, as I discussed earlier in this report, my theoretical research revealed that these theories were rooted in an inappropriate description of textuality and the proposed theoretical ‘extension’ was not possible. I have, therefore, developed an original theoretical account of these texts, described above, based on Bakhtinian dialogism, and so rooted my understanding of these works in their authorial rhetoric.

Creative Work undertaken at MPhil level

I have created three original works of art, The Castle Gardens (see Stewart 2002), Tomorrow (see Stewart 2003) and Ontology (2003) to help me explore the theoretical issues discussed above. In these works I have used internet client/server technologies (Macromedia flash, the scripting language PHP and the database management system postgresSQL) to present dynamic html-based texts that explore the roles of the programmer, the author-participants and the reader-participants in the production of meaning.
The Castle Gardens is a multi-user ‘textual world’ that explores both the active participation of the reader-participant through contribution and also active participation of the reader-participant through selection. It does this by challenging participants to navigate a highly variable text in order to achieve certain prescribed goals. However, in doing so it also encourages the participants to enter textual descriptions, program elements, links and goals which are then made available to other participants.
Tomorrow is a multi-user fiction that explores the effect of the active selection by the reader-participant on traditional notions of plot and narrative.
Ontology is an animated, sound poem produced as part of the Writers for the Future project (organised by Nottingham Trent University and NESTA). It explores the potential of computer-mediated texts to make an aesthetic use of real-time, temporal structuring to explore contemporary notions of being.

These three pieces have been developed by following the structured practice-based methodology outlined below.

Practice Methodology

As Michael Biggs recently noted, practice-based research methodology is the formalised process for “addressing and answering …. research questions”(Biggs 2004). Creative Writing is a relatively new field of research and therefore the research methodology I have adopted to address and answer my research questions combines the long-standing philosophical practices of literary studies, with the emerging practices of practised-based art research. My methodology has been an iterative, recursive process of forming and then reforming my understanding of computer-mediated textuality by theorizing, by reading and by testing the validity of my understanding in a series of ‘test’ pieces. In the course of this process my research activity has moved through the following stages:-

• An initial inquiry stage, followed by close reading and written analysis of existing works such as Michael Joyce’s afternoon;
• Re-evaluating the existing theories of these works (such as hypertextuality and cybertextuality) in a theoretical statement;
• Further re-evaluating these existing theories in a test piece called Tomorrow ( discussed under ‘work undertaken at the Mphil stage’);
• The rejection of the Barthesian account of hypertextuality;
• The development of an original theoretical position based on the Bakhtinian notion of participation;
• Defining and acquiring the appropriate practical skills for the production of complex computer-mediated texts;
• Serendipitous experimentation with html, flash, php, SQL and other tools for producing networkable, computer-mediated texts;
• The demonstration of these skills in a test piece called the Castle Gardens (discussed below under ‘work undertaken at the Mphil stage’);
• Participating in a number of on-line writers workshops organised by Nottingham Trent University, working with leading writers in this field, such as Alan Sondheim, Carolyn Guertin, Tim Wright, Mark Amerika and Peter Howard, to develop a forum for my research ideas;
• ‘Workshopping’ my three test pieces with two groups of MA students ( Media and Cyberculture 2002 & 2003) to test my assumptions about how a reader-participant engages these works;
• A theoretical critique of the assumptions underlying my three test pieces;
• Re-reading of the emerging canon of computer-mediated texts;
• Participating in academic conferences ( including being a conference panellist at the ACM’s Hypertext ’03 conference) to further test my ideas;
• The development of a typology to categorise the various kinds of participative rhetoric being used currently by author-participants of computer-mediated textual works of art;
• The formal recognition of the cultural value of participative rhetoric; and
• The production of a full-length work text that demonstrates the value of participative rhetoric.

Work to undertaken at the PhD level

The work to be undertaken at the PhD level will complete my research aims (2-4) stated at the beginning of this report, namely:-

• to provide a detailed typology of the various kinds of participative rhetoric being used currently by author-participants of computer-mediated textual works of art;
• to argue for the cultural value of the participative rhetoric of computer-mediated texts; and
• to demonstrate the participative rhetoric of computer-mediated texts in an original work of art, in order to provide a first-hand experience of the cultural value of this rarely-used aesthetic.

Theoretical Work: Original Contribution to Knowledge

The ‘original contribution’ element of my written thesis will be a formal description of how the addressivity of the differing dialogic genres of contemporary computer-mediated textual art present the current author-participants of these works with a particular set of rhetorical opportunities that are rarely used in printed texts. In formalizing this description, my research will follow in Wayne Booth’s footsteps, by arguing that when dealing with creative works we should regard “technique as rhetoric” (Booth 1983:39). For example, in Booth’s classic work, he investigates the rhetoric of fiction by discussing the technique known to novelist as ‘showing not telling’. My research has led me to begin analyzing the techniques of the author-participants of these new works, in order to explore the effect of the rhetoric of these works. The completed analysis of these works will form the core of the first three chapters of my thesis. The thesis will then discuss the demonstration of the participative rhetoric in the creative work submitted for examination (see discussion below) and cultural value of the rhetoric demonstrated.

It is important to note that this research fully recognizes that these texts share rhetorical techniques with spoken, written and printed texts (see Welch 1999). It will not, therefore, argue these texts mark an abrupt discontinuity. However, it will use an analytical approach, to focus-down on the emerging, participative aspects of their rhetoric. It will do this in order to present a manageable thesis, dealing with this important aesthetic.

The formal description of this original contribution will be reported in a 40,000 word thesis ( ie approximately 5-6 chapters of approximately 8,000 words) that will comply with traditional academic norms and standards. It will be supported and demonstrated by my original works of art (in compliance with Regulation G 2.1.3 of the University Regulations for Academic Programmes).

The Rhetoric of Participation

To date, my research has identified a number of different rhetorical practices currently being used by author-participants of computer-mediated textual art that focus on making readers participants in their works. These have been provisionally classified in the following ways:-
1. Active Participation of the Reader-Participant through Selection;
2. Active Participation of the Reader-Participant through Contribution; and
3. Participation of the Reader-Participant by their Presence.

The production a typology of these forms of rhetoric will form the basis of my PhD work.

1. Active Participation of the Reader-Participant through Selection

A. Selecting the Order of Reading

The most familiar form of participation offered by these works is the pre-determined link. This is characteristically used to present the reader with a choice as to which piece of the text will be displayed next. For example, 253 by Geoff Ryman (Ryman 1996: home page), begins with a screen featuring several link words. This screen will continue to be displayed (pausing the reading) until the reader participates in producing the text, either by selecting one of these links or by leaving the site.
A link of this sort is usually denoted on the screen by a word or by graphical elements, for example, the ‘journey planner’ graphic in 253. However, the combination of the image- and the text-link together can also be used to great rhetorical effect. For example, in Patchwork Girl Shelley Jackson uses the dash key to create a graphical ‘stitching-effect’ at the bottom of a group of lexia that deal with the theme of stitching ideas together (“— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —” (Jackson 1995:[scrap bag])). This line of dashes is more than just a graphical illustration of a concept, however, because it also provides an opportunity for the reader-participants to explore the ideas being discussed by this passage. The default link, selected by pressing the return key, brings up the next ‘seamed’ lexia. However, in contrast, by finding and then selecting the hidden ‘stitching’ link the reader-participant is presented with a ‘seamless’ lexia. This link, with its visual and verbal associations, draws the attention of the reader-participant to their participation in what is occurring here. Jackson’s rhetorical strategy is arguing for, demonstrating and also critically involving the reader-participant in the constructivist themes of her work.
Clicking on a link is not the only way of participating in the selection of the text though. A number of contemporary author-participants have designed thought-provoking interfaces that are complex, visual metaphors. Jim Andrews’ Arteroid (a work which deals with artistic aspects of destruction), for example, has an interface and program modelled on the popular computer game, Asteroids (see Andrews 2003). The reader-participant of this text selects the text to be displayed by ‘firing’ and ‘manoeuvring’ in the manner of the game. In doing so, they are actively participating in the very artistic processes under discussion in this work.

B. Selecting the Availability of the Text presented on the Screen

The ‘click and drag’ functionality of computer technology has also been used as means of exploring the rhetoric of reader-participation. For example, in The Virtual Disappearance of Miriam by Martyn Bedford and Andy Campbell, the section titled ‘missing you already’ has text displayed on an image shaped like a double bed. In its default mode, this text runs out of the field of view so that most of it can not be read by the reader-participant. However, by clicking and dragging, the bed image the rest of this text can be manipulated into view.

The rhetoric of participation, used in this section, serves to emphasize one of the major themes of The Virtual Disappearance of Miriam, namely, that this story will only be brought into view by the actions of its reader-participant. In this respect, the participatory rhetoric of this movable bed functions in much the same way as clicking on the ‘stitching’ in Patchwork Girl in that its rhetoric both illustrates and demonstrates a key point.

C. Selecting the extent of the reading

A number of theorists have noted that computer-mediated texts do not always have an obvious, single ending. For example, Patchwork Girl does not have a lexia that is identified as the last lexia. So instead of providing an obvious denouement, that flags the end of the piece, the author-participants of these kinds of works suggest to the reader-participant that they might have read enough to come to an understanding of the work. They also signal that this understanding is just one understanding amongst many. For even after reading all the links, the reader-participant can always read more, simply by setting out on one of the paths for a second time. The text continues to stay open mainly because, as J. Yellowlees Douglas notes, our point of ending is “simply one "ending" among many possible.” (Douglas 2000:122). In doing this the author-participant makes the reader-participant aware of their role in defining the extent of her work.

Patchwork Girl achieves this ending effect by piling-up allusions, and then looping back to the title screen. This title screen, therefore, also serves as a resting point, a point of reflection, and a point of decision about the extent of the reading. It asks the reader-participant a series of rhetorical question – Have you read this text?- What does it mean to say one has read this text?

Active Participation of the Reader-Participant through Contribution

A. The Contribution of text

Unlike print-mediated texts, networked computer-mediated texts are digitised and therefore extremely easy to modify. A number of author-participants have made use of this capability to create works which reconfigure the reader-participant as contributing-participants, by granting them the facility to add their own text. For example, in Swarm, a work that deals with the philosophical issues of hive-mind and memory, the author-participant has a created a ‘swam larder’ (Prophet 1997) section into which reader-participant can place their own ‘honey jars’ (small segments of text ) alongside words produced by other reader-participants. The rhetoric of this section is extremely effective in the context of this work, as the author-participant provides the reader-participant with a direct experience of the concept of hive-mind being discussed by this piece.

Other works have made use of this contributory aspect of these works for other rhetorical purposes. For example, Leonie Winson's Dark Lethe uses participant’s contributions to such an extent that it has created "a collaborative story environment in which writers can create stories that interconnect, conflict, and conjoin in a new hyperlinked structure."(Winson 1995). This kind of work provides a coherent frame for all of its participants, while at the same time also creating a structure in which no one voice is able to be dominant.

B. The Contribution of Other Textual Elements

The participation of the reader-participant has not been restricted to just alphabetic text. The multi-user program LambdaMOO, for example, allows its participants to create a number of small programmable elements, known as objects (Curtis 1990) which alter the reading experience of other participants. It should be noted that a number of contemporary bulletin board and computer game programs also allow users to contribute graphical, animated or video material to their texts. In each case, the rhetoric of each of these texts works to make participation an important feature of these texts. It proclaims that they are open and incomplete without the reader’s contribution.

Participation of the Reader-Participant through Presence

A number of computer-mediated textual works make their reader-participants aware of their participation, by drawing attention to their physical presence within the work. For example, This is not a Hypertext (demonstrated by its author Simon Biggs at the recent Hypertext ‘03 conference) grows in length and alters its font size by analyzing the physical actions of its audience. In its current implementation, this work produces a single sentence that grows word by word, over the course of the reading. However, after certain movements from members of the audience are detected by the program (such as getting up to leave) it suspends the production of the sentence until the person has stopped moving (Biggs 2003).
This simple piece was highly successful in drawing the reader-participants attention to their physical position (sitting/standing stationary, before the work) and in drawing attention to the presence of the other reader-participants in the reading as well.

The Creative Work to be undertaken at the PhD level: ‘Angels’

The creative piece I will submit for the PhD stage of my research is a computer-mediated work of fiction that is provisionally titled ‘Angels’. The aim of this work-in-progress is to provide to the reader-participant a direct experience of the participative aesthetic (and so fulfil the fourth research aim noted above).

This work asks the reader to ‘play’ the role of a ‘confessor’ or ‘guardian angel’ to the main protagonist, Nolita, a refugee-like character who is struggling to come terms with her past and present. The text, and the progression of narratives revealed by the text, will mutate as a result of the reader-participant’s actions. This will be achieved, primarily, by the use of a series of disguised input forms, as well as by buttons, and other interface objects placed in the text. However, in this work even the reader’s delays, their avoidance of certain sections of the text and their lack of answers to certain key questions will shape their reading as well. All through this process the main protagonist will remind the reader-participant of her dependence on their judgements. In doing so, this character will, I hope, fulfil my artistic ambition for this piece, which is to make the reader-participant intellectually and emotionally aware of their complicity in the refugee’s plight.

The work will take the form of a networked computer-mediated text, featuring an animated flash interface, connected to a series of PHP scripts, which in turn will connect to a SQL database. This configuration will allow the work to present the participative aesthetic to a wide audience via the internet. For example, the animated interface will facilitate the production of drag-able items, game-like substructures, temporally-structured passages as well as tick boxes, forms and other standard data input interface. The PHP and the database will be used to make the work flexible and capable of changing its structure and contents in real-time.

Value of the Participative Aesthetic

Mikhail Bakhtin developed his theory of language to argue for the cultural value of the novel. He framed the concept of ‘heteroglossia’ to describe the effect of reading the multiple speech-genre found in a novelist’s discourse. Bakhtin argued that the main effect of this ‘heteroglossia’ is that the authority of the characters and the narrator are challenged; and that no one (including the authorial narrator) is allowed to have a last word on any subject. Bakhtin then argued that this artistic effect was important to the world beyond the novel because it broke down absolutist dogma and destroyed the illusion that any text or point-of-view could present transcendental truth (qualities that Bakhtin criticises in heroic and tragic texts).

In the works considered by this research, the reader-participant becomes more aware of their participation in the work being read, through their diverse response to the rhetorical techniques deployed by the author-participants. They are involved and empowered by their responsive understanding to be self-conscious about their participation. Following Bakhtin’s argument, the participative aesthetic might have a similar value to the heteroglossic, in that it allows the reader-participant to become more aware of their participation in the world as well as the text.

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