Metamorphiction and identifying my reservations
By lani 01 Dec 2001
The original title was to read, “Metamorphiction and identifying my reservations with new media” but that was gargantuan and it’s 4am. Not to mention that i had reservations concerning the subject heading itself and whether or not “new media” was an appropriate description. Is it hypertext? Is it cybertext? Will I get a brain tumor thinking about it? Will I later find myself reveling in the fact that I have a brain tumor and find myself calling it pet names? These are all serious things to consider when dealing with blerphhht.
<p>But seriously, i am interested in all this jarble but have sometimes have a hard time wrapping my head around it. Mostly because i took a hypertext short term class with <a href="http://www.bates.edu/~dkolb">David Kolb</a>, where he would lecture us on rhizomal structure, non-linearity vs. multi-linearity, the effects of authorial control, etc…and then every once in a while throw in something about truisms, virtual/reality, and spaces vs. places. I got caught up on one of the major considerations (i think anyway) of when is a reading finished in a reader/writer/reader interactive affair and never (or haven’t yet…) finished my project. Ultimately the reader make the final decision of when to stop but when they do, will they have a sense of completeness…which leaves the author to decide how much control (via link:node mass ratio) do they want to implement.</p>
<p>Anyway, this whole thing was to provide the link to Jeff Noon’s work <a href="http://www.cobralingus.com"> “Cobralingus”</a> as well as a dialogue betweek Mark Amerika and Jeff Noon on what they somtimes call <a href="http://rhizome.org/object.rhiz?2426">Dub Fiction. Inspired by dub reggae, well…i think it speaks better for itself. </p>
<p><blockquote>Cobralingus is a literary revolution. It explores new ways of creating stories, using only imaginary technologies and the strangely twisted pathways inside Jeff Noon’s head. </p>
<p>Jeff Noon transforms techniques from dance music into a whole new approach to the production of words. He begins with his own fiction, or pieces ‘sampled’ from Shakespeare, Thomas De Quincy or Zane Grey. These are playfully ‘remixed’ by the Cobralingus Engine, producing fiction, poems, songs and visually stunning text. </blockquote></p>