Hello,

New to the forum and happy to be here. I feel like I'm in an addict meeting.... "hello, I'm Michelle. And I don't know what Hypertext is."

I just finished teaching a graduate course on hypertext rhetorics. In exploring this question we had to ask if hypertext was something more than "form." Is the attribute of linking (whether vis-a-vis our "minds, -- in the dubious metonomy that our minds are hypertext -- or in books, or with the aid of computers). Is a "book" simply a form? Does the cover, binding, page by page layout, text printed (in western culture) from left to right, from top to bottom -- make a "book"?

What is the relationship between form and content? Amazon.com can be a hypertext for all I care. So may Afternoon. But surely they have very different functions, appeals, audiences, uses, messages, etc?

Reading hypertextual theory is often like imagining heaven. Sounds just marvelous. What a nice fantasy. Sign me up. Seeing these utopian hypertexts in practice seems something quite differently altogether.

I'm also working out a theory here and maybe I can get this learned and loquacious crowd to assist me? I'm writing an essay in which I look at the strange double logic theories of hypertext have with the "subject." The authorial subject is dismantled, his/her authority is, ostensibly, removed via the form and interactive nature of ideal hypertext. At the same time, I argue, the subject is reconstructed via these analogies with the "mind" -- the claims that hypertext is structured and works much like the human mind... brilliant associative pairings, the unique moment of "creativity" that has long been the hallmark of that quintessential American subject the "genius". I have this part of my argument down cold :-)

What I'm working now -- is the second part, and it ties into the discussion here about corporate vs. individual designers/authors. I believe that a compensatory rhetoric emerges to recast the subject. Rather than "author," we have the "reader" The reader is newly empowered to contribute in material ways to the text, and can create their own "text" through the associative linking of hypertext. Yes... we all know this story.

But I see something further happening. I believe the reader is further recast in a primarily economic metaphor -- as consumer. The act of "choice" so touted by both capitalist economies and by advocates of hypertext is, in both cases, often an illusory position that offers choice between products as a substitute for real political choices.

This is not to say that there are not emancipatory possibilities and potentials in "hypertext" -- but that we have to push against this rhetoric that would recast the "subject" as simply another consumer, of yet another commodity (information). One tiny bit of evidence, I'm doing some research on Kosovo and have been at CNN interactive a lot lately. I was struck by the language of some of their choices: "Video on Demand," "Audio on demand."

Does this make sense to anyone? Or have I gone insane being locked in this little office with my very dead fig plant for company?

Michelle Kendrick