canonical     commentary     quotation     reference     external  


Hypertext syntagmas: cinematic narration with links
inventories

The relation of an individual image to other possible images is reminiscent of links that could have been present that aren't (as Bernstein describes via Moulthrop), as well as the idea that a hypertext gains some order of meaning (in absentia as it were) by virtue of what is not followed, or not read. This is rather good evidence of the importance of rereading in hypertext, for often the resonance of the work is determined in its absences, but these absences remain subject to local readings grounded in an intimacy from rereading. It is by being intimate with a work that a reader realises what a particular occasion of reading does not show.

Finally the same point Metz makes regarding absence and presence applies very strongly to linking in hypertext. In this hypertext I can, in principle, link to any of 196 other spaces (as it currently exists). Any particular link gains some sense from which of these 196 becomes a destination. It is not limitless, but it is certainly considerably more 'open' than other forms of writing, and as such the actual destination gains much more currency from what actually occurs (where we actually arrive) than from other extant possibile destinations.

Adrian Miles: Hypertext syntagmas: cinematic narration with links
A performative hypertext presented by
Journal of Digital Information