Copy Link
Add to Bookmark
Report
EJournal Volume 06 Number 01
_______ _______ __
/ _____/ /__ __/ / /
/ /__ / / ____ __ __ __ ___ __ __ ____ / /
/ ___/ __ / / / __ \ / / / / / //__/ / //_ \ / __ \ / /
/ /____ / /_/ / / /_/ / / /_/ / / / / / / / / /_/ / / /
\_____/ \____/ \____/ \____/ /_/ /_/ /_/ \__/_/ /_/
March, 1996 _EJournal_ Volume 6 Number 1 ISSN 1054-1055
There are 915 lines in this issue.
An Electronic Journal concerned with the
implications of electronic networks and texts.
723 Subscribers in 32 Countries
University at Albany, State University of New York
EJournal@Albany.edu
CONTENTS: [This is line 20]
PRESSING THE "REVEAL CODE" KEY [Begins at line 51]
by John Cayley
cayley@shadoof.demon.co.uk
Editorial Comment -- Spindle Those Web "Pages" [ at line 749 ]
Information about _EJournal_ [ at line 827 ]
About Subscriptions and Back Issues
About Supplements to Previous Texts
About _EJournal_
People [ at line 880 ]
Board of Advisors
Consulting Editors
*********************************************************************
*****************************************************************
* This electronic publication and its contents are (c) copyright *
* 1996 by _EJournal_. Permission is hereby granted to give away *
* the journal and its contents, but no one may "own" it. Any and *
* all financial interest is hereby assigned to the acknowledged *
* authors of individual texts. This notification must accompany *
* all distribution of _EJournal_. *
*****************************************************************
======================================================================
PRESSING THE "REVEAL CODE" KEY [line 51]
by John Cayley
cayley@shadoof.demon.co.uk
1: The COMPUTER is (an integral part of) the SYSTEM against which
WE write. [Please take a look, now, at note [*] on line 651.]
The problem of characterizing "the computer" as both a constituent
part of "the media" and an emergent artistic medium continues to
engage critical attention. In _Radical Artifice: writing poetry in
the age of media_, the poet and critic Majorie Perloff goes so far
as to suggest that contemporary "poetic discourse defines itself as
that which can violate the system." At this point in her argument
"the system" refers to the computer-based, "inaccessible system
core that increasingly controls discourse"; "the formulaic On/Off,
Yes/No, Save/Delete dialectic of computer-speak." [1] However, this
system is also, for Perloff, a metonym for the media writ large.
Poetic writing aims to violate the systems of both computer and
media, but without touching certain of the tools provided by these
systems themselves -- in particular without pressing what Perloff
calls "the Reveal Code key." That would be a self-limiting option,
merely "selected" from the formulaic "control-key" offerings of
the computer. Instead, poetic discourse aims "to 'reveal' that
which falls, so to speak, between the control-key cracks." [2]
This part of an explanation of "how a poem [by Charles Bernstein]
means" -- and just one turn in the course of many interesting
arguments throughout an extensive book -- relies heavily on a prose
investigation of computer-as-medium, chiefly for video games, also
by Bernstein. [3] His piece singles out "invariance, accuracy, and
synchronicity" as qualities of information processing by computers
which contrast sharply with those which "generally characterize"
such processing by humans. He also points to a particular quality
of computing in words which Perloff quotes, "the on-ness of the
computer is alien to any sort of relation we have with people or
things or nature, which are always and ever possibly present, but
can't be toggled on and off in anything like this peculiar way." [4]
The categorical simplicity of on/off, yes/no, save/delete, 1/0; the
power to "shut-down" (virtual) relationships; invariance, accuracy,
and synchronicity in the service of command and control -- this is a
sinister, tyrannical conjunction and potential focus for Romantic
disaffection which blossoms forth in subversive, linguistically
innovative writing. But Bernstein is aware of the "Romantic
nonsense" which might be read into his analysis of the "inaccessible
system core." He nonetheless insists, quite rightly, on underlining
the historical origins of that core complex in military funding for
the development of computers. "Programs and games may subvert the
command and control nature of computers, but they can never fully
transcend their disturbing, even ominous, origins." That
transcendental task must, presumably, be left to the poet.
[line 103]
2: INVARIANT inACCURATE SYSTEMS never sleep SYNCHRONICally.
Both these pieces were published in 1991, since when the world has
changed. It is beginning to dawn on us -- system developers have
always known it -- that invariance, accuracy and synchronicity are
ideals of computational information processing which never have
been, and never will be, attained; that computers -- as their
Networked instantiation: as the Matrix -- are never turned off;
that systems have no essential "core," inaccessible or otherwise.
As the operations of the computer become ever-more profoundly
involved with even our most intimate activities, we imagine that
they have acquired their share, however insignificant, of our own
characteristics. In fact, they have always been compromised by such
qualities. They do not function perfectly. Not even the hardware
works with absolute invariance and accuracy, let alone with
synchronicity. As for firmware and software -- we write it. It
pretends our ideals and exhibits our failings. Certainly, computers
have performed a range of functions -- command and control,
accounting, database management, word processing -- in a manner
which has radically influenced, not to say confused, our
understanding of what they are and how they behave. But now, as
they play out our chaotic fantasies over the sleepless matrix of
cyberspace, we encounter their "humanity" daily -- failures,
diseases, perversions -- and not mere simulacra of such phenomena,
but "real" inscriptions of our creative and destructive activities
on the surface of a complex medium. As real as poetry.
[line 132]
3: The COMPUTER is not (a part of) THE MEDIA. The COMPUTER allows
for the COMPOSITION of an indeterminate number of potential MEDIA.
These contrasting views of the "computer" and its characteristics
arise in part because of a long-standing failure to distinguish
between the "computer" *per se* and "computer-plus-software", or
"computer-plus-code" (the code hidden under Perloff's "Reveal"
key). There is a tendency to speak as if the computer *itself* is a
part of the media and a potential artistic medium. But the computer
itself is not even a machine. It is the quintessential programmable
proto-machine. Without code, it does nothing. With appropriate
software and peripherals it can be made to do or control anything.
Until recently, computers have participated in the media as badly
designed typewriter-cum-calculator-cum-filing-cabinet-cum-TVs
running a limited range of software, hacked together to perform the
command and control, accounting, management and bureaucratic
functions already passed over.
However, with other software "the computer" becomes an entirely
different kind of medium, or rather a vast unbounded and
indeterminate set of potential media. Computers (for which read:
"networks of linked computers programmed to exchange information
resources") have a new meaning as media, now that the Internet has
reached a critical mass. Their more recognizably human
characteristics become more noticeable. Even in the field of
writing, new media are emerging: the development of the now-familiar
link-node hypertext of the Web (globally), and a range of
"authoring" packages (locally), means that the combination of
computer-plus-hypertext-software will become a flexible and
seductive literary medium, to which more and more new writers will
turn.
4: FAMILIARITY breeds CONTEMPT. INTIMACY inspires MYSTIFICATION.
The very intimacy of the functions now performed by these systems
encourages a tendency to mystify their inner workings, and to
indulge a Romantic *ressentiment* when faced with their outward
manifestations -- their "commands," their "controls" and our
"programmed" responses. Other machines have functions which are
clearly delineated by their physical form, by "programming" which
is structurally and often visibly built into them. You may not be
able to repair the engine or transmission of your car, but you can
lift the hood and see a complex structure which is, appreciably, of
human scale and manufacture, and which some other person like
yourself might well be able to understand and repair. But the
computer is a shape-shifter. Its engineering evolves beneath your
fingers in a world too small to see, while before your eyes the
system's functions change. One minute, it is a typewriter, the next
a fax machine, the next it's "your personal accountant" (it
lives!), and soon it will be helping you to read a poem, as well as
keeping you in touch with both colleagues and lovers.
[line 184]
Even if you had considered it before, you no longer dare press the
"Reveal Code" key. Not when there's a possibility that doing so
might change your system's function in a way you hadn't predicted --
and just as your electronic familiar was becoming so useful to you,
so intimate with your personal and particular concerns. Neither --
if you do hit the key by accident -- can you relate the functions
your computer performs to the insubstantial, language-like
engineering which makes it all happen.
5: Software sHifts poetIcs, iF riTers prEss: <Reveal>
Meanwhile the extension of such software engineering to the
manipulation of poetic texts has already been achieved and will
continue to be developed. John Cage's mesostics (internal acrostic
poetry) are central to Perloff's critical text. Cage commissioned
software -- to assist the generation of his mesostics -- from a
writer who has gone on to make important explorations of the
potentials within cybertextual poetics, Jim Rosenberg. [5] Had they
not made actual use of computers and software, the explicitly
procedural writings of Cage, Mac Low, Williams, Hartman/Kenner and
others would nonetheless demand analysis that is engaged with the
engineering of algorithms. [6] So "even" poetry must now be
understood as influencing and perhaps fundamentally changing the
characteristics of computer systems as artistic media. Poetry can
no longer be understood simply as a (traditional) art which is
(passively) changed or inflected by "the system." Whether and how
poetry subverts this system is an open question.
In remarks published on the Net which speak to the subject of
constructive hypertexts (those which actively construct texts with
or without reader intervention), Rosenberg has called for the
problematized complexity of the reader/writer relationship to allow
for a third term: the programmer. "What is the role of *the code*
in setting the constructive act? A cautious view might limit the
role of the code to simply setting the arena for the constructive
act, and leaving it at that.... beyond this: the code might act as a
*coparticipant* in the constructive act.... the code is not there
as some kind of stub to be plugged into the socket of the
constructive act like a stopper -- in place of the reader. One
constructs with and against and amongst the code. But most of all
one constructs! Agents should be used to enrich the construction,
not to do away with the need for it." [7] [line 226]
Rosenberg responds to the notion that agents of the system --
unrevealed, encoded, virtual readers -- have been active in
manipulating certain literary texts (plucking, say, words from James
Joyce's _Finnegans Wake_ and fitting them into Cage's tall,
mesostic, author-naming verses). Such operations are sometimes seen
as substitutes for the reader's potential activity, as control over
her attention and response. Rosenberg suggests rather that if we
acknowledge these coded agents, if we read "with and against and
amongst" them, we may enrich the constructive act of reading itself.
But I want to focus on the fact that these agents are themselves
constructed, and they may be authored by the writer or designer of
both given text and its modulated form (in any particular reading or
performance) as an integral part of the entire "work." Writers may
also write "with and against and amongst" the code.
Each term of the writer/ reader/ programmer triangle is a shifter.
Just as writer may be reader, and reader may be writer, in current
(post-modern) critical perspectives, so either of these absent
agents may be programmers: systematic manipulators of text and
intertext, making use of software which has become intimate with
poetics. Poets and readers must become intimate with software.
They must press the "Reveal Code" key.
[[Sections 6 to 8 of this essay have been software-generated by
applying semi-aleatory collocational procedures to arguments
extracted from the earlier sections. Look for details about
the procedure in the Explanatory Note at line 651.]
6 THESIS
inflected by computers
their disturbing even ominous origins
changed or inflected by the system
of command and control
this is a sinister tyrannical conjunction
military funding for romantic disaffection
which blossoms forth in subversive
linguistically innovative writing
[line 267]
before your eyes the on-ness of the computer
aims to shut-down
the reader's potential activity
her attention and response
falls between the categorical simplicity
of the systems
and control
this is an integral part of the system against which we write
unrevealed encoded virtual relationships
invariance accuracy and synchronicity
are qualities of the system
that increasingly controls discourse
the computer is an integral part of the system
which has radically influenced our understanding
poetic discourse aims to reveal
that which falls between the control-key cracks
this is a world
alien to any sort of
potential activity
touching certain of the tools
for romantic disaffection
manipulating certain literary texts
might change
your system's
function in a way you hadn't predicted
its engineering evolves
in subversive linguistically innovative writing
inflected by these systems themselves
without pressing the reveal code key
[line 305]
a shape-shifter
a substitute for the reader's potential activity
the computer is alien
to any sort of relation we have with people or things or nature
the power to shut-down virtual relationships
in a way you hadn't predicted
is an integral part of the media
the formulaic control
over her attention and response
can never fully transcend
the historical origins of the system
which has radically influenced our understanding
information processing by humans
defines itself
is a part of the system core
this is an integral part of the reader's potential
inflected by these systems
our understanding
can never fully transcend
the categorical simplicity of
unrevealed encoded virtual relationships
of both computer and media
without pressing the
reveal code key
a self-limiting option merely selected from the insubstantial
language-like engineering which makes it all happen
poetry subverts the system
[line 338]
7 ANTITHESIS
even our most intimate
operations have always been compromised
by such qualities
the computer becomes an entirely different
kind of medium
influencing and perhaps fundamentally changing
the system
a flexible and seductive literary medium
to enrich
such phenomena
real inscriptions of our chaotic fantasies
writers may also write with
a machine
with and against and amongst
the code
these agents are themselves constructed
they have acquired their share
of our own characteristics
the computer's operations have no essential core
the manipulation of poetic texts
will continue to be developed
readers must press
for the composition
of an indeterminate set of potential media
these absent agents may be authored
in the constructive act
as real as poetry
inscriptions of
the need for
a flexible and seductive literary medium
to be developed [line 377]
it pretends our ideals and exhibits our most intimate
activities on the surface
of a complex medium
text and intertext
if we read with and against and amongst the code
each term of the system
becomes an entirely different kind of
coparticipant in the constructive act
reading itself
may be authored
making use of software
which has become intimate with poetics
poets and readers must become
ever-more profoundly involved
with even our most intimate
chaotic fantasies
readers must press for the composition
of an entirely different kind of
text and intertext
making use of a coparticipant in the constructive act
reading itself
is the quintessential programmable proto-machine
without code it does nothing
with appropriate software
which has become intimate with poetics
it can be made to do away with the need for it
one constructs with and against and amongst the code
it can be made to enrich such phenomena
real inscriptions of our most intimate activities
real inscriptions of our creative
and destructive
operations
so either of these absent agents may be programmers
systematic manipulators of text
authored in the constructive act as
poetry
inscriptions of the code
each term of the code
each term of the field of writing
press the reveal code key
8 SYNTHESIS [line 428]
coparticipant in the manipulation of poetic texts
these absent agents may also
enrich such phenomena
real inscriptions of potential activity
control over her attention and response
inflected by the system
these agents are themselves constructed
they may be programmers
systematic manipulators of text
of unrevealed encoded virtual relationships
ideals of computational information processing
in a potential focus for
the manipulation of
both computer and media
will continue to be attained
both given text and its modulated form
in any particular reading or performance
have no essential core
real inscriptions of our own characteristics
the computer's operations
have been active in manipulating
certain of these absent agents
themselves constructed
they can never fully transcend
the historical origins of software engineering
poetry is alien to
shut-down virtual readers
of the system that increasingly controls discourse
the reveal code key
even our failings
[line 466]
they have acquired their share
of our most intimate activities
on the surface of a shifter
just as writer may also write with a machine
it pretends our ideals
of computational information processing
in a traditional art
which is passively changed or inflected
by the on-ness of
the computer is a potential
inflected by these systems
a flexible and seductive literary medium
poetic discourse aims to violate
the computer is alien to
any sort of relation we have with absolute invariance
accuracy and synchronicity
are qualities of poetic texts
and ever possibly present
but they can be left
to be a self-limiting option
merely selected from the insubstantial
language-like engineering
to do away with appropriate software
which has radically influenced
our most intimate chaotic fantasies
readers must press
for the composition of an entirely different kind of text
an indeterminate number
of our most intimate operations
have always been compromised by computers
readers must become ever-more profoundly involved
with appropriate software
which has radically influenced our understanding of
what they are
vast unbounded
and never turned off
systems have no essential core
the reveal code key
coparticipant in the composition
[Some lines in Section 9 extend beyond our normal margins in order
to accomodate HyperTalk scripting. The complete code is available
at
http://www.demon.co.uk/eastfield/in/indown.html
Again, please read the Explanatory Note, at line 651, for details.]
9 <REVEALED> [line 526]
on inflect
repeat twice
do "global " & characteristics
end repeat
lock screen
put potential & space after card field system
if media & comma is in field computer of card understanding & ",text"
then
put return after card field system
put true into subversive
end if
if compromised then show card field agents
do "unlock screen with dissolve " & fantasies
end inflect
on write
repeat twice
do "global " & characteristics
end repeat
repeat with programmers = one to always
if touching then
put essential into invariance
else
put the round of simplicity * engineering / synchronicity + one
into invariance
end if
if invariance is greater than the random of engineering and
not categorical then
put ideals + one into media
if subversive then
put false into subversive
end if
if media is greater than instantiation then
put one into media
end if
else
put the inscription of conjunctions + one into media
end if
if categorical then put false into categorical
put media into ideals
put word media of field "text" of card understanding & ",text"
into potential
if the mouse is down then
put conjunctions into potential
put potential into card field agents
put true into encoded
exit repeat
end if [line 575]
inflect
wait manipulation
put potential into conjunctions
put ideals into world
if performed then put false into performed
if programmers are greater than control
and media & comma is in field computer of
card understanding & ",text" then exit repeat
end repeat
if not encoded and not touching then
if ideals are developed then wait five seconds
lock screen
put empty into card field agents
put empty into card field system
do "unlock screen with dissolve " & fantasies
end if
end write
on violation
repeat twice
do "global " & characteristics
end repeat
set cursor to none
put false into subversive
put false into encoded
put true into complex
put true into intimate
go to card reader
put empty into card field agents
put empty into card field system
hide card field agents
if performed then
put zero into poetic
hide message
put the number of words in field text of card understanding &",text"
into developed
put the number of words in field text of card core & ",text"
into instantiation
if reader contains "software" then
put the random of developed into ideals
put word ideals of field text of card understanding & ",text"
into conjunctions
end if
put accuracy into change [line 619]
put false into performed
end if
repeat until ideals are developed
set cursor to none
if poetic is greater than change then exit repeat
if reader is not "code" then add one to ideals
put word ideals of field text of card understanding & ",text"
into operations
if compromised then
put operations into card field agents
end if
send write to card
put false into subversive
if encoded or touching then
exit repeat
end if
if compromised then
lock screen
hide card field agents
do "unlock screen with dissolve " & fantasies
end if
if reader contains "software" then if ideals are developed then
put zero into ideals
end repeat
if "software" is not in reader then
show card field agents of card reader
end if
end violation
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Explanatory Note [line 651]
[*] Sections 6 to 8 of this essay have been software-generated by
applying semi-aleatory collocational procedures to arguments
extracted from the earlier sections.
Two arguments were extracted manually from the earlier text which
may be summarized as: "The COMPUTER is (an integral part of) the
SYSTEM against which WE write" (thesis), and "Software sHifts
poetIcs, iF riTers prEss: <Reveal>" (antithesis).
Sections 6 and 7 were generated from their respective arguments
separately. A collocational algorithm generated phrases which were
selected and collected by the author. Selected phrases were also
fed back into the given text, changing them irreversibly. The
altered texts from 6 and 7 were then combined and used as the given
text for secton 8 (synthesis).
Note that by this stage very little active selection of generated
phrases was required by the author. The final paragraphs of section
8 are almost entirely generated by a simple collocational
algorithm. I merely split the generated paragraphs into lines.
A HyperCard stack (Macintosh only, for HyperCard 2.x) with the
current state of the "Reveal Code" cybertext generator will be
posted as shareware for downloading at:
http://www.demon.co.uk/eastfield/in/indown.html
Section 9 is part of the actual working code (in HyperTalk) used to
generate sections 6 to 8. The variable terms have been randomly and
systematically replaced with substantive words from sections 1 to 5
-- any noun or adjective is allowed to replace a variable name
containing a value; any verb is allowed to replace a procedure or
function name --
HyperTalk 'reserved words' have been left intact. The code is
working code. (Some liberties have been taken with line breaks, to
keep them short, but this does not affect the code's logic.)
Information concerning my own work in this field can be found at my
web site:
http://www.demon.co.uk/eastfield/in/
There is also an extensive article describing the work forthcoming
in _Visible Language_ (1996).
NOTES [line 700]
[1] Majorie Perloff, _Radical Artifice_, Chicago & London:
University of Chicago Press, 1991, p. 189. (Hereafter: RA.)
[2] RA, p. 189.
[3] Charles Bernstein, "Play it Again, Pac-Man," _Postmodern
Culture_ 2.1 (September 1991). Cited by Perloff (?in an earlier
form) as: "Hot Circuits: A Video Arcade," American Museum of the
Moving Image, 14 June-26 November 1989.
[4] RA, p. 188
[5] Perloff mentions this (RA, p. 208.), although Rosenberg has
since pointed out that he wrote only the early programs; Andrew
Culver then took over this work for Cage. (Personal communication.)
[6] See, for example, Emmett Williams, _A Valentine for Noel: Four
Variations on a Scheme_ (Barton, Brownington, Berlin: Something Else
Press, 1973), and also his _Selected Shorter Poems (1950-1970)_ (New
York: New Directions, 1975). A selection of Jackson Mac Low's
Asymmetries is included in his _Representative Works: 1938-1985_
(New York, Roof Books, 1986). His 'diastic' technique was used in
_The Virginia Woolf Poems_ (Providence: Burning Deck, 1985). Cage's
mesostics include _Roaratorio: An Irish Circus on Finnegans Wake_
(first produced in Paris in 1978) and _I-VI_ (Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 1990). Charles O. Hartman and Hugh Kenner have
recently published _Sentences_ (Los Angeles: Sun & Moon, 1995).
[7] Jim Rosenberg, remarks posted to the (majordomo) discussion list
"ht_lit" (hypertext literature: ht_lit@journal.biology.carleton.ca),
9 June, 1995.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
John Cayley
Wellsweep Press [in Chinese HZ: ~{?-U\02~} ~{=[i@3v0fIg~}]
^ innovative literary translation from Chinese ^
cayley@shadoof.demon.co.uk
http://www.demon.co.uk/eastfield/
--------------------------------------------------------------------
[ This essay in Volume 6, Number 1 of _EJournal_ (March, ]
[ 1996) is (c) copyright _EJournal_. Permission is hereby ]
[ granted to give it away. _EJournal_ hereby assigns any and ]
[ all financial interest to John Cayley. This note must ]
[ accompany all copies of this text. ]
=====================================================================
EDITORIAL COMMENT -- Spindle Those Web "Pages" [line 749]
In the spirit of challenging the default assumptions imposed by a
paper-based culture, we ought to be looking for images to replace
"Homepage." "Web" and "'net" don't bother me, even though I prefer
"Matrix." But we should resist at least the "page" part of Homepage
because electronic communication transcends the boundary conditions
imposed by paper and ink and print, and because accepting images
like "page" makes it hard to escape the conditions.
Adjusting the imagery won't be easy. The inertia is so enfolding
that we hardly notice it. But it will happen, and we should
encourage the changes in vocabulary when we notice them being tried
out.
Why? Vocabulary is part of what we wonder with. As long as we
stick with strictly papyrocentric terms, we'll be stuck inside the
boundaries they impose. But new terms lead to new things to think
about. The idea of "clicking on" something is entering the lexicon,
and we're starting to hear "mouse" used as a verb.
Speaking of mice, remember how happy we were with the friendliness
of the Macintosh "desktop"? Those familiar manila-folder icons and
wastebaskets seemed wonderful. But they helped prolong dependence
on the mental scaffolding they were leaving behind. Now it is
time to wean ourselves from the limitations of papyrocentrism.
There are other examples of paper-bound mindset. The surviving
major word-processors were built to process "papers," not words.
Footnotes, margins, headers and footers .... the goal of bit-mapping
texts was to make screens look like paper.
And WYSIWYG, of course, caters to people who prepare texts for
printers. Ordinary readers -- especially people who scroll through
screens and link to digital sound and cinema as well as to text --
we care about WYSIWYG only when condemned to produce "pages" for the
Web. I have found talk about *writing spaces* (instead of
"pages") only in Bolter-aware hypertext programs like Storyspace.
And even "writing" should be giving way, now, to "composing."
[line 788]
SGML and its subset HTML are also paper bounded, aimed at describing
"pages" and associated with the retrospective task of digitizing
paper texts. And so on.
Constant references to "desktop publishing" reinforce the
supposition that publishing requires paper, that computers exist to
serve the papyrocentric culture. We forget that "publishing" is
just a way to make something public. "To publish" and "to make
paper copies" are not synonymous.
A current example of indebtedness to print technology is the
suggestion that we ought to have monitors that can be turned --
physically -- between "landscape" and "portrait" positions. We
ought to have them, we're told, because Homepages resemble
paperpages. The idea does make some sense -- but, like the word
"page" itself, it's just a retrograde adaptation.
There's no pressure to invent new terminology right away. Sure,
Wiener adapted "kybernos" and Mandelbrot tells us where he got
"fractal," but the digital revolution, although *bigger* than than
control theory or chaos or complexity, is more gradual. Computers
still need paper. Electronic communication won't *replace* printing
any more than writing replaced talking. The old images do make
transitions easier; we still use "horsepower" to compare engines, we
say "dial" when we could use "punch" or "key" for telephoning.
On the other hand, the path is forking. Terminology affects
perception. Now that the digital revolution is virtually over, and
we winners are in a position to write the history, we should be on
the lookout for the images that will suit the *n*-dimensional matrix
and hypertext better than "pages" and all those other paper- and
print-bounded words do. I don't propose a contest, but _EJournal_
could help circulate -- "publish" -- any post-transitional
adaptations and neologisms its readers discover.
===================================================================
[line 825]
------------------------------------------------------
------------------ I N F O R M A T I O N ---------------
-------------------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------------------------
About Subscribing and Sending for Back Issues:
In order to: Address: With this message:
Subscribe to _EJournal_: LISTSERV@albany.edu SUB EJRNL YourName
Get Contents/Abstracts
of previous issues: LISTSERV@albany.edu GET EJRNL CONTENTS
Get Volume 5 Number 1: LISTSERV@albany.edu GET EJRNL V5N1
Send mail to our "office": EJOURNAL@albany.edu Your message...
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
http://www.hanover.edu/philos/ejournal/home.html
[ http://rachel.albany.edu/~ejournal/ejournal/ejournal.html ]
---------------------------------------------------------------------
About "Supplements":
_EJournal_ continues to experiment with ways of revising, responding
to, reworking, or even retracting the texts we publish. Authors who
want to address a subject already broached --by others or by
themselves-- may send texts for us to consider publishing as a
Supplement issue. Proposed supplements will not go through as
thorough an editorial review process as the essays they annotate.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
About _EJournal_: [line 856]
_EJournal_ is an all-electronic, e-mail delivered, peer-reviewed,
academic periodical. We are particularly interested in theory and
practice surrounding the creation, transmission, storage,
interpretation, alteration and replication of electronic "text" -
and "display" - broadly defined. We are also interested in the
broader social, psychological, literary, economic and pedagogical
implications of computer- mediated networks. The journal's essays
are delivered free to Internet addressees. Recipients may make
paper copies; _EJournal_ will provide authenticated paper copy from
our read-only archive for use by academic deans or others.
Writers who think their texts might be appreciated by _EJournal_'s
audience are invited to forward files to ejournal@albany.edu . If
you are wondering about starting to write a piece for to us, feel
free to ask if it sounds appropriate. There are no "styling"
guidelines; we try to be a little more direct and lively than many
paper publications, and considerably less hasty and ephemeral than
most postings to unreviewed electronic spaces. Essays in the
vicinity of 5000 words fit our format well. We read ASCII; we
continue to experiment with other transmission and display formats
and protocols.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Board of Advisors: [line 880]
Stevan Harnad University of Southampton
Ann Okerson Association of Research Libraries
Joe Raben City University of New York
Bob Scholes Brown University
Harry Whitaker University of Quebec at Montreal
---------------------------------------------------------------------
SENIOR EDITORS - March, 1996
ahrens@alpha.hanover.edu John Ahrens Hanover
dabrent@acs.ucalgary.ca Doug Brent Calgary
kahnas@jmu.edu Arnie Kahn James Madison
richardj@bond.edu.au Joanna Richardson Bond
ryle@urvax.urich.edu Martin Ryle Richmond
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Consulting Editors - March, 1996
bcondon@umich.edu Bill Condon Michigan
djb85@albany Don Byrd Albany
folger@watson.ibm.com Davis Foulger IBM - Watson
gms@psu.edu Gerry Santoro Penn State
nakaplan@ubmail.ubalt.edu Nancy Kaplan Baltimore
nrcgsh@ritvax Norm Coombs RIT
r0731@csuohio Nelson Pole Cleveland State
ray_wheeler@dsu1.dsu.nodak.edu Ray Wheeler North Dakota
srlclark@liverpool.ac.uk Stephen Clark Liverpool
twbatson@gallua.gallaudet.edu Trent Batson Gallaudet
wcooper@vm.ucs.ualberta.ca Wes Cooper Alberta
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Editor: Ted Jennings, emeritus, English, Albany
Editorial Asssociate: Jerry Hanley, emeritus, Theater, Albany
--------------------------------------------------------------------
University at Albany Computing and Network Services
---------------------------------------------------------------------
University at Albany, SUNY. Albany, New York 12222 USA
