[Appropriation and recontextualization of a word - Bitch. Its connotations are multiple. In the hyperlinked website definition # 255 out of 256 defines Bitch as an empowered yet despised woman in contemporary society. Definition 35 defines bitch as a female dog, a hyper masculine female, and an effeminate male. Jackson addresses The Feminine in stitch bitch]
[Codes lead us to dead ends. Or ends that require codes in and of themselves numerical codes like passwords, and credit card numbers. One must pay for access to Patchwork Girl websites, because codes are created, codes are owned, traded, equated to value, a product of the system they are embedded in Capitalism is an alphabetical code with connotations of a numerical monetary code.∞∞ it is a symbolic and cultural code. (SYM) - greed, evil, freedom America, corporate, money. (REF) - fordism, moral bankruptcy, monetary bankruptcy, systems of power, hegemony.]
by Shelley Jackson∞
The text is introduced with this preface:
[The text below is a complete transcript of Jackson's presentation at the Transformations of the Book Conference held at MIT on October 24-25, 1998.]– hyperlinks and all.
! THE CHOICE
The following is a passage∞. {The passage is constituted by a set of sentences, which are themselves constituted by a set of words, which are classified by function (noun, verb, adjective, adverb, object, indirect object, pronoun, preposition) These words are controlled and subjugated by symbols (coma [,] period [.] question [?]) which connotate a specific rule which regulates how the sets of words are interpreted. The words are constituted by a combination of symbols that are symbolic of a numeric order (1-26) which is called the alphabet. The alphabetical symbols are phenoms because they are symbolic of a set of sounds produced by humans}
Together this dense series of codes create a cohesive unit which has a specific function in Shelley Jackson’s text (a series of multiple paragraphs) for two reasons: 1) because the points of entry in her speech are manifold, like the points of entry of a hypertext. She says within the text: “but I have shuffled the pages”, order is inconsequential in this text as well as hypertext. ∞ [She also provides a series of definitions in Stitch Bitch. “Hypertext is” an anaphora. Its serves as a literary organizational structure that opens up the meaning of hypertext to the audience. In this way, Hypertext’s definition manifests its plurality. In this paragraph she breaks from a direct mention of hypertext, breaking the form, yet still conveying a new definition.
The text in its entirety is one definition of hypertext that exists in the academia, and cyberspace.
@ THE SYSTEM
- I will focus on three codes: The semic code(SEM), the symbolic code (SYM) and the Referential code (REF).
- A single ∞ will signify a break with the starred text. A double ∞∞ will signify a deviation from the deviation. A triple ∞∞∞ will signify a deviation with the deviation, of the first break, and so forth.
- Any text within a {}, will signify that it is belongs to a thought which is meta referential (that is it references my own text)
- Any text within a [] shall be considered a tangent into new ideas or information engendered by the very process of starring.
- Any text with an underline is a hyperlink (almost all ;p∞ {an emoticon represents an symbolic interjection of the author of this texts’ intentions and emotions. They have the capacity to change the meaning of a text by connoting tone and emotion})
# THE PROJECT
Barthes technique attempts to unravel, to complicate, and to resist the literary critics attempt to pigeonhole a text. The process of slow dispersal of a readerly text creates a Plural text. The writerly text becomes an artifact which is, at its very nature resistive of cultures co modification of Writing.
Barthes uses 5 codes. His system of liberating a closed text of its confinement of specific meaning, and creating a plural text, at its very basis uses a structure of codes. It underscores the dependence of an individual in using closed systems of meaning, in order to produce an artifact with differential meaning.
I am the hacker. I attempt to break these codes and exponentiate meaning.
While Barthes uses stars to suggest a specific location within the “The galaxy of signifieds” I will use ¥ which connotes the idea of infinity itself, not merely a location within infinity
Constraints do engender beauty, Oulipo∞ [Oulipo is a system for creating literature. It is also a theme for a specific type of blog in the blogger world. Its function as a system of production, is mirrored in its function in the Blogger world. In the blogger world, or the specific blogging platform of Wordpress, Oulipo is a theme (interface) to produce ones blog with. You can demo the theme. You can also purchase it here! ]
and evolution prove that∞, [(REF) Evolution is a cultural refernce to science. Science and the constraints of the physical world have created beauty, life, and possibility. Evolution operates also on the constraint of time which creates change { as genetics, and evolution would have it, I am not a scientist :/}] but maybe∞ [(SEM) maybe reveals the voice of the author. It opens up the text so that the writer becomes visible. (SYM) Doubt, hypothesis, uncertainty ]we've shown well enough how gracefully we can heel-toe in a straight line∞ [ (SEM) the use of we’ve closes the opening provided by maybe in the previous lexia. It opens up a new meaning of complicity. The we of society, of the reader, and of the author, and of non readers, and non authors. Heel-toe in a straight line is also a semic code it connotes dance, which is a movement based on system, repetition, and manipulation of the body and it is also (REF) social cultural. Straight line (SYM) mathematics, linearity, homogeneity, simplicity] We can invent new constraints, multiple ones.∞ [(SYM) alphabet and language is a multiple constraint. In language constraint is layered and structured but it is reducible to single units of meaning.]
I think we will: just because I advocate dispersal doesn't mean I'm as impressed by a pile of sawdust as I am by a tree,∞[ (REF) metatextual reference, to a previous symbolic image of the tree. (REF) a tree is the quintessential example of the relationship between signified and signifier. (according to the readers Matt Noble-Olson and Wendy Chun {8D}). (SYM) Dispersal connotes the process by which ones stars the text; deconstruction. ∞∞ Deconstruction connotes lack of structure, which is the basis of anarchy and a goal of Post structuralist thinkers∞∞∞ {here I am naming a group of theorists, categorizing them, squeezing them into a three word term to signify a time period, an explosion of thought and writing. This process that I employ is called pigeonholing and it LABELS signifieds and strips them naked of their plurality. This process is exactly what Barthes endeavors to resist in his theory of starring the text. But it is exactly what hypertext has the potential to slip into when we start hyperlinking in cyberspace we end up chained but to what? ourselves? The hyperreal? Technology? Systems? }]
a ship, a book. But let us have books that squirm and change under our gaze∞[(SEM) our renders the term gaze - that normally belongs to poststructural theorists – a term which the reader now owns also. (SEM) squirm personifies the mobility of hypertext. It is not a set of confined, bound pages, but rather able to move, breath, meander. (REF) the mobility of the text even in hypertext is still inextricably coupled with the gaze. Foucault, confined to experience through our senses) ∞∞ Hypertext is a heterotopia. Michel Foucault defines heterotopias as spaces of otherness, which are neither here nor there (Shelly Jackson defines hypertext HERE in Stitch Bitch).∞[the hyperlink says “here”, but it is not here but over there. Or nowhere. Somewhere in the placelessness cyberspace] .∞∞ Space is a defining feature of Foucault’s term Heterotopia. They are simultaneously physical and mental, such as the space of a phone call or the moment when you see yourself in the mirror. But they are the absence of location, and at the same time its illusion]
or tilt like a fun-house∞ [(REF) society, circus, diversion, childhood, naivety, illusion, mirrors, Foucault, the gaze, heterotopias {This cultural signification brings us in a sweeping circular motion back to the previous connection the Foucault’s theory of space and heterotopias. It underscores my point about the confinement of reference and footnotes and the attempt to break through codes to reach plurality by using codes. It is like inventing a new computer in order to render obsolete the original computer. The original computer may be broken, insignificant, but now you are left with exactly what you were trying to defeat}]
floor and spill∞ us into other books, whose tangents and asides follow strict rules of transformation, like a crystal forming in a solution, or which consist entirely of links,∞ [(SEM); links is a characterization of the idea of interconnectedness. there can be any number of links in hypertext, but links can mean anything. Links to other point in the text, link is a signifier and that connotes a plurality of signifieds Even in the Internet, one is still controlled, imprisoned, confined. The links are an illusion of movement, of freedom. Links∞∞ (SYM)- connection, tied together, bondage, chained, slavery, servitude] hypertext is a prison]
like spider-webs with no corpses hanging in them ∞(SEM) the euphemism “world wide web” associates the internet with the web of a spider, it is a production cast by a living thing (humans are spiders) the internet is our webs. Language is the Great Unruly∞ [(SEM) author employs capitalization of word which creates an intertextual dialogue. The capitalization changes the noun into a proper noun which both differentiates the PN from the noun and signifies a new meaning. (SYM) unruly, unpleasant unable to subjugate, uncontrollable, the highest from of anarchy∞∞ {meta-reference to post-structuralist tendencies towards anarchy}]
and alphabetical order is a contradiction in terms∞ (Alphabet connotes infinite possibility, plurality of language, order connotes structure; the contradiction connotes the tension, the interplay and the prisons that these juxtaposed ideas ultimately create (REF)terms, words, language, systems...∞∞ {elipses signify the lack of closure}...
