The Land of Hypertext March 24, 2008

My disk of Patchwork Girl wasn’t working, so I borrowed Allison’s last night.  I haven’t finished reading it yet, but I will update my post once I have.  But, here are my initial thoughts of Mark Amerika’s Filmtext. 

 

When I first began working with the site, I was extremely overwhelmed.  The site certainly has a lot going on, and at times I felt a tad over stimulated.  In addition, since there are no clear directions of how to navigate the site, I initially felt lost.  I wasn’t sure what to click or how to access the information.  On a side note, I’m not sure I understand how some of the graphics correlate to the information presented on the site.  In certain sections, the audience is in a dessert and has control over laser beams and I have no clue what the point of this is.  In addition, this is the first time that I have really worked with a hypertext, and it is definitely a different kind of reading experience.  At the beginning of the semester, the class discussed the difference between reading a standard text vs. a text on the internet.  Many people suggested that reading a text is an isolated experience where as reading a text on line is somewhat communal.  I never truly understood this prior to working with Amerika’s site.  Although I was navigating the site alone, I felt as though I was in a room with others –really strange!  I almost got the feeling that I was being watched by someone; it made me feel a bit uneasy and paranoid. 

 

Judging from the content presented on Amerika’s site, it is clear that the author is both paranoid and very intrigued by literary theorists, such as Baudrillard.  Certain parts of the text I found hard to follow, and at times I wondered why I was even reading what Amerika had to say.  In other words, what makes his thoughts credible?  Couldn’t anyone with a blog put this kind of information on the net?  Even so, however, many of Amerika’s comments I found intriguing and thought provoking. 

 

Amerika seems very interested in the role that the network plays on the social body.  He makes thought provoking comments such as: “I have become a carrier of viral information with immediate access to the networks” and “I spread stories without even knowing it.”  I think it is safe to assume that Amerika believes the network invests itself into its audience members, and by doing so the network becomes a natural thing that is accepted by the majority, if not all, of society.  I tend to agree with this statement.  I think that any popular social medium is in some way controlled by the dominant forces in society.  As a result of this, a majority of the popular social mediums dictate the thoughts of the ruling class; because these ruling ideas are constantly being transmitted to members of society, they are eventually internalized.  This causes a trickle down effect, similar to the one that Amerika is addressing in his work.  More or less, because these ideas become internalized they are unconsciously transmitted to others, and because this happens so often it is eventually accepted without consideration. 

 

Amerika also makes a lot of mention to Baudrillard in his work, which I’m sure makes Katie happy haha.  I am also a fan of Baudrillard, although some of his theories leave me feeling paranoid and overwhelmed.  Amerika says on several different occasions that nothing in life is real, everything is merely a perception.  Amerika believes that everything in life is a perception, because everyone believes things to be a certain way and this, in turn, affects the way in which things are viewed.  Going off of this, Amerika is saying that the only way to avoid perception is to not be seen, and this is unrealistic.  A lot of this argument was confusing to me, but I look forward to making sense of it during tomorrow’s class. 

 

See everyone tomorrow!