As in: Media

I keep returning to this quote—I think it very much encapsulates how I try to think about what hypertext rhetoric should be: Rational? Yes. "Uniform and continuous and sequential"? No.

'Rational,' of course, has for the West long meant 'uniform and continuous and sequential.' In other words, we have confused reason with literacy, and rationalism with a single technology. Thus in the electric age man seems to the conventional West to become irrational.
- - McLuhan, Understanding Media, page 15

So how does one build digital argument (if one does at all)? In my online hypertext pieces, I try to do that using a variety of means, but usually it involves presenting a linear argument of sorts, and then offering other tracks through the "database" of information presented in my project. While I'm pleased with the projects generally (here and here), I'm not satisfied that I'm anywhere near digital rhetoric yet.

This all ties to my two PCA presentations, both of which attempted to present my "digital" research (a chapter of my diss on cybernetics and the random comic) in a spirit that embodied the rhetoric of those pieces. In both cases, the audiences, at the end, stared blankly at me—either unable or unwilling to engage with the stuff I'd offered. Of course, I'm not sure what I'd have asked either. Hrm.

Posted by briley at April 9, 2005 2:50 PM