The hypertexted images on the bing search pages are visually comparable to the pages from Tom Phillips's A Humument.
On each, there's a large image of something or another, be it a stock photo of a "'contradiction,' 'fling,' or 'time-step'" of water fowl called "willets" or an artful covering of a page in a Victorian novel that was previously published and then published again as a new piece, and new kind, of work. bing uses hypertext squares--you can see the four across the center of the photograph--that allow the user/viewer to learn more about the photograph. Running the mouse pointer across one of the squares will activate a dialogue box that explains, superficially, something about the picture. If you click on the hypertext inside the dialogue box, you'll be directed to a list of search results that allow you to learn more about the text that you clicked. What Phillips did is a little different, but the premise is similar. Phillips chose the text in the previously published book that he wanted to emphasize, just like bing chose what it wanted to emphasize. With Phillips's work, the reader/viewer isn't necessarily directed to a search engine page, but the engine that thinks--the brain--is set in motion to interpret the text that appears on the page and come up with its own results. bing and A Humument are technotexts or "layered topographies." Where Phillips interrogates a text and his audience interrogates his text to an end of endless conclusions and a diversity of amusements, bing gives its viewer the answers to the test to a point where the viewer becomes more and more knowledgeable depending on what he or she clicks and how much time he or she spends researching the photographed object. These different takes on hypertextuality are akin to reading print books and having to stop to do research on things that aren't immediately known. While it's a bit dissimilar from what Hayles did in the Phi Beta Kappa seminar in reading the hypertext book, Afternoon, a story, in which the outcome of the story depends on the reader's navigation, the premise is still the same, as the meaning of a text adjusts depending on how much a reader knows about the text. With a print book, "clicking" on the hypertext is a little more difficult, as it requires leaving the text to go to another text to do the work that's necessary for understanding. With electronic texts, you just click on the hyperlink and bing!
On each, there's a large image of something or another, be it a stock photo of a "'contradiction,' 'fling,' or 'time-step'" of water fowl called "willets" or an artful covering of a page in a Victorian novel that was previously published and then published again as a new piece, and new kind, of work. bing uses hypertext squares--you can see the four across the center of the photograph--that allow the user/viewer to learn more about the photograph. Running the mouse pointer across one of the squares will activate a dialogue box that explains, superficially, something about the picture. If you click on the hypertext inside the dialogue box, you'll be directed to a list of search results that allow you to learn more about the text that you clicked. What Phillips did is a little different, but the premise is similar. Phillips chose the text in the previously published book that he wanted to emphasize, just like bing chose what it wanted to emphasize. With Phillips's work, the reader/viewer isn't necessarily directed to a search engine page, but the engine that thinks--the brain--is set in motion to interpret the text that appears on the page and come up with its own results. bing and A Humument are technotexts or "layered topographies." Where Phillips interrogates a text and his audience interrogates his text to an end of endless conclusions and a diversity of amusements, bing gives its viewer the answers to the test to a point where the viewer becomes more and more knowledgeable depending on what he or she clicks and how much time he or she spends researching the photographed object. These different takes on hypertextuality are akin to reading print books and having to stop to do research on things that aren't immediately known. While it's a bit dissimilar from what Hayles did in the Phi Beta Kappa seminar in reading the hypertext book, Afternoon, a story, in which the outcome of the story depends on the reader's navigation, the premise is still the same, as the meaning of a text adjusts depending on how much a reader knows about the text. With a print book, "clicking" on the hypertext is a little more difficult, as it requires leaving the text to go to another text to do the work that's necessary for understanding. With electronic texts, you just click on the hyperlink and bing!
The last part of your post illustrated something to me that I find interesting. Although electronic media provides hypertexts that are quick, efficient, and "visually present," printed books have the capability of providing hyperlinks as well, but in a different way. More often than not, they have resources and citations attached to them, or at least a list of recommended additional readings. It may require the reader to physically look elsewhere, taking more time and energy than simply clicking on a link, but the principle is still the same--or, perhaps similar.
ReplyDelete