Beruflich Dokumente
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Dr. Hey
Research Paper 2
Books have been the common source of reading for years until digital text happened and
now its the new form of written text. Digital texts transform the structure of the text to allow the
reader to comprehend and better understand the written texts. The electronic literature introduces
itself in a more interactive way, until the end when it gives us the written form of the ergodic text
for us to figure out the text. Ergodic literature is a term created by author Espen J. Aarseth in his
cyber text, Perspectives on Ergodic Literature. In the cyber text, Espen explains the term as,
non - trivial effort is required to allow the reader to traverse the text. Non - trivial means that the
reader goes through the story and choosing the paths in the digital text to find the different
outcomes of the text. If ergodic literature is to make sense as a concept, there must also be
literature that does require the reader to perform certain tasks. The effort to traverse the text is
trivial, so that it doesnt occur outside of the readers thought process. Only when the reader eye
movement and randomly turning of pages. The non-ergodic text will not give any additional
problems to the reader such as have problems trying to understand the plot or remembering
quantities of the settings in where the text takes undergoes. In ergodic literature, not a lot effort is
expected from the reader to understand the text. It focuses mainly on the non-trivial and trivial
efforts that the reader is trying to comprehend and see what the author is trying to explain in his
or her text.
Authorship within an electronic literature is considered dead and having no connection
with the reader. Espen has a contrasting form of the definition of literature, which he provides in
Literature is a combinatorial game that pursues the possibilities implicit of its own
material, independent of the personality of the poet, but it is a game that a certain point is
invested with an unexpected meaning, a meaning that is not patent on the linguistic plane
on which we were working but has slipped in from another level, activating something
that on that second level is of great concern to the author or his society.
Espen believes that literature is supposed to be a text or poem that is meant to get a response
from the reader and closely relates to actual levels in a video game when there are unpredictable
moments that are meant to bring out a reaction in the reader. Espen conjured the term ergodic
from the Greek word ergon, which means work and path. There are some terms that relate to
what Espen was trying to form in the text. The terms are arborescent and rhizomal. Rhizomal
means that the text goes through random paths and giving different results to the text.
Arborescent means that the text follows in a linear path and doesnt stray to the end of the story
story Little Red Riding Hood with a twist to it. The text RedRidinghood is about Red Riding
Hood going to her grandmas house to give her a basket. As Red Riding Hood goes to her
Wolf from the original story. The boy reaches the house Red Riding Hood and gets rid her
grandma before she gets there. There are two outcomes to the story; one of them is that Red
Riding Hood is pregnant and the other if you click on her stomach you get to see the baby. The
story ends there and can be restart to get the second outcome.
Espen relates these electronic literatures to adventure games. They are not texts the way
the normal literary work is a text. Espen tells readers how the digital texts are in, some way texts.
When you interact and read with an ergodic text, the reader is constantly reminded of how
incomprehensible the strategies and paths that cannot be taken. Each decision will make the text
more, and sometimes less, accessible to the reader. While playing RedRidingHood, each time I
found more and more images and paths. When observing this text it was very similar to the
Deviant: Possession of Christian Shaw. You have to click on certain images to progress in the
text. The only difference it was easier to follow because we know the original story, but this one
has a twist to it. This text is a non-trivial ergodic text because of the multiple paths it has and
made you choose what result you wanted in the end. The text also gives a written text of what
A text that educates reader on what an ergodic text should be and shows what the author wants
them to reader to understand. The digital is Whos Writing. By Kristie S. Fleckenstein. Kristie
describe visual performance in her work, which is similar to how RedRidingHood is being read.
Kristie describes, "What has been insufficiently emphasized to date is the fact that this past oral
culture was also fundamentally visual". This means that before when readers were reading books
they were read orally so they could visualize a picture in their minds to capture what the author
was trying to get them to understand. This is what makes the digital text so interesting despite the
random parts , each text or poem is similar to one another but changes whenever the content of
the different authors comes which gives the reader different points of views as well as leaving a
things can be viewed because more people prefer digital text to books. Roland Barthes work The
Death of the Author becomes realize. Roland describes the death of the author is when the author
dies physically but his work still lives on through his work but lives on through his work. Roland
was critical of the role of the author in modern literature, believing that when the reader read, it
signaled the death of the author. Although, Roland claims that focusing the attention on both the
author and his work confines the reasoning hidden their work. If the focus is on the reader, the
meaning behind his work is limitless. In order for the reader to be able to fully understand the
work of an author they must first forget about the author and trying to figure out who they are.
Roland thinks that the passing of the creator may be necessary for the birth of the readers.
Regardless if the author is acknowledged will be those maker the text, Roland intimates that
power and essentialness once of the reader, primary. It will be normal to people to connect to
content for its author, much on the web. Factually, authorship can't vanish or fade for it is what
permits the authors of the past to still live on in today's society. However, electronic literature
would not the death for authors, but rather are serving spare the authorship. This best implies
those authors idea will not pass on because of human advancements; it will really escalate due to
it.
The last author that show why ergodic are the new form of written text. Walter
Benjamins work known as The Work of Art in the Age if Its Technological Reproducibility.
Benjamin explains in this text that technology can reduce the value of the original work. In the
text RedRidingHood it was reduce to something less than the original story that was quite
famous. In doing the creation of this text, it made this original less famous or known because the
ergodic version put the twist on it as well as it being arborescent. The fact that most readers tend
to read more online the original will soon fade and the death of that author will be no more.
From understanding, what the authors contributed different viewpoints on what it means
to be an author and how electronic literature changes the perception of the reader. Although, the
three seem to agree that if the reader pays more attention to the text they will not be able to
visualize what the author is trying to explain. Roland made this specifically clear in Death of the
Author by explaining that the author lives on through their work even if the dead. Espen with the
concept of ergodic literature when the author is remove from the readers thought process the
text would be able to completely apprehend the work of the author without focusing so much on
trying to figure out what the author was thinking when he wrote the story. These kinds of digital
texts and animations can seem rather confusing and weird, which may cause the reader to
wonder what the author is trying to have them, understand. It is not until they forget about who
really is the author is for a short time. Then the reader will finally get what the author is saying
Aarseth, Espen J. Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature. Ed.: The John Hopkins
Barthes, Roland. The Death of the Author. Image, Music, Text. Ed.: Steven Heath. New York:
Benjamin, Walter. "None." The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility.
<https://monoskop.org/images/6/6d/Benjamin_Walter_1936_2008_The_Work_of_Art_in_the_A
ge_of_Its_Technological_Reproducibility_Second_Version.pdf>.
<http://kairos.technorhetoric.net/11.3/topoi/fleckenstein/visual_oral.html>.