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forms of electronic literature V
I haven't added to my "forms of electronic literature" list since July. At this rate it'll be a year-long project. Actually maybe not, as I only have one more big category left to deal with after this one.
Command-Line Literature
Command-line literature is a textual system that you navigate by entering prompts at regular intervals. Usually you and the system "take turns," creating a kind of dialogic effect. These sorts of systems were popularized by a series of interactive games produced by companies like Infocom, of which Zork is the best well-known.
Many pieces of command-line literature, including the Infocom works, are essentially hypertextual: that is to say, they are primarily composed of large units of pre-existing text (lexia) that the user navigates their way through. One key difference, however, is the nature of the user interface: most widely-known conceptions of hypertext take the link as the primary means of naviagation, rather than the address-driven mode that characterizes command-line literature.
An additional difference is that most command-line works use at least some generative element. No writer can possibly compose responses to cover every possible user input, and so generally certain computer subroutines are employed to handle statements that the system reads as nonsensical, yielding responses like the familiar "I see no X here."
When the generative element is foregrounded, the hypertextual element is correspondingly reduced, and the experience becomes less like navigating a text (less "literary," one could argue) and more like having a conversation. The key text to think of here is Joseph Weizenbaum's notorious ELIZA, and the generation of chatbots born in her wake.
Forerunners of command-line literature: the Turing Test, early AI research, early command-line-driven computer langauges, Will Crowther's ADVENT.
Labels: electronic_literature, hypertext |
Saturday, October 19, 2002
11:43 AM
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