hypertext:as we may think?

fdm 20c introduction to digital media

lecture 07.10.2008

warren sack / film & digital media department / university of california, santa cruz

outline

• apple demo tapes

• vannevar bush and his essay “as we may think”

• tristan tzara, william burroughs, david bowie and

the method of “cut-ups”

• reviewing project one

today’s focus

• Hypertext: One way that digital media has been understood is as new forms of writing, reading and thinking.

recall: “computers” can take many different material forms

• “computer technology” does not necessarily start as silicon and gold;

• “computer technology” does not necessarily need to be implemented as hardware or software.

charles babbage, “difference engine” (1848)

the two building blocks of computers

1. switches: a steering element that can combine multiple signals into a single signal

2. connectors: the connecting element must have the ability to branch , so that a single output can feed many inputs.

see w. daniel hillis, the pattern on the stone: the simple ideas that make computers work (especially “chapter 1: nuts and bolts”)

an or block built with hydraulic valvessource: hillis, p. 14

hillis’ tinker toy computer

claude shannon: “a symbolic analysis of relay switching circuits” (1939)

today’s reading

• Vannevar Bush, “As We May Think,” Atlantic Monthly, 176(1): 101-108 (July 1945)

who was vannevar bush?

• MIT professor• inventor of "differential analyzer" • science advisor to President F.D. Roosevelt• leader of the Manhattan Project• founder of NSF

vannevar bush’s “differential analyzer” (1931)

what is the memex?

• The Memex was based on Bush's work during 1938-1940 developing an improved photoelectric microfilm selector.

what is a microfilm selector?

• photoelectric microfilm selector is an electronic retrieval technology pioneered by Emanuel Goldberg (see Michael Buckland, “Emanuel Goldberg, electronic document retrieval, and Vannevar Bush's memex” here http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/%7Ebuckland/goldbush.html for more on photoelectric microfilm selectors.

• think of a photoelectric microfilm selector as a sort of electro-mechanical database

photoelectric microfilm selector

questions about “as we may think”

• what is bush's stated motivation? (see page 37)• what problem is bush trying to solve? (see page

38)• what role do economical considerations play in

bush's thinking? (see what he has to say about leibnitz and see page 43 on the telephone system)

• who sponsors this work? (“Eastman Kodak and National Cash Register each provided $10,000 funding,” Buckland)

questions about “as we may think”

• who are the key people/types of people bush writes about?– scientists (see page 42)– men– girls (see pages 40 & 43)– secretaries/calculators

questions about “as we may think”

• what is “thinking” and what types of thinking are possible according to bush? (see pages 41, 43, 44 and 45)– repetitive v. creative thought (page 41)– what is repetitive thought? (p. 41)– what is creative thought? (page 41)– what is intuitive judgement? (page 42)– what role does arithmetic and logic play? (cf., george

boole's laws of thought)– what is selection? (pages 43, 44)

questions about “as we may think”

• what is the "essential feature of the memex"? (page 45)

• is the www of today the same thing as what bush dreamed of? (see, for example, how bush envisions books being read in the future, p. 45)

from thinking to writing

• what’s the difference between a text and a hypertext?

• is it possible to do “creative thought” or creative writing using a methods of hypertext?

• on selection and combination as the two operations of writing

syntagmatic + paradigmatic

• de saussure: syntagmatic + associative• roman jakobson: syntagmatic + paradigmatic

Tristan Tzara's recipe for composing a poem

– To make a dadaist poem:– Take a newspaper.– Take a pair of scissors.– Choose an article as long as you are planning to

make your poem.– Cut out the article.– Then cut out each of the words that make up this

article and put them in a bag.– Shake it gently.– Then take out the scraps one after the other in the

order in which they left the bag.– Copy conscientiously.

example “cut-ups”

• William Burroughs, excerpt from Naked Lunch http://ubu.wfmu.org/sound/dial_a_poem_poets/big_ego/Big_Ego_12-burroughs.mp3

• William Burroughs,“Origin and Theory of the Tape Cut-Ups” (3:43) http://www.ubu.com/sound/burroughs.html

• William Burroughs, longer lecture by Burroughs. An example of cutting together newspaper stories starts at 7 minutes 20 seconds (1:16:13): note that Burrough’s doesn’t start his talk until the 4 minute mark http://www.archive.org/audio/audio-details-db.php? collection=naropa&collectionid=naropa_william_s_burroughs2

• David Bowie, e.g., “Changes” (a cut-up or not?) http://www.lyricsfreak.com/d/david-bowie/36790.html

• Sawad Brooks, Global City http://artport.whitney.org/commissions/codedoc/Brooks/globalcity.html

conclusion for today

• Hypertext: One way that digital media has been understood is as new forms of writing, reading and thinking.

next time: programming