Hypertext in mutation: The mapping of a mythos

Abstract

Currently, hypertext exists in its earlier state as webpage, connected to various other nodes of relevant information or advertising online, in interactive narratives such as Geoff Ryman's 253, as hyperlinks housed within static documents like PDF's or Word files, or hyperlinks shelved between layers of blogging data and Facebook walls (to name a few social media outlets). Hypertext is understood as operating between poles - as a means of electronic or digital freedom granted to the reader, or as the opposite, the illusion of freedom granted by a controlled system set up by the author. This paper explores the third space for hypertext by making use of the process of using hypertext; the space wherein a user or participant is directly interacting with hypertext and thus influences the reader-author relationship by creating a subjective reading (and therefore a subjective document) of a series of nodes and proposes that appropriate interface can create design synthesis. © 2013 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.