eJournals Kodikas/Code 24/3-4

Kodikas/Code
kod
0171-0834
2941-0835
Narr Verlag Tübingen
Es handelt sich um einen Open-Access-Artikel, der unter den Bedingungen der Lizenz CC by 4.0 veröffentlicht wurde.http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/121
2001
243-4

Innovation or triviality? On the hypermedial 'translation' of modernism by example of the "Elektronischer Lexikon-Roman"

121
2001
Friedrich W. Block
Der Beitrag beschäftigt sich kritisch mit zwei hartnäckigen Gerüchten: 1. mit digitaler Dichtung geschehe etwas radikal Neues (wie etwa Eduardo Kac auch meint), 2. das Elektronische sei sozusagen das bessere Medium für die in der Moderne entwickelten poetischen Schreibweisen bzw. die eigentliche Einlösung ihrer Poetik (wie seit Bolter geglaubt wird). Insofern ist die Frage gestellt nicht nur nach der Spezifik, sondern auch nach dem ästhetischen Gewinn einer um hypermediale Formen erweiterten Dichtkunst. Diskutiert wird dies anhand der 1998 erschienenen CD-ROM "Elektronischer Lexikon-Roman", die die Vorlage von Andreas Okopenko (1970) hypermedial um- bzw. über-setzt.
kod243-40137
Innovation or triviality? KODIKAS / CODE Ars Semeiotica Volume 24 (2001) · No. 3-4 Gunter Narr Verlag Tübingen On the hypermedial 'translation' of modernism by example of the Elektronischer Lexikon-Roman Friedrich W. Block Der Beitrag beschäftigt sich kritisch mit zwei hartnäckigen Gerüchten: 1. mit digitaler Dichtung geschehe etwas radikal Neues (wie etwa Eduardo Kac auch meint), 2. das Elektronische sei sozusagen das bessere Medium für die in der Modeme entwickelten poetischen Schreibweisen bzw. die eigentliche Einlösung ihrer Poetik (wie seit Bolter geglaubt wird). Insofern ist die Frage gestellt nicht nur nach der Spezifik, sondern auch nach dem ästhetischen Gewinn einer um hypermediale Formen erweiterten Dichtkunst Diskutiert wird dies anhand der 1998 erschienen CD-Rom Elektronischer Lexikon-Roman, die die Vorlage von Andreas Okopenko (1970) hypermedial umbzw. über-setzt. I. 'New' and 'better' and what should be thought of these values One stubborn rumor believes that digital literature is occuring as something radically new. You will hardly find any concept that can celebrate such a strong revival as the notion of the 'new'. The 'new media' make it possible. Poetic and academic discourses excessively use the term 'new'. Just one clear-cut example: Eduardo Kac's preface to bis anthology of so called New Media Poetry (which is now being prepared for an extended edition): "This is the first international anthology tö documenta radically new poetry, one that is impossible to present directly in books and that challenges even the innovations of recent and contemporary experimental poetics ... The poems discussed in this anthology ... state that a new poetry for the next century must be developed in new media, simply because the textual aspirations of the authors cannot be physically realized in print" (Kac 1996: 98f.). Besides the launched generic name, New Media Poetry, the anthology's title outlines the new two more times: "Poetic Innovations and New Technologies" (my stresses). We empirically have to realize an avant-garde consciousness in the area of digital aesthetics: an avant-garde consciousness which often reminds us of the style, the gesture, and the contents of historic manifestoes such as the Futuristic Manifesto of Mechanical Art from 1922: "By the machine andin the machine the drama of mankind is being staged. We, the Futurists, are forcing the machine to free itselffrom its practical functions in order to immerse into the mere mental life of art which is not bound to any purpose . . . All this is our new necessity and the principle of our new aesthetics while the traditional aesthetics are still feeding on legends and myths" (Caramel et al. 1990: 163, my transl.). With the focus on new media technologies, the most aggressive concept of time is being revived: the notion of progress. Isn't this an inscription into an extremely linear pattern? Isn't the estimated or wanted aesthetic 'surplus value' subject to the "logic of economical exchange" (Groys 1992: 138 Friedrich W. Block 63ff.)? Does the expression of a "literature for the new media" (e.g., Reibach 2000: 171ff.) not also mean that literature appears to promote the progress of media-technology? However, with the 'new' we paradoxically catch the oldest or most traditional idea developed by Modernity and Modernism: Being prepared by the "Querelle des Anciens et Modemes" iµ the middle of the 18 th century, the 'new' as an aesthetic value was explicitly connected to modernity by Baudelaire (1989) for the first time. The historical avant-gardes used 'new' in opposition to 'old' or 'traditional' as a basic difference. Another question is how to handle the difference of innovation and tradition in the digital discourse how do we want to have it? Really often in a way which reminds us of windmills: Gutenberg galaxy, books realized in print, linear narrative strategies, mono-dimensionality, depth of sense, finality, authority, etc.: all sorted out at the latest by Romanticism! However, an obviously more fruitful option would be to see 'tradition' as everything that can be read as the pre-history and the induction to the recent possibilities of digital literature. 2. This leads to a second rumor: Digital technology provides the better media for writing strategies developed by Modernism; concepts like multi-linearity, multiand intermediality, fragment, motion, chance, audience activity have 'arrived' at last. Bolter (1991: 132), for instance, states about the hypertext: "Topographie writing redefines the tradition of modemism for a new medium". And Phillippe Castellin' s editorial of Alire/ Docks (1997: 6f.) designs a great equation: on the left side of the equals sign we find a long list: poetry, individuality, intermediality, collage, cadavres exquis, permutation, poesie totale, synaesthesia, multisensory, Queneau, Schwitters, Joyce, Petronio, Hausmann, Zaum, etc. On the right side we only find one single world: "l' ordinateur": The computer puts Modernism completely into one bag. If tradition is positively taken, computer, Internet, or digital culture are sketched as simply as, on the other side, so called 'printed literature'. Taking this background into account, I want to argue for the concentration more on continuities than on the supposed hard breaks, more on the fine differences than on the sheer ruptures, more on extension and development than on progress. This would mean to check historically different concepts of digital aesthetics. This would also mean to observe the actual single text, network, project, or event in this perspective a poetological principle, too. In my view, for example, interesting for the criteria of multior hypermediality would be the concepts of 'Gesamtkunstwerk' and synaesthesia, or much better: of intermediality as coined by Dick Higgins for the art of Intermedia and Fluxus, as a conceptual fusion of forms of text, image, sound designed in visual or sound poetry, in text films, video or holographic poems. Interesting for the criteria of movement, motion, animation would be kinetic art, Actionism, Op-art as concentrated by Franz Mon some 40 years ago under the title "movens": a poetics of all genres of art inspired by the basic value of motion and movement. Movement not only of perceivable forms but also of the process of perception and thought themselves (Mon 1960). This focus on process already touches the criteria of interactivity. Concerning interactivity, also the activity of the audience has tobe taken into account as conceived in happenings, in conceptual art, or in reception aesthetics which outline the creative reading and viewing the concept of the co-author. But crucial is also the idea of the man machine coupling well known from Futurism, or from the "Literaturmetaphysik" (metaphysics of literature) of Max Bense and its concrete realizations since the S0's, or from the Turingpoetics of Oswald Wiener. On the whole, we still have to do with iriventions that were bom between the S0's and the 70's. Innovation or triviality? 139 IT. From "Lexikon-Roman" to ''Elex": a questionable transformation Interesting observation conditions arise if a concrete model, developed under the sketched modernist values, now becomes hypermedially processed and transformed. Such projects are not very well known. I can only remember a few of them: the Permutations from Florian Cramer, for instance, or the CD-Rom Ottos Mops (John & Quosdorf 1996) playing with poems ofEmst Jandl, or the transformation ofBorges' Forking Paths by Steward Moulthrop and of Nabokov' s Pale Fire by Ted Nelson. In 1998, the CD-Rom Elektronischer Lexikon-Roman (Electronic Lexicon-Novel, "Elex" for short) was launched by the Viennese group "Libraries of Mind" who worked for more than six years to transform the Lexikon-Roman of Andreas Okopenko, a book which was published by the Austrian Residenz-Verlag in 1970. The novel begins with a "Gebrauchsanleitung" (user' s manual): "Think of the first computer; extend the novel by means of your own links with stimulus-words, or even better: write a book which will nail my novel in its restrictedness" (Okopenko 1996: 7, my translation). Let's first·have a look at the result of nearly 30 years of thinking about the computer; the model will be investigated later. The CD-Rom presents a closed hypertext, which is worked from the material of the model and links the various fragments with keywords. Different ways of navigation are offered: An image-map suggests a linear selection 'along the Donau river', following the travel route of the main character. The lexias include links to other entries. A menu "A-Z" alphabetically lists the entries and, thus, presents links to the complete text material. And beyond, special preference allows listing every visited link, so individual paths may be followed. In addition, it is possible to search within the plain text and to make notes. Multi-medial extensions: various keywords or sites are linked to graphics and photos. The Author's voice can be heard with various fragments read by Okopenko. Finally, you can start the Lexikon-Sonate by Karl Heinz Essl: a so-called "interactive realtime composition for computer aided piano". The composition is created in real-time. There aren't any fixed lines of notes, rather only several historically grounded modules of co: mposition are given, which announced as so-called interactivitycan influence each other. This strategy is inspired by the random principles of the Lexikon-Roman. The Elex offers the opportunity to start the sonata composition, to let it run in the background, to hear, to observe or to stop it. Conclusion: we have to do with in a contemporary perspective a quite usual hypertext in the pattem of expanded books. Interactivity, multi-mediality, and necessity of navigation all this is present. But artistically, the project is not at all striking. Hence, a bad example but a good one to illustrate the problems. mentioned earlier: What may be technically advanced is not automatically convincing as a piece of art. Aspects of criticism can be mentioned: the various medial forms i.e. graphics, photos, voice, music, text exist next to each other and are never brought into a mutual intermedial dependence and condensation. Photos and graphics as well as the author' s voice are restricted to illustration why some text fragments are linked to these elements remains a mystery. More interest may be found in following the lexicon-sonata by a transfer to the text. But a comprehensive coupling of the reading activity with the structure of the composition would be expected. And besides that, photos and graphics are of markedly inferior quality compared to the sonata and the text. What about the original book, after which this was modeled? - This is an experimental narrative, which examines how strong the boundaries of text creation and narration can be 140 Friedrich W. Block stretched. Tue complete textual material is put into alphabetical order. This corresponds to the menu "A-Z"'of the electronic transformation, which is restricted to a list of entries and does not present a successive text. The text of the book mainly offers two ways of navigation: to follow successively the entries or to jump between the links, which are given in an entry as usual in a lexicon. Remember: the Elex, on the other hand, offers a bit more: bookmarks and especially so called "main entries", which are presented by a specific boldly marked navigation bar, andthird -which are linearly connected one after the other. This means that the end of every fragment only leads to the next main entry (marked hold). Thus, the Elex strongly forces one way of reading, whereas the book remains very open in this respect. The book integrates this sequence as a possibility but without suggesting it as a preferred structure. In its instruction, the Elex also gives advice about what was filtered here: the main narrative line. But the book provides nothing like that, it only explains for whom this structure may be helpful ..: . using clear ironic signals: "Das Gros folge mir gleich zum Anfang der Reise" (7), "Wen die tiefen Gründe des Erzählerwechsels nicht interessieren, der folge mir gleich zur_. Brücke" (12) {Tue crowd may follow me to the beginning of the journey / Those not interested in the deep reasons of the narrator' s change may just follow me to the ➔ bridge.} But I do not want to belong to the crowd, I am interested, I have withdrawn myself from the narrator and thus I lose the main narrative line. Both variants begin with the mentioned user' s manual. In Elex this inevitably leads to the "Anfang der Reise" (beginning of the travel). In the book I turn the page or I may have skipped the manual and I get to "A", where I read: "Sie sind es gewohnt, ein Buch unter Umgehung des Vorwortes von vom nach hinten zu lesen. Sehr praktisch. Aber diesmal schlagen Sie bitte zur Gebrauchsanweisung zurück, denn ohne die werden Sie das Buch nicht zum Roman machen" (9) {You are used to reading a bookafter skipping the preface from the beginning to the end. Very practical. However, this time go back to the user' s manual, which you will need in order to make a novel out of this book.} Or another well known reading habit you may first have a look at the end of the book, at the last entry ''Zz", where you read: "Sie sind es gewohnt, zuerst nachzulesen, ob sie sich kriegen, Napoleon und Desiree, oder der Bulle und der Kunde. Sehr praktisch. Diesmal aber erfahren Sie auf diese Weise nur, daß Zz bei den alten Apothekern Myrrhe, bei den neuen Ingwer bedeutet. Wollen Sie besser informiert werden, schlagen Sie, bitte, zur Gebrauchsanweisung zurück. Denn Sie selbst müssen dieses Buch erst zum Roman machen" (292) {You are used to first checking whether they get each other, Napoleon and Desiree or cop and client. Very practical. However, this time you will only leam that Zz means myrrh in old chemistry and ginger in modern. To be better informed please go back to the manual, because it is up to you to make a novel out of this book.} On the CD-Rom the staging of the beginning and the end as well as the ironic play with reading habits get lost. Often the book also provides "Raum für einschlägige Erinnerungen des Lesers" {space for relevant notes of the reader}, but the typography of this invitation itself already paradoxically blocks this space. In Elex on the other hand, I have the charming possibility to leave notes. And when the book is quoted one to one therefore without any transformation the chance of irony (1 can't make any note at this place, unless I write. on the screen) is very much like Friederike Kempner' s humor. Innovation or triviality? 141 A lot of similar examples could be mentioned. Therefore, let' s sum up without further ado: The book ironically reflects its own medium and its use while Elex totally eliminates this function by translating and quoting, remaining blind of its own digital media. However, which program did the producers of the CD-Rom follow? An 'about' text provides some information: The predecessor of hypertext were to be translated no more leafing through a book, shivering boundaries between different ways of expression by a simple mouse click. This was supposed to stimulate the imagination of the observer without bossing him or her around. The reader would not have to fear losing himor herself: This shall be guaranteed by the narrative mainline represented as a map which could freely be left, and to which, however, one could always return the computer as a bookmark. This explanation, as well as the whole concept, lay contrary to the experience, which the book makes possible and which is required by the manual here and there. The CD-Rom proves to be didactic. lt lavishly illustrates against its own concept some possible ways öf reading and creates some more or less associative realizations of Okopenko's model. This means: the CD-Rom explicates but, in opposing the book, it doesn't exemplify the reading. m. Conclusion We are dealing here with a general problem of medial translation: No translation can realize a constant sense. And besides, medial transposition always creates something different. This makes media competition obvious, which again aesthetically provokes to concentrate on what is not transformable. Friedrich Kittler (1995: 314) has inspiringly shown this fact concerning the competition between film and literature: After film took over several functions of literature, literature has referred itself to 'material justice': to the art of the word, the sound, the writingand Okopenko's novel focuses exactly on this poetic principle. Accordingly, digital literature in the sense of Lexikon-Roman or of experimental writing would not be well advised just to translate modernist writing strategies. Interesting examples (see www.pOesls.net) are not only a literature for the new media, they also deconstruct them and effect a reflection about them. These examples should not 'redefine' modernism, but at the most, project forward and extend modernist programs while concentrating on their specific spectrum of artistic means as well as connected ways of perception und communication. The 'new' just becomes relative when the discourse is abstracted from pure technologye.g. in the sense of an artistic communication ofmateriality serving the 'materialjustice'. In this perspective, it is interesting to ask how the art (literature) of Modernism is surpassing itself in staging the reflection of the media and the experiment with perception and communication concerning the development of information technology being provoked also by art itself. lt should be observed how the medially caused syndromes of crisis are constantly worked on, in always different and exciting ways. This also means digital poetry cannot be the better medium for artistic results, which have already been realized. At the most, digital poetry could simulate earlier forms, which then could affect a self-description ex negativo or didactics. Moreover, digital poetry must examine and use up its own conditions and possibilities in order to catch up to the state of quality already reached by literary tradition. 142 Friedrich W. Block References Baudelaire, Charles 1989: "Der Maler des modernen Lebens", in C.B.: Sämtliche Werke/ Briefe in acht Bänden. Hg. von Friedhelm Kemp & Claude Pichois in Zusammenarbeit mit Wolfgang Drost, vol. 5: Aufsätze zur Literatur und Kunst 1857-1860, Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft: 213-258. Bolter, J. David 1991: Writing space. The computer, hypenext, and the history ofwriting, Hillsday, Hove, London: Erlbaum. Cararnel, Luciano, Enrico Crispolti & Veit Loers (eds.) 1990: Italiens Modeme. Futurismus und Rationalismus zwischen den Weltkriegen, Milano: Mazzotta. Castellin, Philippe 1997: L'esprit, genese, In: DOC(K)S/ ALIRE 3. 13-16: 4-7. Groys, Boris 1992: Über das Neue. Versuch einer Kulturökonomie, München: Hanser. Reibach, Christiane 2000: Literatur im Internet. Theorie und Praxis einer kooperativen Ästhetik, Berlin: dissertationen.de. John, KP Ludwig & Bertram Quosdorf 1996: Ottos Mops. Auf der Suche nach dem land/ , München: Verlag für neue Medien (CD-Rom). Kac. Eduardo (ed.) 1996: New Media Poetry. Poetic Innovation and New Technologies, Visible Language 30.2. Kittler, Friedrich 1995: Aufschreibesysteme 1800/ 1900, 3 rd ed., München: Fink. Libraries ofthe Mind 1998: Elex. Elektronischer Lexikon-Roman einer sentimentalen Reise zum Exponeunrejfen in Druden, Wien: Verlag Mediendesign (CD-Rom). Mon, Franz (ed.) 1960: movens. Dokumente und Analysen zur Dichtung, bildenden Kunst, Musik, Architektur, Wiesbaden: Limes. Okopenko, Andreas 1996: Lexikon-Roman einer sentimentalen Reise zum Exponeurtrejfen in Druden, Wien: Deuticke.