On Navigating

In the essay “Stringing Disturbances in Language Arrays: Reading by Close Reading” by artist Loss Pequeño Glazier, one particular line stands out to me: “What counts is not one version or the other but how we navigatefrom one construction to another” (Glazier 8, emphasis is mine). As someone beginning to familiarize herself with electronic literature, such a statement strikes me as pivotal for understanding not only this specific artist’s work, but also the field in general. As a student of literature born as printed texts, it seems to me that the emphasis has been on exploring and analyzing the content of various works rather than its course of navigation. Since the content does not typically change in printed texts, it remains static and fixed (unless new editions become published) while variation may mainly occur at the interpretative level, that is, the meaning a reader gives to the text is one of the few aspects that undergoes changes according to the reader. 

            Now that the point of emphasis is not the content, but rather the navigation in Glazier’s work, for example, I am drawn to think about the implications of this with regard to the experience of reading and writing. First of all, what is the objective of reading literature born in print? To consume content? For learning and expanding the capabilities of our brains? For gaining inspiration? For didactic purposes? For expanding vocabulary? The objectives, thus, mainly depend on the genre and the reader. With regard to writing, does the content truly matter at all if the navigation is prioritized? If the focus is now on the navigation of a work with an end or without—what does this mean for readers and authors alike? 

            One possible answer that comes to mind is that the navigation of a work such as “white faced bromelias on 20 hectares” involves decision-making on the reader’s part, consequently creating a collaborative space between writer and reader. Indeed, Lev Manovich speaks of Lev Manovich speaks of the early Web in the early 1990s as a platform which implemented “a radically horizontal, non-hierarchical model of human existence,” in effect demonstrating the shift from a romantic notion of authorship which “assumes a single author” into a democratic way of writing in the Introduction to the New Media Reader (Manovich 21). Therefore, navigating this text in particular encourages or rather needs the active participation (as in clicking links) of the reader in order to process itself or exist. This indeed creates a horizontal and inclusive space in which the lines between writer and reader are blurred and both are able to co-exist. Navigation also presents a world of infinite possibilities, meaning that one text allows the existence of multiple and simultaneous texts within itself, therefore creating a text that is perpetually changing or as Glazier would call it, perpetually “disturbed” since “it doesn’t sit still” (Glazier 8). In this example, the electronic text becomes malleable and fluid as compared to a printed work, a never-ending project that resists conclusion and holds onto continuity, also perhaps demonstrating changing conceptions of time.