"The World in a Bottle" by Carly Busch
navigating through digital literature in print form
"The World in a Bottle" is a printed book that gives the viewer a hands-on experience of traveling through hypertext. The purpose of this is to express my own frustration with the non-linearity of reading a piece of digital literature involving hypertext. I felt the same kind of exasperation while reading the Dada Manifesto by Tristan Tzara (written in 1918). The manifesto sprinkled topics (nothingness, logic, etc.) throughout every paragraph but still came together as a whole. As I was painfully reminded of hypertext, so came the inspiration for my e-chapter. To begin, I perused the manifesto quite a few times, taking note of passages where I could envision a hyperlink to another passage. Each page of the book incorporates a passage accompanied by a liftable flap, under which the text you are being linked to is being concealed. Each page itself also acts as a hyperlink, by turning the page you are continuing on the quest. The result of my attempt to use hyperlinks in print form becomes a bit irrelevant because our e-book is digital. My work will become a series of mouse clicks, which is exactly what I was trying to avoid in the first place. Inspired by Raoul Hausmann, I used collage for my book because I though it expressed the jumbled feeling I received from hypertext rather nicely. My work will most likely continue to be in print form, but due to the technological advances of society I will rely on digital means of documentation.
Sir Tuna's perspective on "The World in a Bottle"
Click click click! Talk about hypertext! Carly’s e-chapter, “The World in a Bottle” is all about hypertext, and traveling through it. It is spectacular how much of a hands-on experience you get when encountering her e-chapter. Her chapter has developed through the course of the semester by taking advantage of what was learned from different examples of the hypertext, some of which we used in class, such as Tzara’s 1918 Dada Manifesto. The thing about it that strikes me as most interesting is how the texts have relations with the images. It is not just an image and text put together, but has a meaning and really makes you think about the reasoning behind why it was done. Furthermore, this is another great piece to advocate the continuation of printed text. This new electronic age is fantastic, but it is important to remember the origins of where text and literature came from. This piece is a great example of just that!
