Espen Aarseth, Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature.

Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997, chapters 1 &2 Acording to the author, Cybertext is a neologismo derived from Norbert Wieners book Cybernetics(1). He apply this term to a process of reading in which the user will have effectuated effectuated a semiotic sequence, and this selective movement is a work of physical construction that the various concepts of reading do not accout for, this phenomenon he call ergodic (ergon and hodos, meaning work and path) (1) The use of the combination of Cybertext as Ergodic Literature are no clear to the literary theory whose, in words of Aarset had no firsthand experience of the hypertext (2). Because there is still the debate if something outside a printed edition should be called or be part of what we call Literature. As he also asset, Cybertext is used here to describe a board textual media category . it is not in itself a literary genre of any kind. (5). The main difficulties to get to an hegemonic approach to text that may be able to explain is that the text as printed, has been privileged and the text as in games, can not be regad as part of this text consideration, because there is also an interaction between the printed version and the reader. However, this interaction can not be regarded as the same one with cybertext, as cybertext somehow construct meaning by its use, allowing the reader a certain freedom and the posibility of feedback, thus, being an active constructor of the text and meanings. He also make a distinction between text being linear and nolinear, in which most theoricals have difference. A Linear text is one that has a principle that continues to a middle and finish in an end; for nolinear text this path is non existent and there are examples of this kind of text such as Rayuela from Julio Cortazar or I Ching. Another type of digital ergodic text is the hypertext, which is defined as a stragey for organizing textual fragments in an intuitive and informal way, with links between related sections of a text or between related parts of different texts in the same retrieval system. (12) The systems derivated from this Cybertexts and Hypertexts use, cannot be directed or predicted, because they depend on the user who becomes an author at the same time. This lead to interaction, the capability to become more than mere spectator and actually participate in the creation of text. What surprises me is the vision Aarseth had in 1997 to say that Once a machine is interactive, the need for human-to-human interaction, sometime even human action is viewed as radically diminished or gone altogether. (48), because in our everyday life it seems we have reach certaint interactivity with the media that provide us with cybertext to the point of dismissing this human-to-tohuman interaction and change it into this construcction of messages, meanings and signs through media. During the second chapter, dedicated to Paradigms and Perspectives, the author tries to approach his theory through semiotics points of view on the matter, but in the end, he seize their limitations concluding that they are missing key points to be able to adapt or embrace the Cybertexts into Semiotic theory, giving examples of how semiotics fail to represent each character or sign there can be in games, and in complex structures such as cybertexts.