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in Cyberspace

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\&'alrn-up: The reading brain in the digital age o "'A\Aagazine Is an iPad That Does Not Work": Technology codes our minds, changes our OS. Apple products have done this extensivel)'. T'he video shows hor.v magazines are now useless and impossible to understand, for digital natives. It shor.r's real life clip of a l-year old, growing among touch screens and print. And how the latter becomes irrelevant. Medium is message. Speech or writing? What makes good writing in cyberspace? llase study: A Further Xanadu o "let me introduce the word 'hyperlext'* to mean a body of written or pictorial material interconnected in such a complex \4/ay that it could not conveniently be presented or represented on paper. (* the sense of 'hyper-' used here connotes extension and generality; cf. 'hyperspace.')" - Ted Nelson. 1965

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the Beginning.".

i r'rr rnorning v!,as cool, yet not uncomtbrtably so. Dewdrops and tranquility reigned supreme. Flowers, streams, andii:"-es were present in perfect proportions. Birds chirped sweetly and beautifully. The air was fresh, clean, aiii s'aeet-scented. ir, rhe ,-ort,rr | of this place, sat a man, calmly sipping the milk of Paradise. He was simply dressed and sat lrl Lal! !LIIL! c:l the glo,-rnd. He was the greatest ruler the worlC had ever known.
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l{itan regarr,ied his wondrous Pleasure Dome and drank. Many thousands of men had died. nations had 5cl:n ,JClcuered. and treasuries exhausted so that he could have this one perfection, unparalleled anywhere, any r;i:re. Fii:r Cid not think of tirese things. They were not in keeping with the serenity he had brought to himseli.

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An Ancient Rook
iirei"e tx,sts ail ancient ton're. written in a forgotten Mongolian script, that used to lie in a place that may or may lt;i ha.le existeil. Through some unknown means, your great-great-great grandfather came into possession of it.

I{e iie,at it and treaied li with the utmost respect, although he could not read it. The book was passed on through the fainil_v, irom fhther to son, a corporeal connection to ancestors who iived in the vast central Asian steppes. its contents had, ho."r-ever, remained a mystery until recently. Your father was a gifted linguist, and he succeeded in interpreting rhe script after years of intense study. Unfortunately, he died of mysterious causes s*i-.n alter his breai<tirrough with the text, and now the book has passed into your hands.

,\ Reveiation

2 | CI: Introducing Writing in Cyberspace

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Curiosity over something ancient and surely fascinating won an easy battle with fear relating to your father's death. and you read what you could of the book. Due to the age of the text, many words and passages are uninteiligible, but enough remains to weave an intriguing picture. Apparently the book was a sort of a combination of a diary and a collection of essays. It seems to have been written by a man of keen intelligence and a thirsting curiosity and inquisitiveness. He attacked philosophical, religious, and scientific topics with relentless, yet open-minded, logic. The diary end of it seems to deal mostly with day-to-day events relating to the control of a vast empire. The man seemed sensitive, and he treated the empire as a sort of game, something to be run with the utmost skill, but not to be taken so seriously that it interfered with his other pursuits excessively.
The passage that catches your eye most readily, however, has nothing to do with the empire or philosophical topics. it deals with something that you, and it seems he too, feel is far more important.

next

Dreams

"I have done something wonderful! The experience was better than any of Xitian's opium could ever hope to nratch! Last night, when I lay in bed, I fell asleep without the loss of conscious faculty that usually accompanies that state. It happened like this. I was drifting off, my thoughts wandering aimlessly, when I became conscious ot a tremendous pressure at the base of my spine. It wasn't painful, but it was a strong tickling, urgent sensation that made me more than anl.thing want to move. But at the same time I realized that I had fallen asleep and that to nove r.vould be to wake. So i held tight to the thought that the sensation was merely some transient initial state associated with the physiological shift from waking to sleeping and remained still.
"Soon this idea was vindicated, for the urgent, tickling pressure gave way to an odd floating, tingling sensation rliat flowed throughout my vihole body; I felt like I was flying around, or floating in the middle of space. Then I began to dream, but it was so unlike any time I've evet dreamt before.

"I was fully aware and in control of my actions, but how far beyond the normal realm were the actions I could take, and hou, fantastic the worlds in which I moved! Ultimate beauty was within my grasp, beauty that would never exist in the waking world..."
The passage becomes unintelligible after this, but a few lines down there is something about a "garden" and some sort of "dome'* containing it. A few pages later, however, there is a description of how the author achieved the unusual state that he described. Eagerly you begin to practice his techniques, and, to your surprise and pleasure. you begin to get results...
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CIutside House
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to be midafternoon, and the temperature is quite comfortably warm. You are standing on a dirt road out in the country. You are dreaming.

But this is difficuit for you to keep in mind, since everl.thing seems so real. You frnd that you keep managing to fbrget this substantial fact.

3 | C1: !ntroducing Writing in Cyberspace

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The area surrounding you is vast, but every.thing seems to be artificially taken care of: the grass is cut fairly short, shrubs are neatly trimmed into hedges, trees are well-kept. A bit strange, you reflect, but overall, the effect is quite pleasing. There appears to be some sorl of a structure to the north, and you hesitate to call it a house, although it is approrimately house-sized and shaped. It appears to be a perfect cube, white in color, and about fifteen feet on a side. There is a door-shaped outline in the middle of the cube along the bottom, but you can perceive no means of opening anything there. You can make out some letters just above the outline:

'IT,gSF,RAC'1'
I-ooking to the r,vest along the road you can make out some sorl of town. Looking east, you seem to see a similar looking town a bit further away. There doesn't seem to be anyone around.

Farlor
You have just entered the house, and it seems like you have entered a different world as well. The room you are in is roughly a fifteen foot cube, to be sure, but the congruence with the outside ends there. First of all, incredibly, there is a &pfway in the opposite wall, to the north, through which you can see the interior of another room. From w.hat you saw of the outside of this building, you are certain that this room could not be
there.

Furthermore, the furnishing in here is opulent and luxurious, a total contrast to the stark. white exterior. The {loor is compieteiy covered by an intricate oriental rug. Along each side wall. there lies a carved antique s*fla of *ii-;:ifld, yet comfortabie, appearance. There is an ornate wooden liquor cabinet on one side of the far doorway. r--rr lhe other side is a tall, majestic grandt'ather clock. The stained wooden paneling walls are hung with several t:e_llillgg The lighting is coming from brass fixtures on the two side u'alls. The light is soft, warrn, and a little ,:r the dim side. Overall, the atmosphere in here gives an impression of warmth, coziness, and relaxed i:iscination.

0utside House
You are outside the strange house, which is to the north of you.
The road stretches a\i/ay east and r.r'est to the town.