Regards Croises: Perspectives on Digital Literature

Textual Material in the Digital Medium

Saemmer | textual material in the digital medium 93 textUal mateRial in the digital mediUm alexandra saemmer Université Paris 8 1 Introduction ext is a “pleasure object.” Denys d’Halicarnasse, the first person to theorize about sentences, postulated a diffuse value that is spread on the accumulation of words and their articulation (i.e., rhythmic value, respiratory value). The “content” of a text is actually indissociable from an irreducible “uncanniness,” from that energy which discourse has turned into writing. The poetic image does not define anything: the metaphor “sheds light on the meaning (monological function), but paradoxically , it does so ad infinitum (poetic function).”145 The meaning of alliteration is partly conveyed by the sound material of text. A neologism constitutes an “erotic act,” as expressed by Roland Barthes.146 That eroticism, that sensuality of the textual material, is reinforced in the digital medium, in which writing discovers new graphical, plastic, and tactile dimensions. The printing of the animated or hypertextualized material of a text would suffice to measure the influence of these new dimensions on the semantic field of the hyphen: what was said in writing would then be spoken; part of the message would be lost. An animated or hypertextualized text, provided that it is not based on a purely decorative union of its “substance” and “form,” gets a new meaning that we will explore in this article. 2 Reflexive, immersive, contemplative readings A great number of readers are now aware of the new graphical and plastic dimensions of the text in the digital medium. A survey made in 2006 with 596 students from the University Lyon 2 revealed two major sorts of “digital read93 t 94 textual material in the digital medium | Saemmer ing.”147 In the first case, the text is skimmed through. That kind of reading is based on a quick glance at the information, on a “frantic” navigation practice and on very fast eye-activity. Because it belongs to a process of collection and classification rather than to a reflexive practice, most subjects perceive that reading as superficial and it sometimes arouses great reluctance. The other type of reading belongs to an immersive, intuitive, and playful practice that is fervently supported by certain subjects. These subjects show a feeling for the graphic and plastic dimensions of a text that might result from their playing of video games. He/She reads and watches, he/she is enthralled by the energy inherent in animation and hypertextuality, by new forms of typography and spatial organization, which have the textual material included in the field of the visual arts, while giving the process of reading a whole new contemplative dimension. One student who participated in the survey, and who was resistant to the on-screen reading practice, stated that “text in the digital medium lacks a soul, because this latter lies in the paper,” while another one insisted on the palpable and easy to handle aspect of the digital text. He wrote, “The relation to the book-material disappears for the benefit of contact with a plastic dimension ” with reference to the animation-related widening of the semantic field of the text. Actually, a text in the digital medium often includes a high percentage of nonverbal information, such as the cursor that indicates the presence of the reader in the text, or the description of the links, arrows, buttons, images, and animated movies. It is revelatory though, that a certain number of the subjects seem to respond positively to the graphic and plastic aspects of the textual material as displayed in the digital medium. For one of the students, the reading of the digital medium corresponded to the “interpretation of images.” “A web text is said to be watched,” emphasized another subject: “what is read is something else than pure text.” 3 A new semantic proximity between words and images Along with the spreading, the hypertextualization, and the animation of words and images in the digital medium, some readers and designers have Saemmer | textual material in the digital medium 95 perceived the beginning of a new semantic proximity, maybe even a faithful translation, between words and images. In the notes on his creation La Révolution à New York a eu lieu, Gregory Chatonsky evokes his fascination for the common technical origin of text and image in the digital medium.148 On the visible surface of the screen, the text and image also seem to share the same...