TOWARD A THEORY OF HYPERTEXTUAL DESIGN
by
KATHLEEN BURNETT
Communication, Information & Library Studies
Rutgers University
_Postmodern Culture_ v.3 n.2 (January, 1993)
Copyright (c) 1993 by Kathleen Burnett, all rights
reserved. This text may be freely shared among
individuals, but it may not be republished in any
medium without express written consent from the author
and advance notification of the editors.
While the study of the temporal and spatial
distanciation of communication is important to the
concept of the mode of information the heart of the
matter lies elsewhere. For the issue of
communicational efficiency . . . does not raise the
basic question of the configuration of information
exchange, or what I call the wrapping of language.
--Poster, 8
HYPERTEXT/HYPERMEDIA
[1] What distinguishes hypermedia from other modes of
information is not that it is computer-driven--after all,
the browsing and retrieval mechanisms of Vannevar Bush's
memex were non-electronic--nor that it is interactive, since
the entire history of oral communication, whether
electronically mediated or not, might be characterized as
interactive; nor even that it includes navigational
apparatus such as links and nodes, which might better be
thought of as symptoms than causes, or buttresses rather
than groundwork. What distinguishes hypermedia is that it
posits an information structure so dissimilar to any other
in human experience that it is difficult to describe as a
structure at all. It is nonlinear, and therefore may seem
an alien wrapping of language when compared to the
historical path written communication has traversed; it is
explicitly non-sequential, neither hierarchical nor "rooted"
in its organizational structure, and therefore may appear
chaotic and entropic. Yet clearly, human thought processes
include nonlinear, nonsequential, and interactive
characteristics which, when acknowledged by traditional
information structures, are not supported. In fact, one
might characterize the history of information transfer as a
tyranny against such characteristics, that is, a tyranny
against the rhizome.
[2] Hypermedia might be understood as one manifestation of
the struggle against this tyranny. In current parlance,
hypermedia is used to describe both applications which make
use of navigational tools such as links and nodes to form
"texts" or databases, and the organizational principles of
such "texts" and databases. Hypertext is also used to
denote these same meanings. When a distinction is drawn
between the two, it normally focuses on content--"hypertext"
is used to refer to hyper-structures consisting exclusively
of written texts, while "hypermedia" denotes similar
structures built around multiple media. Others have noted
the artificiality of such a delineation. "Text" is also
used as a synonym for a "written work" or "book" which may
or may not be limited to alphanumeric characters. A "text"
may included charts, graphs, illustrations, photographs, and
other visual media in its expression of meaning. Why then
should a "hypertext"--which has the potential for
incorporating an even wider range of expressive media
(sound, animation, etc.)--be limited to alphanumeric
characters in its expression?
[3] A more useful differentiation might be drawn along
structural rather than contextual lines. Hypertext
demonstrates "traits that are usually obscured by the
enforced linearity of paper printing"; it is text--only more
so--because it participates in a structure that resonates
asynchronous and nonlinear relationships. Hypertext is a
kind of weaving--"text" derives ultimately from the Latin
%texere%, and thus shares a common root with "textile"--a
structuring with texture--web, warp, and weave, allowing for
infinite variation in color, pattern and material; it is the
loom that structures the "text-ile." Hypertext is the
organizational principle of hypermedia. Hypermedia is the
medium of expression of a given hypertext structure. When
that medium mirrors the singularity of the print medium of
alphanumeric text, it may be properly called either
"hypertext" or "hypermedia"; when the medium reflects an
"intertwingling" (Nelson 31) of what we understand as
separate "media" in the analog sense of the term, it should
perhaps be referred to as "hypermedia," but might equally be
acknowledged as "hypertext." Neither hypertext nor
hypermedia is an object, rather the former is a structure,
and the latter a medium, of information transfer.
HISTORICAL CONTEXT
[4] All electronically mediated exchange participates in
hypertext, though the degree of participation varies
enormously. Some electronically mediated exchange is
"hypertextual" only to the degree that it is virtual--that
it consists of a series of switches or codes (binary or
otherwise) which are, in and of themselves, unreadable (and,
therefore, nontextual), and which contain "pointers" to
their reconstruction as meaningful exchanges. The switches
or codes are "nodes" which are "linked" to a "textual" form
which, at any given moment may exist only "hypertextually."
Electronically mediated exchange is therefore
paradigmatically different from other modes of information
precisely because it participates in the organizing
principle of hypertext.
[5] In _The Mode of Information_, Poster proposes a concept
which plays on Marx's theory of the mode of production:
By mode of information I similarly suggest that history
may be periodized by variations in the structure in
this case of symbolic exchange, but also that the
current culture gives a certain fetishistic importance
to 'information.' Every age employs forms of symbolic
exchange which contain internal and external
structures, means and relations of signification.
Stages in the mode of information may be tentatively
designated as follows: face-to-face, orally mediated
exchange; written exchanges mediated by print; and
electronically mediated exchange. (Poster 6)
Poster's periodization suffers from the coarseness of any
totalizing metaphor. While he stresses the trans-historical
nature of his classification of symbolic exchange, the
metaphor is only as effective as it is historically
informed. As outlined, the third stage--written exchanges
mediated by print--is not only Western in its bias, but
fails even within this bias to recognize a rather large
chunk of history--the manuscript period (circa 4th century
AD through the mid-fifteenth). An examination of the
influence of the mode of information on social structure can
only be enriched by the recognition of the impact of
mass-production, in the form of the mechanized reproduction
of written language, on that structure. It is impossible,
however, to understand the full significance of this impact,
either historically or theoretically, unless its
contextualization is carefully discerned. For example,
contrast these two very different experiences of the
introduction of the hand-press and its effects on social
stratification.
[6] The pre-Reformation Church was able to maintain a
restrictive social stratification largely because of its
ability to control the production and comprehension of
written communication--those who could read and write
belonged to a privileged elite, while those who could not
had to be satisfied with acquiring their information from
those who did. Through most of the Medieval period and well
into the Renaissance, the Church was able to control the
size and membership of the elite through two mechanisms:
Latin education and limited distribution of written
communication. The latter was facilitated by production
limits imposed by the rigorous and time-consuming process of
hand-copying, which in turn limited the supply of reading
material. Without supply, the demand for education was kept
to levels that the Church could manipulate and control. The
introduction of the hand-press in the mid-fifteenth century
was accompanied by a precipitous erosion of that control
which led decisively to the Reformation. Once reading
material could be produced in large quantities in a
relatively short period of time--500 to 1000 copies of an
average-length manuscript could be produced by a printer
owning two hand-presses within the space of less than a
month, as compared to the production of a single copy of a
manuscript, which could take up to a year--in other words,
once the non-elite were able to acquire material to read,
they began to do so. Printers, recognizing the commercial
potential of this new market, began to produce material in
the vulgate, which in turn expedited exponential growth in
the educated population, since it facilitated the process of
self-education. As this population grew, demands for equity
in education across social classes escalated. The earliest
signs of this movement are evident in the growth of the
popular and self-help literature markets, and the
introduction of mass communication, across time and
distance, over which the Church could ultimately exercise
little effective control (Eisenstein).
[7] Contrast this experience with that of the introduction
of a hand-press in colonial Massachusetts in 1660 for the
express purpose of propagating the gospel among the Indians,
who had no written language. The social stratification
which existed within the tribe prior to the introduction of
the press was anchored in the individual's ability to
communicate with the spiritual realm and was maintained
through oral mediation of the ritual culture. After the
introduction of the press, the very foundations of that
stratification were undermined. A schism developed between
those who subscribed to the gospel, and thus to the notion
of a single god, and those who continued in the old beliefs.
Since the introduction of the very act of written
communication was inextricably tied to the new religion,
many who did not endorse the Christian faith simply refused
to acknowledge the new mode of information.
[8] Clearly the introduction of the hand-press in this
context did not have the effect of popularizing written
communication that it had in western Europe on the eve of
the Reformation. While differences in the social structures
of the two cultures might be cited as the major contributing
factors in this differentiation, the privileged status of
chirography in pre-Reformation Europe clearly at least
served to buttress the social structure of that culture,
while the absence of any form of written culture in the case
of the Native American tribe equally served to buttress a
quite distinct social structure. Both structures were
undermined by the introduction of a new mode of information,
but in very different ways. While a totalizing metaphor may
be put to effective use in an account of this
differentiation, Poster's four-stage delineation is simply
too coarse to serve. Clearly, a distinction must be drawn
between a culture which partakes only of oral exchanges and
one in which oral exchange is coupled with some form of
written exchange. Equally clearly, a similar distinction
needs to be drawn between written exchanges mediated by
chirographic writing and written exchanges mediated by
typographic writing. The latter of these could be further
subdivided into two stages: the first mediated by hand-press
reproduction, and the second by machine-press reproduction.
The importance of this latter distinction is borne out by
the study of the growth of literacy in nineteenth-century
Europe following the introduction of the mechanized press
(cf. Altick and Eisenstein).
[9] Between Poster's third stage--written exchanges
mediated by print--and his fourth--electronically mediated
exchange--lies much of the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries, for although he does at one point acknowledge the
nineteenth century origins of electronically mediated
information systems in the telegraph and photography (19),
his analysis of such systems is limited to the telephone,
television advertising, databases, computer writing and
computer science. The inclusion of the machine-press
production stage suggested above accounts for a large share
of the information technology of the nineteenth century, but
the end of that century and the first half of the next, it
seems to me, several quite distinct modes of information
transfer have emerged which may help to provide a bridge
from written exchanges to electronically mediated exchange
and, particularly, to multimedia exchange mediated
electronically.
[10] We might group the various non-computer modes of
information available in the twentieth century in a variety
of ways; I would like to propose one such classificatory
scheme based, as is Poster's, on the wrapping of exchange:
verbal media: telegraph, radio, telephone
visual media: visual arts media (painting,
sculpture, etc), photography
combinatory media: offset printing, film, television,
video
The first group fits neatly into Poster's progression, since
it participates in the wrappings of language. Historically,
it is characterized by progressively orally mediated
electronic exchange, which might be seen as an inversion of
the pattern found in the Poster's earlier stages. The fit
of the second and third groups into Poster's schema is more
problematic because, despite his statement that the study of
the mode of information "must include a study of the forms
of information storage and retrieval, from cave painting
and clay tablets to computer databases and communications
satellites" (7), his pre-electronic mediation stages are all
decisively characterized by their participation in the
wrappings of language. Nonetheless, visual means of
communication and information transfer have always
existed--from cave paintings to religious icons to Gothic
cathedrals to paintings, sculpture, and other visual arts
media. The information-poor, one might even argue, have
historically relied on the visual media as their primary
mode of reproducible information transfer. Certainly this
was true in Western Europe before the growth of literacy,
and even today scholars point to the democratizing effect of
television.
[11] Also evident in the development of twentieth-century
modes of information is a ever-increasing trend toward
synchronous combinatory media. This January, AT&T announced
the release of its first videophone, the latest
manifestation of a trend which began with film and has
progressed through television, video, and in the last few
years, developments in multimedia computing. The design of
synchronous combinatory exchange is necessarily unlike that
of written exchange. The organizing principle of
combinatory exchange in its simplest form is synchronicity
rather than sequence (which is essential to all forms of
written exchange). Both forms are linear to some degree--
both rely on a time-line of expression. In written
exchange, linearity is an overt feature of the expression.
In the case of synchronous combinatory exchange, linearity
is only covertly present since the elements of a
synchronized combinatory expression must be aligned in time.
In an analog environment this alignment creates a singular
linear expression. In a digital environment, on the other
hand, the expression may be multiple, may consist of a
multiplicity of lines.
[12] While historicism clearly must inform such a totalizing
metaphor as Poster's "mode of information," Poster's
objective is equally clearly trans-historical:
the stages are not 'real,' not 'found' in the documents
of each epoch, but imposed by the theory as a
necessary step in the process of attaining knowledge.
In this sense the stages are not sequential but
coterminous in the present. They are not consecutive
also since elements of each are at least implicit in
the others. The logical status of the concept of the
mode of information is both historical and
transcendental. In that sense the latest stage is not
the privileged, dialectical resolution of previous
developments. In one sense, however, a sense that Marx
anticipated, the current configuration constitutes a
necessary totalization of earlier developments: that
is, one cannot but see earlier developments from the
situation of the present. The anatomy of the mode of
electronic information . . . necessarily sheds new
light on the anatomy of oral and print modes of
information . . . . I prefer to consider the present
age as simply an unavoidable context of discursive
totalization, not as an ontological realization of a
process of development. (6-7)
THEORIZING
[13] From within this context of discursive totalization,
other possibilities suggest themselves. In _A Thousand
Plateaus_ (1970), Deleuze and Guattari propose a different
history of written exchange. "Writing," they claim, "has
nothing to do with signifying. It has to do with surveying,
mapping, even realms that are yet to come" (4-5). Their
history is delineated in terms of types of books. There are
three types of books, the first being historically the
earliest and the third the most recent, but all three are
coterminous in the present. The first type they describe as
the root-book. The root-book "imitates the world, as art
imitates nature: by procedures specific to it that
accomplish what nature cannot or can no longer do" (5). The
second type is the radicle-system, or fascicular root book.
"This time, the principal root has aborted, or its tip has
been destroyed; an immediate, indefinite multiplicity of
secondary roots grafts onto it and undergoes a flourishing
development" (5). The approximate characteristics of
Deleuze and Guattari's third book type--the rhizome--clearly
indicate a departure from the book as printed codex to
electronically mediated exchange:
1. and 2. principles of connection and heterogeneity;
3. principle of multiplicity; 4. principle of
asignifying rupture; and 5. principles of cartography
and decalcomania. (7-9)
The significance of this taxonomy for this discussion is
that its classification, unlike Poster's, is entirely
media-independent, gaining its meaning, so to speak, from a
delineation of structure or design.
[14] The root-book roughly corresponds to written
communication prior to the development of the paste-up
technique (which Deleuze and Guattari refer to as
assemblage; 4) in the early part of the twentieth century.
Its history is one of linear production. In its earliest
form, the writing of the root-book was synonymous with its
publication. Today, the production of the root-book is
still characterized as a linear process consisting of five
steps: 1. writing of a manuscript; 2. submission/editing of
the manuscript; 3. the composition of the manuscript in
type; 4. the proofing of the type sheets; and 5. the
dissemination of the publication. The production process
for the radicle-system book is much lengthier, requiring the
addition of at least two additional steps, the first, the
mock-up or layout stage normally falling between the second
and third root-book steps; and the second, the paste-up
stage falling between the third and fourth steps in the
production of the root-book. In its earliest manifestations
(and still today in the certain fine-printing and vanity
publishing circles), the production of the root-book is
characterized by oneness and stability. Even in its more
recent manifestations, the root-book strives to be an exact
replica of the author's words, a representation or
signification of an individual's thoughts. Even as the
production process has fragmented (through the intervention
of editors, publishers, printers who are not the author), it
has maintained its linearity. Likewise, the publication has
retained its insularity and rootedness.
[15] In contrast, the design of the radicle-system book is
fragmented and multifarious, and while representation is
still employed as an element, it is only one of many couched
in layers that problematize its signification.
Interestingly, the technology which initially enabled this
kind of production was photography. The production process
is less emphatically sequential, the organizing principle
being collage or assemblage which allows for alteration and
reorganization at almost every stage of the production
process. In some cases this process has extended even to
the composition of the manuscript itself, as in the case of
William S. Burroughs's cut-up texts, or, in a less
mechanical implementation, in the poetry and critical
writings of Rachel Blau DuPlessis.
[16] Deleuze and Guattari describe a third type of book:
A system of this kind could be called a rhizome. A
rhizome as a subterranean stem is absolutely different
from roots and radicles. Bulbs and tubers are
rhizomes. Plants with roots or radicles may be
rhizomorphic in other respects altogether . . . .
Burrows are too, in all their functions of shelter,
supply, movement, evasion, and breakout. The rhizome
itself assumes very diverse forms, from ramified
surface extension in all directions to concretion into
bulbs and tubers . . . . The rhizome includes the best
and the worst: potato and couchgrass, or the weed.
(6-7)
Telecommunications systems are rhizomorphic, as are computer
networks. Think of maps you have seen and descriptions you
have heard of the internet--a rhizome. If we accept the
rhizome as a metaphor for electronically mediated exchange,
then hypertext is its apparent fulfillment, and Deleuze and
Guattari's "approximate characteristics of the rhizome"--
principles of connection, heterogeneity, multiplicity,
asignifying rupture, and cartography and decalcomania--may
be seen as the principles of hypertextual design.
PRINCIPLES OF CONNECTION AND HETEROGENEITY
[17] The principles of connection and heterogeneity state
that "any point of a rhizome can be connected to any other,
and must be" (Deleuze & Guattari 7). In this sense a
rhizome is very different from a tree structure, where the
order is fixed by a hierarchy of relationships. Cognitive
jumps, which must be mechanically forced in an hierarchy,
are intuitively sustained in a rhizome. A rhizome is the
only structure which can effectively sustain connections
between different media without giving hegemony to language.
Many current relational and flatfile multimedia database
applications support the storage of multiple forms of media,
and some will even display different types contiguously, but
keyword searching is the only mechanism provided for
cross-type searching. Like film and video, they support
synchronous display (but then, so can the book, albeit with
limitations), but they do not support nonverbal access.
Traditional hierarchical database structures are even more
problematic in their support of nonverbal expression.
Meaningful formation of hierarchies across media boundaries
can be accomplished only through the use of language, since
hierarchy is itself a creation of language, and therefore,
language is the only universal tool available within an
hierarchical structure. A rhizomorphic structure, on the
other hand, does not rely on language for its ordering,
although many of the linkages in a given structure may be
linguistic.
[18] A rhizome ceaselessly establishes connections between
semiotic chains, organizations of power, and circumstances
relative to the arts, sciences, and social struggles. A
semiotic chain is like a tuber agglomerating very diverse
acts, not only linguistic, but also perceptive, mimetic,
gestural, and cognitive; there is no language in itself, nor
are there any linguistic universals, only a throng of
dialects, patois, slangs, and specialized languages (7).
[19] Hypermedia design is rhizomorphic in its sustenance of
heterogeneous connection, because there is no systemic
hierarchy of connection. The perception of connectivity is
entirely left to the user, though the pre-existence of
particular connections may foster varying user perceptions
of overall structure. At its most political, connectivity
is a democratizing principle. It functions as a structure
of individuation since at any given moment the "center" of
any rhizomorphic structure is the individual's position in
relation to that structure. Distinctions between author and
reader, constituent and politician, even intermediary and
end-user disintegrate as the reader participates in
authorship, constituent in %polis%, and end-user in the
search itself. At its worse, connectivity inspires anarchy.
Witness (as we all did) the impact of limited connectivity
(exclusive of the important element of interactivity) via
the broadcast of a videotape of the arrest in the case of
the aftermath of the Rodney King verdict.
[20] As the distinctions between participant/viewer,
author/reader blur, the concept of authorship itself will be
problematized. All paths through hyperspace are equally
valid to the individual traveller. As the "reader"
negotiates hyperspace he/she becomes a navigator--traversing
established links to pre-existent nodes; but also an
explorer--creating new links to previously known, but
unrelated territories; a pioneer--venturing forth into
uncharted realms; and a visionary--imagining and giving
shape to the as-yet unknown.
PRINCIPLE OF MULTIPLICITY
Act so that there is no use in a centre . . . .
--Stein, 63
A multiplicity has neither subject nor object, only
determinations, magnitudes, and dimensions that cannot
increase in number without the multiplicity changing in
nature . . . . An assemblage is precisely this
increase in the dimensions of a multiplicity that
necessarily changes in nature as it expands its
connections. There are no points or positions in a
rhizome, much as those found in a structure, tree or
root. There are only lines.
--Deleuze & Guattari, 8
[21] Hypertextual design is able to support non-hierarchical
thinking and cognitive jumping because it recognizes the
diversity of multifarious modes of information. Information
may be structured hierarchically within a hypermedia system,
but only to the extent that such a structure exists in a
coterminous relationship with other structures. In other
words, hypertextual design presupposes not only that
multiple points of access are preferable to a single point,
but by extension, that multiple structures are preferable to
a single structure. Information retrieval studies have
shown that a single user's selection of access points for a
given topic may vary over time and space, making it
difficult for an indexer to predict potential user
vocabulary. The principle of multiplicity is reflected in
hypertextual design by the coterminous presence of varying
modes of access to a single structure on the one hand, and
of varying structures on the other.
[22] Landow and others have noted the hypertextual nature of
pre-hypertext literary projects from Sterne's _Tristram
Shandy_ to Robert Coover's _Pricksongs and Descants_. Yet
the lists I have seen are conspicuous in their omission of
female writers and feminist critics, not to mention writers
of color. I have already mentioned Rachel Blau DuPlessis,
but there are others who might be mentioned as well--Emily
Dickinson, Gertrude Stein, Zora Neale Hurston--all of whom
practice a writing of inclusion and fragmentation, of absent
centers and centered absence. Multiplicity, as a
hypertextual principle, recognizes a multiplicity of
relationships beyond the canonical (hierarchical). Thus,
the traditional concept of literary authorship comes under
attack from two quarters--as connectivity blurs the boundary
between author and reader, multiplicity problematizes the
hierarchy that is canonicity.
PRINCIPLE OF ASIGNIFYING RUPTURE
[23] Hypertextual design intuitively supports two forms of
access which must be forced in hierarchical structures:
user-generated access and mapping. The principle of
asignifying rupture supports the former, and those of
cartography and decalcomania, the latter. In an
hierarchical structure, a user-generated access point may
cause a rupture in the system. For example, in a database
search, a user may, through the process of serendipity,
arrive at a particular point in a hierarchy, even though her
departure-point has no apparent hierarchical relationship to
that arrival point. If she is allowed to introduce a link
from her departure term to her arrival point into the
hierarchy without further evaluation, the very structure of
that hierarchy might well be undermined. One might view the
project of feminist criticism in this light. The
introduction of non-canonical texts and authors into the
canon disrupts the foundations of the canon altogether.
In contrast, hypertextual design encourages such disruptive
activity while rendering it insignificant. Since the
structure does not rely on any given theory of relationship,
it cannot be affected by the characterization of a new
relationship previously alien to it. The potential for any
relationship exists within the hypertextual structure; some
simply await unmasking.
PRINCIPLES OF CARTOGRAPHY AND DECALCOMANIA
[24] The second form of access not easily supported within
an hierarchy is mapping. Tracings or logs of an
individual's progress through an hierarchical database are
of course possible and may help a user to retrace a given
path, or provide useful data for research in human-computer
interaction. Current maps of search paths exist in the form
of recordings of transactions, though the best systems
record only the user query and the system response, without
making a record of the context of either query or response.
The records thus constructed are divorced from context,
non-relational, and perhaps most importantly, non-spatial.
They are grammatic, rather than diagrammatic. They
perpetuate the hegemony of language and de-emphasize the
sense of a journey through space and time. Deleuze and
Guattari's notion of mapping is, however, quite different,
and presupposes the operation of the principles discussed
previously.
[25] Each user's path of connection through a database is as
valid as any other. New paths can be grafted onto the old,
providing fresh alternatives. The map orients the user
within the context of the database as a whole, but always
from the perspective of the user. In hierarchical systems,
the user map generally shows the user's progress, but it
does so out of context. A typical search history displays
only the user's queries and the system's responses. It does
not show the system's path through the database. It does
not display rejected terms, only matches. It does not
record the user's psychological responses to what the system
presents. On additional command, it may supply a list of
synonyms or related terms, but this is as far as it can go
in displaying the territory surrounding the request. It can
only understand hierarchy, so it can only display
hierarchical relationships. What distinguishes the map from
the tracing is that it is entirely oriented toward an
experimentation in contact with the real. The map does not
reproduce an unconscious closed in upon itself; it
constructs the unconscious. It fosters connections between
fields, the removal of blockages on bodies without organs,
the maximum opening of bodies without organs onto a plane of
consistency. It is itself a part of the rhizome. The map
is open and connectable in all of its dimensions; it is
detachable, reversible, susceptible to constant modification
(12).
[26] A hypertextual map is more closely related to
geographic maps than to search histories. It shows the path
of the user through the surrounding territory, but always
from the point-of-view of the user. It is as though the map
were perpetually shifting as the traveller moved from one
quadrant to the next. Some of that territory is charted--it
is well mapped out in terms that the user understands, and
connected to familiar territory or nodes--and some is
uncharted, either because it consists of unlinked nodes that
exist in the database much as an undiscovered island might
exist in the sea, disconnected from the lines of transfer
and communication linking other land areas, or as an
unidentified planet in space, with the potential for
discovery and even exploration, but as yet just a glimmer in
the sky--or because it is linked in ways that are
meaningless to the user in his present context. The user
can zoom in on zones of interest, jump to new territories
using previously established links or by establishing new
links of his own, retrace an earlier path, or create new
islands or nodes and transportation routes or links to
connect them to his previous path or the islands or nodes
charted by others.
[27] The rhizome operates by variation, expansion, conquest,
capture, offshoots. Unlike the graphic arts, drawing, or
photography, unlike tracings, the rhizome pertains to a map
that must be produced, constructed, a map that is always
detachable, connectable, reversible, modifiable, and has
multiple entryways and exits and its own lines of flight.
It is tracings that must be put on the map, not the
opposite. In contrast to centered (even polycentric)
systems with hierarchical modes of communication and
preestablished paths, the rhizome is an acentered,
nonhierarchical, nonsignifying system without a General and
without an organizing memory of central automaton, defined
solely by a circulation of states (21).
[28] Hypertext is rhizomorphic in all its characteristics.
Its power derives from its flexibility and variability; from
its ability to incorporate, transmute and transcend any
traditional tool or structure. Like the rhizome, it is
frightening because it is amorphous. The hierarchical
systems we are accustomed to are definitional--they are
centers of power. Knowledge of the hierarchy engenders
authority; corrupted authority breeds despotism. Knowledge
of the rhizome as a totality is impossible, precisely
because "totality" and other absolutes have no meaning in a
rhizome. The rhizome is as individual as the individual in
contact with it. It is that individual's perception, that
individual's map, that individual's understanding. It is
also, and at the same time, a completely different
something--another individual's perception, another
individual's map, another individual's understanding. It
provides no structure for common understanding. It is a
state of being, reflective always of the present, a plateau
in a region made up entirely of plateaus--"a continuous,
self-vibrating region of intensities whose development
avoids any orientation toward a culmination point or
external end" (Deleuze & Guattari 22).
-----------------------------------------------------------
WORKS CITED
Altick, R. _The English Common Reader_. Chicago: U of
Chicago P, 1957.
Bush, V. "As We May Think." _Atlantic Monthly_ 176 (July
1945): 101-8.
DuPlessis, R. _Tabula Rosa_. Elmwood, CT: Potes & Poets
Press, 1987.
---. _The Pink Guitar: Writing as Feminist Practice_. New
York: Routledge, 1990.
Deleuze, G. & Guattari, F. _A Thousand Plateaus_.
Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1987.
Eisenstein, E. _The Printing Press as an Agent of Change_.
Cambridge: Cambridge U P, 1980.
Landow, G. _Hypertext: The Convergence of Contemporary
Critical Theory and Technology_. Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins UP, 1992.
Nelson, T. _Dream Machines_. Redmond, WA: Tempus, 1987.
Poster, M. _The Mode of Information_. Chicago: U of
Chicago P, 1990.
Stein, G. _Tender Buttons_. Los Angeles: Sun & Moon Press,
c1914.
Vandergrift, K. "Hypermedia: Breaking the Tyranny of the
Text." _School Library Journal_ 35:3 (Nov. 1988):
30-35.