New Frontiers: Merging Medium and Message
Perhaps a more complex or advanced example of electronic writing can be found in the website, written by Talan Memmott, Lexia to Perplexia . In this example, there is explicit interaction between literature and the medium through which it is being presented. This is a multimedia experience, though it does not use sound, which seems to be the most advanced of the given examples. Not only does the site experiment with randomly appearing and disappearing graphics and text boxes, but it also creates a new language, combining English with html taglines.
This new, or foreign language, takes a cue from technological terms that have already entered our daily vocabularies, such as IM, e-mail, Internet, or the various programming languages. At first glance, much of the literature of this website seems incomprehensible. As with any other new technology, though, the reader becomes adapted to the methods being used here, and begins to understand what is being presented. The fading and disappearing text is most troubling at first, but, like the previous example, brings into questioning exactly what literature is supposed to be to the reader.
Is it something that we own once we find it?
Or is it something that we have the opportunity to view, but never to possess?
With a traditional print book, once we purchase it, it is ours to do what we please with—read and underline or tear up and put back together in our own way. Once the reader gives up on Lexia to Perplexia as a fixed entity and begins to experience it instead of reading and comprehending it, the text becomes a much more enjoyable experience and far less threatening.