Ergodic Literature &
Cybertext
 Cybertext Vs hypertext
Cybertext
A neologism derived from
Norbert Wiener’s book
Cybernetics: Control and Communication
in the Animal and the Machine (1948).
It has thus created a new discipline called
“Cybernetics.”
Cybertext
Wiener’s interest is not just in the
development of digital computers.
He is interested in
both organic and inorganic systems,
i.e. any system that contains an information
feedback loop.
Cybertext: Wiener
The concept of cybertext does not limit itself
to the study of computer-driven textuality.
It focuses on
the mechanical organization
of the text.
Cybertext: Wiener
To focus on the mechanical organization
of the text…
What does that imply?
*attention on medium-specific aspects of
literary exchange
*attention on the consumer/user/reader of
the text
Cybertext: Wiener
*attention on medium-specific aspects of literary exchange
Critical examination of existing norms
Experimentation
*attention on the consumer/user/reader of the text
Consumer/user/reader re-figured as author.
Cybertext  ergodic literature
Ergodic features:
[origin: Greek words “ergon” and “hodos”]
“work” and “path”
The effort to traverse the text
(walk through the work) is of
great importance
“The user will have effectuated a semiotic sequence, and this selective
movement is a work of physical construction that the various
concepts of `reading’ do not account for.”
Cybertext  ergodic literature
Ergodic features:
“Non-linear” (text)
(too misleading)

“without either beginning or end”
“an endless labyrinthine plateau”
Cybertext  ergodic literature
Labyrinth = forking paths?
Penelope Reed Doob:
(TWO kinds of labyrinthine structure)
*Unicursal:
one path, winding and turning towards a centre
*Multicursal:
the maze wanderer faces a series of critical
choices
Cybertext  ergodic literature
Labyrinth = forking paths?
Umberto Eco: (THREE kinds of labyrinth)
*The Linear:
(= unicursal)
*The Maze:
(= multicursal)
*The Net:
“Every point can be connected with every other point.”
Cybertext  ergodic literature
Labyrinth = forking paths?
“Labyrinth without exits”?
Aarseth’s response:
“A labyrinth without exit is a labyrinth
without entrance; in other words, not
a labyrinth at all.”
Cybertext  ergodic literature
Labyrinth is not just a metaphor.
Labyrinth points to concrete
structures.
Cybertext  ergodic literature
Examples of ergodic literature:
I Ching, or the Book of Changes
– Chinese text of oracular wisdom (Western Zhou dynasty,
1122-770 BC)
-- made up of 64 symbols (hexagrams) which are the
binary combinations of six whole or broken (“changing”)
lines (64 = 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2)
-- manipulated by three coins or forty-nine yarrow stalks
according to randomizing principle
-- two hexagrams are combined, producing one out of
4,096 possible texts
Examples of Ergodic Literature
Guillaume Apollinaire’s “calligrammes”
(1917-8)
Raymond Queneau’s “Cent Mille Milliards de
Poèmes” (a hundred thousand billion
poems) (1961)
B.S. Johnson’s The Unfortunates (1969)
Milorad Pavic’s Landscape Painted with Tea
(1990)
What is Cybertext?
Cybertext is NOT a “new,” “revolutionary”
form of text, with capabilities only made
possible through the invention of the digital
computer.
Cybertext is NOT a radical break with oldfashioned textuality.
What is Cybertext?
Cybertext is a perspective on all
forms of textuality.
What is Cybertext?
-- a comparative view
Two Kinds of
Interactivity:
Weaker definition: HYPERTEXT / static
Superior definition: CYBERTEXT / dynamic
Hypertext
Participation, play, or even use:
Both the content and the permutations potentially open to the
readers are fixed.
Most existing interactive narratives are hypertexts –
They are in the form of a journey with something to acquire, a task
to accomplish, a destination to reach etc. Most existing interactive
narratives are hypertexts. They are in the form of a journey with
something to acquire, a task to accomplish, a reward to grab, a
destination to reach and so on. Or there is simply something to look
at. Or there are a few story lines to follow depending on where one
randomly branches off. Or there are a few story lines to follow
depending on where one randomly branches off.
Hypertext
In most cases, the reader merely follows
links already constructed by the author,
realizing several of the author’s scripted
permutations of the narrative or prescribed
resolution.
Hypertext Vs Cybertext
Although the experience of reading a hypertext
may feel dynamic and one has the impression
that the number of iterations is inexhaustible, the
number of narrative versions is in actually fixed
in theory.
In the case of cybertext, a machine to generate
extended possibilities of expression, “the actual
content of the text may be determined by a script
that enables the computer to evolve its own
stories” according to parameters written into the
application.
Cybertext
Algorithmic principles
Randomness
Permutation
Self-organization
Emergence
Cybertext
Examples
Robert Massin, “One Hundred Million Poems” [kinetic
typography] [expressive typography]
http://www.uncontrol.com/_massin/massin_small.html
“Emotion Fractal”: a recursive space filling algorithm using
English words describing the human condition
http://levitated.net/daily/levEmotionFractal.html
http://yugop.com/ver3/stuff/25/index.html