Posted on October 13, 2005 at 3:02 pm by Mark Sample
- Continue exploring Hegirascope
- Pick any series of three linked pages
- What are these fragments about? What do they add up to?
- Analyze the lexia themselves, the “texture” of the link choices between them, the actual links, how the lexia relate to each other, how the lexia relate to the whole of Hegirascope and its overall meaning
- Post a 500-word critical "reading" or interpretation of Hegirascope to the blog (this does not replace the weekly reading response); be sure to include in your post links to the specific pages which you write about
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October 17th, 2005 at 2:19 PM
HGS012.html
HGS013.html
HGS014.html
The three lexia I focused on are linked to each other in a sequence automatically. If one does not touch a link starting at the first of the three, Hegirascope will automatically sequence through them. The names of the first two are “Drivers” and the third is “Catalog of Dreams #3357.” The pages with “Drivers” focused on a couple named Gina and Bent. The first lexia with them has the couple starting a road trip or vacation. The next lexia in the sequence had them go to taking a break at a truck stop and something is bother Bent emotionally. The third lexia in the sequence then breaks away from the story and introduces a story on about a dream. It focuses on having breakfast in an “Ideal City.”
The “Drivers” pages focus on people traveling. A common element among three of the links coming off of these pages is that they go to other pages that talk about people traveling. The link “Fellow travelers” goes to a situation where people are traveling in a dessert. They are being followed by a boy video taping them. The second Drivers page has a link named “Paranoia” that goes to two guys named Chuck and Bob who are traveling in a car and discussing the sky’s color. The “Down the Road” link goes to the couple Gina and Ben being in the road at some point on their trip. The first “Drivers” page and the “Catalog of Dreams #3357″ page both have a link that goes to criticism on hypermedia type subjects. The “Happy motoring” link goes to a page that had criticism of hyperfiction and the Dream’s link called “Culture” goes to a section that has criticism of hypertext.
I looked at the URL’s (web addresses) of Hegira scope when analyzing it. I noticed a number sequence in the addresses of my three selected pages. Each went up by one number each time they changed automatically. This was shown when they changed by going “HGS012,” “HGS013,” and “HGS014.” One might expect pages with URL’s in a close number range would have similar material. However, they didn’t always have this relationship. The “Drivers” sequence of the first two pages had “HGS012,” and “HGS013,” but “HGS014″ broke away and started the dream idea. If one wanted to see a third page on “Drivers,” one had to go to a page with the “HGS052” in it’s address by clicking “Down the Road.” Maybe this page was purposely addressed this way to throw off someone trying to analyze Hegirascope. Another possibility is this page was made a lot later than the other two pages. Thus, it was located ad named somewhere else in the file structure of Hegirascope.
The opening pages of Hegirascope without links somewhat foreshadow what is to come in it. One of the pages has the question “What if the word will be not still?“ The pages in Hegirascope are constantly changing. The words are therefore never really still. There is another the opening page that has ”Where you’re going there are no maps.” In Hegirascope, there is no exact path one can take through it which a can map gives you.
Hegirascope may appear at first be chaotic, but it does seem to have some structure or themes to it. One thing that is common is that not all the lexia always introduce a new story idea. Some of them like the “Drivers” sequence may focus on a story for a two or three pages. Various of the lexia address sex and relationships . Both “Catalog of Dreams #3357″ and “Drivers” pages have a love interest in them. The “Next Stop” link in “Drivers” went to a sexual situation where “you” are lying naked on a hill with a person that keeps changing into a different person. Like Calvino’s If on a Winters’s Night a Traveler , Hegira scope uses the first person narrative of “you” in pages it’s lexia. “Catalog of Dreams #3357″ refers to “you” often. Hegira scope is a complicated hypermedia piece that can be understood if one takes time to explore it.