In the early twentieth century, a group of artists in Zurich, Switzerland created an art movement by the name of “Dada” that utilized non-sensical imagery to communicate deeply textural and evocative concepts to a devastated and war-torn society. An admirer of this particular movement, I was initially intrigued by the “Hegirascope”. The mere chaos of it resembled the Dada ideology: because nothing in the world makes sense, neither will the art that attempts to reflect it. However if one pursues a further study of Dadaist pieces, they will find that many of the artistic works have a politically charged undertone to their near unrecognizable form. Therefore, members of the Dada sect did rely on some sort of representational meaning in order to portray an intensely evocative theory on the state of the world after World War I. When I think of “Hegirascope” in these terms, it suddenly doesn’t fit in at all. Although it can be argued that each segment is somewhat representational, the entire piece functions as a disjointed, abstract draft containing a vast variety of miniature plots that dream of assembling into an extended narrative.
Upon closer examination, the “Hegirascope” functioned as a sort of stream of consciousness. At each screen we abandon the center text when we wander to a particular link that had succeeded in distracting us from the central text. In an interesting comparison, Ryan says the text gave her the “impression of a loose collection of drafts and writing samples”. Like Ryan, I imagined that if we were able to break open the mind of a creative writer, the many textual fragments of “Hegirascope” would be what we would find. Each screen contained a cohesive idea, however before one could completely articulate that idea-the screen changed and a new thought was presented. To me, the web engine was a writer’s worst nightmare: capturing a moment to later build on only to lose it to another incoming idea. The “Hegirascope” acted as a controller, choosing when its thoughts were finished and moving onto the next (even if its reader was not ready for the shift).
In class we discussed Marie-Laure Ryan’s interpretative strategies for reading new media texts. Within her framework, I would probably describe “Hegirascope” dually as a “kaleidoscopic performance” piece. The “stories” the “Hegirascope” constructs are all made from the same fragments; however, with each new refraction the evocative meaning of the piece changes and a new narrative mosaic is created.
Approaching Hegirascope as a “kaleidoscopic performance” could be quite productive, I think. It makes me wonder if there are other metaphors that could help us break down the barrier between the work and our understanding (or at least appreciation) of it.
Your mention of the Dadaists calls to mind the concept of a “word salad” — would this be another way to think of Hegirascope?
In regards to Hegirascope being a “word salad”: The phrase does sound like it could be accurate, but only upon specific definition of it. “Word salad” implies that one is picking up words piece by piece and then consuming them to fill one’s appetite for a story. I think the phrase is especially accurate when we think of how one “picks” around a salad and chooses what to eat, and what to leave on the plate. When I came to a screen in Hegirascope, the textual links I ignored and left behind were the metaphorical tomatoes in my “word salad”. Leaving those behind, I chose to consume what words interested me and allowed me the opportunity of creating a flavorful story that filled my narrative appetite.