Unidade 2
a)
Reference : Texte et ordinateur. L'écriture réinventée ?, Jacques ANIS, 1998, collection "Méthodes en sciences humaines", De Boeck & Larcier s.a.

Jacques Anis considers that the relationship between text and computer must refer to a theoretical framework going from language sciences (linguistic, semiology, semiotics) to psychology, computer science and artificial intelligence. He considers that the text processing by a computer allows a “meta-writing” = dematerialization of the text (which becomes volatile object, created and modified by the word processing), meta-scriptural and reversible operations, offering various tools of textual organization, control, remote setting and objectivation of the text. Electronic text offers a diversity of views, plasticity and mobility (to visualize together or separately such or such element of the text, at various levels of granularity), memorization of the reading paths = appropriation and consultation’ strategies.
Data processing widens considerably the field of writing, by integrating multimedia components (texts, images, sounds…). The writing becomes inclusive by integrating these components. The text becomes mobile, increased by the multiplicity of its states, supports, views and options. The writing is removed from its sacred character by the text modifiable at will. The split-up between author and reader is erased with the hypertextual devices.
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Reference : "L'ordinateur et la critique littéraire", Paul DELANY, 1994, Littérature, n°96, Larousse

Paul Delany reconsiders in this text contemporary literary criticism where the structuralism of the Sixties and Seventies declines to be replaced by work in network, pack of relations without hierarchy nor center (see Roland BARTHES: “work is a proposal”) = advent of the textual information data processing. The hypertext is a part of it = intertextuality, fragmentation and off-centring as in authors’work like DERRIDA, TODOROV, BARTHES or FOUCAULT. The literary analysis then will gradually adopt structures and vocabulary of the hypertext. A new kind of writing in hypertext or hypermedia appears, with hypertextual fiction and blocks of autonomous narrative units, giving an infinity of paths through the structure of the blocks and links built by the author = “narration at zero degree”.
The value of the hypertext is not in the “explosion” of the narration but in the new combinations of narrative and space structures. Time is then perceived like a geometrical space. Hypertext makes it possible to build an impenetrable very big and unified (via the network) text, collection of often fragmentary texts, separated from their authors and arriving in a jumble, as in oral conversation (= “electronic orality”).
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Reference :: "L'écriture hypertextuelle : pratique et théorie. A partir d'une recherche sur Rigodon", Roger LAUFER, 1994, Littérature, n°96, Larousse
According to Roger LAUFER, hypertext presents an open design of the communication object, authorizing mixture of media, discontinuous reading, modifying the access times, facilitating the updates. It allows plurality of points of view, association by references, invitation to complementary readings. It means also the pleasure of being surprised in the text construction through a hidden device. This fuzzy logic allows balancing of points of view and arguments.
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Reference : "Gérer la complexité" et « Dispositifs », Jean-Pierre BALPE, 1997, université Paris 8.

According to Jean-Pierre BALPE, it is necessary to consider a collection of knowledge as a whole in the hypertext (or hypermedia) and to take into account its complexity by not imposing a hierarchy. It is thus necessary to consider this just like a system (set of interrelated elements), to regard the components’ definition as related to the observer and its point of view. According to him, taking into account the observer is absent from many multimedia devices, with predefined and not-evolutive reading. Hypertext requires to integrate some slack, some blur, some evolution one, some relativity = “intelligent adaptivity”, depending on the points of view given by the readers’ path. An “ergonomic scenarisation” offers thus various levels of self-adaptation according to the reader’s profile, necessary compromise between minimal structuring of knowledge and freedoms imposed by the reader’s needs.
Relationships between data processing and literature evolved from a passive reading tool (data-processing analyzis) to an active writing tool (data-processing literature). The data-processing literature is an evolutionary writing, it is a chaotic device : pages, chapters and sequences are always with single reading, in real-time generated, without end, built on an unlimited series of irreversible local divergences = dynamic of chaos, open production.

Hypertext of fiction
References : "L'hypertexte de fiction : naissance d'un nouveau genre ?", Jean CLEMENT, 1994 communication au colloque de l'ALLC, Sorbonne, Paris,"Afternoon, a Story. Du narratif au poétique dans l'œuvre hypertextuelle", Jean CLEMENT, 1994, actes du colloque "Nord Poésie et Ordinateur", Mots-Voir et Gérico, Circav éd., "Fiction interactive et modernité", Jean CLEMENT, 1994, Littérature, n°96, Larousse

Jean CLEMENT wrote a lot about fiction’s hypertext, which is based on fragmented narrative units, neither completely structured, nor completely unorganized. It is a collection of semi-organized fragments which invites to the walk and can be left at any time. Absence of intrigue is due to a partial and often illogical reading. We thus slip from a temporal to a space dimension, from narrative to poetic one. Hypertext inserts narrative sequences in the multidimensional space of an open structure = diverse and tabular reading. Text thus only exists as created by a particular path (from one single reader), or only in a virtual mode, being defined as the sum of its potential readings.
Hypertext is going thus from figurative to configurative dimension, discharging from its narrative function, from reading to writing (= “scriptorial interactivity”), from readable text to “scriptible” one.

Comments
Hypertext of fiction is one of the most known forms of literary hypertexts, with a specific hypertextual writing, where the text and its reading are not completely structured and defined in advance. Hypertext can sometimes be created during the time of interaction (= generative hypertexts, as described by Jean-Pierre BALPE).
Complementary links to consult :
- Storyspace = famous hypertext writing environment that is especially well suited to large, complex, and challenging hypertexts.
- Eastgate = famous on line editor of hypertexts (fiction, non fiction), many ressources about hypertextual writing
- Charabia.net = examples of funny and small generative hypertexts (in french) : click on "entrez", then select one generator in the list (Java must be installed in your browser/PC), then click on "cliquez pour générer". A totally new text will be created in real-time by the generator (at each click). You will find an explanation of the tool just below the generated text.
- The Electronic Labyrinth = a study of the implications of hypertext for creative writers looking to move beyond traditional notions of linearity.
Complementary texts to read :- "The Shaping of Hypertextual Narrative", Sergio Cicconi, 2000, The Integrated Media Machine: A Theoretical Framework, M. Yla-Kotola, J. Suoranta, S. Inkinen & J. Rinne, éd., Helsinki: University of Lapland. pp. 101-120 = interesting text to give a more detailed typology of narrative hypertexts.
b)
References :
"Comprendre le cinéma et les images", 2007, René GARDIES, dir., Hors collection, Armand Colin"Sous les vagues, la plage", Jean-Louis WEISSBERG, 1995, in "Ecrit, image, oral et nouvelles technologies", actes du séminaire 1994-1995, Publications de l'Université Paris 7"Le cadre comme entité relative", MORELLI Pierre, 1999Champs Visuels n°12-13 « Penser, cadrer, le projet du cadre », L’Harmattan
Nota bene : We refer here in quotation marks to the collective book (coordinated by Rene GARDIES) to which I took part as author of the chapter about interactive images.
An logician identity
In the chapter devoted to interactive images, I could insist on their numerical dimension, “the most important of the characteristics of interactive image (…) : the image is translated in a data-processing language which enables it to be created and/or modified via application softwares. This “logician identity” introduces a new dimension into the possible practices of image processing : the digital image is “written” in a data-processing language made by figures (succession of 0 and 1), it can be “calculated” by a program before being posted (the most known example is the digital images in movies, which calculation can take several days), it can also become “calculating”, i.e. ready to evolve/move/change according to the request of a user”.
We can find various examples of these interactive properties of digital image : scientific digital images (directly easy to handle on screen), multimedia CD-ROM (about museums by instance, with possibilities of zooms and navigation in the image), websites (in particular in the field of numerical art, where multimedia artists allow the user “to handle/interact” with their work). Certain authors as Jean-Louis WEISSBERG speak about “meta-image” to define the interactive image. “That means that image changes from “visible” to “readable” state : the image is written in a data-processing language, it thus becomes interpretable, flexible, calculable. The user does not perceive only the image but must control the interactivity of it (…): he must learn how “to read” the image more than “to look at it” if he wants to exploit all its potentialities”.

An incomplete image
“The first consequence of the logician state of interactive image is its incomplete dimension : the spectator will see only part of the image, one of the possible forms of this image but seldom its totality. Interactive image is thus basically “incomplete” as Jean-Louis WEISSBERG (1995) underlines it : it shows only one state at one moment of its display on screen. According to the requests of the user, the image will be able to evolve/move and change, for example, of form, size or color”.
Multimedia CD-ROM and websites frequently use this ability of digital images to change and to display only part of its contents : “rollover” action with the mouse (entering or leaving a zone on screen) which reveals or makes disappear an object or a text at screen, offering several reading levels according to the user’s needs (overflight of contents or in depth reading).
A latent image
“The second consequence of this logician state is the importance of interaction between image and user : if user does not interact, image remains generally fixed. It “awaits” an action from him to change maybe (if needed be). Jean-Louis WEISSBERG (1995) speaks about “latency” : an interactive image is brought up to date according to the user’s requests. This latency gives a particular status to the interactive image, which leads certain authors to establish comparisons with the “image-time” of Gilles DELEUZE (1985), when the cinematographic image becomes readable, thinking, no more being “image-action” (“sensori-motor” one) and leading the spectator to question itself on his position and on the images’meaning. In another way, interactive image invites also the user to think, to decide on its path in the multimedia application, where and how to click to obtain such or such result”.
By instance, some websites like GabonArt (about artistic Gabon of yesterday and today) propose virtual visits of real places through interactive images : the user browses in a virtual museum in digital images (simulating a visit). A virtual presenter goes with him during his visit and comments the different rooms and objects. Without action from the user, the point of view remains fixed and the visit does not progress. “Even in the case of faintly interactive images (fixed and non-modifiable photographs or graphics for example), a multimedia application invites the user to click to continue his consultation. (…) The screen of computer invites to interaction”.

A fertile image
“The characteristic of interactive image is thus to be able to reappear perpetually depending on interaction between image and user. Pierre MORELLI (1999) speaks about “fertile” image, able to evolve according to external parameters from the image itself and that the author controls more or less according to his initial choices of programming (in the data-processing sense). In certain cases, we can find multimedia applications where conditions of the images’change are pre-established by the author (zooms on the image, extraction of fragments, modification of the formal parameters of size/position, moves in virtual spaces…). This is the case of the majority of multimedia applications on CD-ROM and Web. In other cases, the author releases more strongly the conditions of interaction, going even until giving up any control of the final result seen by the user: artistic and interactive images generated in real-time (…), virtual worlds showing objects having an “autonomous life”, close to the real life.”

The visual thought
References :
"De l’économie informationnelle à la pensée visuelle", Alain RENAUD, 1993, Réseaux, n°61, CNET"Le virtuel, vertus et vertiges", Philippe QUEAU, 1993, collection "Milieux", INA, éditions Champ Vallon
This concept of “visual thought”, proposed by Alain RENAUD, means that we can think the digital image like a new relation mode between discursive and visible order. Computer is a meta-machine allowing handling and digital processing of signs. The multimedia devices allow a new field of polymorphic (texts, images, sounds…) and sensitive experiments (body experiment). Digital image integrates an operational, dialectical (= interactivity) and metaphorical dimension (perceptible and flexible form). It is an image “in becoming”, like the model of mental image.
According to Philippe QUEAU, virtual image is an interactive, browsable and real-time displayable database, in three-dimensional digital images = feeling of immersion, no analogy. Digital image allows sensitive perception of the subjacent and understandable models (= internal mathematical models of calculation). At the same time, this image has thus physical and symbolic constraints (like traditional images), it is a representation of a model and a moment in the process of interaction with this model.

Complementary links to consult
- Digital artists : Michel Lavigne (http://www.pigpix.org/ = digital images easy to handle and to program), Philippe Bootz (« e-poetry » = generative work with images, words and music), www.incidents.net (list of many interactive works on line) = all are good examples of digital images, calculated and calculating, with which the spectator can sometimes interact.
- virtual visit of the museum of Gabon Art = splendid work of digitalization of the Gabonese cultural heritage in a virtual museum you can visit on line. Click on “Visiter le Musée Virtuel » link on the left (under the speaker).
Complementary texts to read
- "Présences à distance. Déplacements virtuels et réseaux numériques : pourquoi nous ne croyons plus la télévision", Jean-Louis WEISSBERG, 1999, L'Harmattan = see more particularly chapters 5 and 6 about interactivity and « image actée » (= image in interaction with the user).
- « La pensée virtuelle », Philippe QUEAU, 1993, Réseaux, n°61, CNET : = interesting text on the characteristics of virtual images. Philippe QUEAU is the founder of IMAGINA festival in Monte-Carlo about digital works (especially in 3D).
c)
References :
"Les enjeux de la numérisation des objets temporels", Bernard STIEGLER, in "Cinéma et dernières technologies","Ecrire pour l'interactivité", Daniel THIERRY, 1989, Réseaux, n° 33, CNET
Bernard STIEGLER describes digitalization of videos as a process which makes it possible to delinearize the accesses, the audiovisual program becoming a document which can be browsed as a book with tools like table of contents, index (see the current case of the DVD for example, with many menus and options to select only parts of the film) but also search engines. Audio-visual flow (like in TV channel) is thus delinearized. The digital videos can be declined on several formats (duration, film editing…) and supports (cinema, TV, mobile phone, Internet…). We can thus access to clickable audiovisual contents or browse among them.
Daniel THIERRY worked on writing of interactive films, equivalent to the interactive literary fiction which has been studied by Jean CLEMENT in France. According to him, three structures are possible in interactive videos:
- horizontal one = strictly random and not hierarchical structure, simple catalog readable like a book with selection in a menu;
- arborescent one = hierarchical basis based on a scenario, offering various choices at certain times of the history
- matric one = conditioned by a systematic analysis of the navigational context (history of navigation, previous paths…).
According to these cases, author can thus cut out the audio-visual document in more or less modular modules, with fixed or variable entry and exit (connectable with only one or several other modules). This kind of interactive writing is less adapted to fiction (because it induces a poverty in the scenario) but is more interesting for documentary, informative or ludic films. The author must manage the dialog between the audio-visual contents and the spectator which will interact with them.
Complementary links to consult :
- www.anonymes.net = 3 examples of interactive videos. You must understand how to interact with parts of the film...
- www.nicolasclauss.com/ = website of the multimedia artist Nicolas CLAUSS, who proposes some online and interactive creations with video and animations.

d)
References :
"Transposition de l'encyclopédie de l'imprimé au multimédia. Application à la cible jeunesse", Marianne DUMET, 1998, thèse de Doctorat en Sciences de l'Information et de la Communication, Département Hypermédia, Université Paris 8"NTIC et nouvelles formes d'écriture", Franck GHITALLA, 1999, Communication et langages, n° 119, éditions RETZ"Métaphore et multimédia", Gérard POULAIN, 1996, La Documentation Française

Definitions
According to Franck GHITALLA, new technologies of information and communication brought new practices of writing based on semiotic heterogeneity (texts, images, sounds, videos), space-time organization of a writing device, multiple paths, an intrinsically variable text. The act of reading is carried out in a complex environment, in true handling spaces making reading a technically dynamic process. The fundamental characteristics of multimedia writing are thus:
- semiotic heterogeneity = various sensory formats exploited, immediate modes of representation, symbolic and abstracted systems
- a multiple topography = hypertext links, multiple windows on screen
- an ideographic dimension = direct simulation of the conceptual elements (for instance : charts, diagrams…)
- a dynamic configuration = exchanges of signs, scenarisation, handling potentialities of modification or recombining of consulted spaces.
According to Marianne DUMET, multimedia writing is based on a syntax using visual page layout, movement, action, setting in scene of knowledge and a new form given to the text. The visual page layout uses visual tables (synthetic views : maps, synopses…), images’ scenarios (succession of steps, varied points of view …), a dynamic visual composition (interactive visual representations, dynamic layout of images…).
Syntax by movement uses several figures :
- animation of visual representations = “image-relations” (to show interactions between knowledge : plays of appearance/disappearance of elements on screen…), “image-time” (to present deformations, transformations, displacements of elements…), “image-action” (to show an operation)
- animation of text = to make it more expressive, to guide the screen reading, to express importance of something, to call with the reading…
- animation of signs = visual assistance to the understanding (transformation…).
Syntax by action is based on concept of interactive model, which approaches alive and easy to handle models, making it possible for the user to change/move elements on screen and to see immediately consequences of it (displacement of objects, permutation of signs…). The multimedia writing thus offers an active pedagogy making act directly on knowledge to discover its components and its functioning. It also offers multiple points of view by the action : juxtaposed (in the same screen) and superposed ones (on several frameworks or windows open in the screen), answering themselves or appearing in various contexts :
- points of view related to perception = zooms (free or programmed), run of images, images to be discovered by graphic treatments (routings, appearances by layers, rollovers…), point of view’s modification on objects (QuickTime VR or VRML sequences …).
- points of view attached to reference frameworks = to give various points of view on the same topic.
Multimedia also makes it possible to carry out or make experiments : construction, deconstruction of objects or abstract representations, various measurements, experiments to be made…
Computer' screen thus opens on a virtual space where each object can give place to an event, giving a living aspect to the scene and creating a dynamics of reading.
Lastly, the text endorses a new role, it can be accompanied by a voice which comes to support the written text, to comment images, to tell stories or to cite someting.

Roles of the media
According to Gérard POULAIN, media can play various roles in an online (website) or offline (CD-ROM) multimedia application :
- text = to provide great quantities of information, to guide the users, to write reports
- sound = to add a presence and a context to information, to draw user’s attention
- graphics = to show statistics, to try out ideas, to represent virtual objects, to indicate relations in space
- still images = to illustrate detailed informations, to represent pictorial information, to show photographs
- cartoons = to show evolutions of objectives, to create imaginary characters, to express imaginary actions
- animated images (videos) = to illustrate pictorial or socio-cultural information, to show real actions.

Complementary links to consult :
- examples of Quicktime VR sequences : online virtual visit of a boat (= click on diagram zones on the left in order to open QTVR sequences, zoom in and out inside the sequences with the menu bar at the bottom of the sequence, turn on the left- or right-hand side while clicking the image).
- example of a famous Web site exploiting the multimedia writing very well (syntax by movement and action, dynamic presentation, new form given to the text…) : Leo Burnett (= navigation and activation of parts and contents of the site are done by various movings of your mouse cursor in the screen and by clicking on titles, the screens are true settings in scene of contents, according to user’s actions). I recommend you to take time to browse the whole parts of this website !