collecting QUOTES: exploring hyperfiction

I've been thinking about my project during the last week, and nothing really consistent came to my mind until a couple of days ago. Since I started studying "theory and practice of the hypertext" for my journalism degree, my interest in hyperfiction literature began to grow. The hyperfiction literature is a conceptual precedent for the hypertext theory in the literay productien field, along with many other areas such as the “exquisite corpse” and other pre-hypertextual text (also called "non-texts"), about which I'm pretty sure I will write on later posts.

I have always been fascinated about how one can create a fictional story in which the reader may seek “his own path", building a parallel work (that's what hyperfiction is). Besides this, I think it may be a good topic for my project as it there is a direct relation with the binomial "art" and "technology". The quotes I've collected so far, though I maybe get some more, are related to the theory and history of hypertext (since it was discovered in the mid-twentieth century), as well as I have others from authors who have launched into the hyperfiction literature adventure. I hope something will come out of all this!

QUOTES:

"Hypertext is a system of recovery and administration of electronic information that operates through non-linear forms" Michael M. Mirabito

"a sequence of links connecting internal and external electronic text snippets, creating a text experienced by the reader as a non-linear, or rather, as multilinear or multisequential" George P. Landow

"Our inability to access a database is largely due to the artificiality of index systems. When stored data of any kind, it is sorted alphabetically or numerically, and information may only be retrieved back following it by subcategories. It can only be in one place, unless you use dual systems, we need rules about which path we must follow to locate it, but the rules bother. Moreover, after finding a piece of information, we have to leave the system to re-enter and then keep following another path". Vannevar Bush

“'Holding' a fact or an idea our mind jumps instantly to the information below; it is suggested by association of ideas, following some intricate web of roads formed by cells in the brain". Vannevar Bush

"I understand hypertext as a non-sequential writing. The writing is traditionally sequential for two reasons. The first one is derived from the spoken speech, which is sequential, and the second is because the books are written to be read in a sequence ... however, the structures of the ideas are not sequential. They are intertwined in many directions. And when we write, we always try to relate things in a non-sequential form" Theodor H. Nelson.

"With hypertext, I mean a non-sequential writing, a text that forks, which allows the reader to choose and that are best read on a screen interactive. According to the popular notion, this is a series of text blocks connected together by links, which are different itineraries for the user. " T. Nelson

"My idea was to combine in any way the external links of Enquire with hypertext, networking schemes developed for the PRC. This external hypertext links made the difference between prison and freedom, darkness and light. You could make new networks to connect different computers, and all new systems would be able to escape and relate to others. In addition, anyone who was taking a glance at it could instantly add a new node connected to a new link" T. Nelson

"What was exciting for us in these type of productions was the certainty, better or for worse, they represented something that was not possible for the work of a single mind, and possessed a degree in exceptional quality" pursuit", so peculiar in the poetry" Andre Breton

"The are a lot of possibilities: some elections are simple, others sensible, some frivolous and some dangerous .... It is you who should take the decisions. You can read this book many times and get different results. Remember that you choose the adventure, you are the adventure. If you take a foolish decision, come back to the top and start again. There is no right or wrong choices, but many choices". Choose your own Adventure Book Series