Multimedia
“One can begin only from a situation that is always already given,” says Cheah and that seems to be the case in the hypertextual document. Usually a hypertext document has neither beginning nor end. While some of them can have a presentation or starting node (page), when surfing the web is very common to arrive to a document without passing through those nodes. That is one of the distinctive features of hypertext: reading can start from any node. In a similar way, a hypertext document usually do not have an end. The end is not determined by the author, but by the reader which is the one that puts end to the document: a pragmatic end defined only in terms of when the reader leaves the document. Therefore, a hypertext document can have multiple ends, several readers, or even the same reader at different times, can define different ends for a document. This fact runs counter the civilization of the book, which is one of the beginning and end.
Hypertext questions the notion of an end not only in the process reading, but also in that of writing. This can be thought in two levels. First, (as we have seen) the writer no longer needs to puts an end to his document. Second, he/she can also rescind from ending the process of writing. Because the document does not have an end, the author can always keep working on it. He/she can add or delete nodes to the document, or re-write any part of it. That is why it is very common to find “Under Construction” icons on Internet documents. There are even some documents that say: “Always Under Construction” making evident the fact that on hypertext writing is not longer concerned with the end. This is an extremely important characteristic of hypertext. It is a dynamic open text, it is a technology of writing which provides for both: fixation and change. The text is always moving, and hypertext is about providing more speed to that movement. Hypertext’s speed and openness are, therefore, linked to post-structuralist and deconstructivist approaches to writing. Hypertext is a practice of deconstruction. Meaning on it is in function of the tension between the fixity and the malleability of the text. The malleability is given to it by the fact that it is not finished and it moves along different nodes. The sign could also read: “Under De-Construction”.
Other important characteristics of Hypertext are:
Hypertext and Post-Structuralism
The Author, the Reader and the Book