The cutting edge even the print heads can't avoid...
There’s no easy way to go around the conceptual mess regarding the so-called new media. The usual theoretical approaches to it are either tautological non-heuristic ways or somewhat montypythonesque – defining digital or networked and programmable media as something completely different – be that favourite other theatre, cinema, comics, or misread an badly applied continental philosophy. Cybertext theory is more interested in what a medium does than how it should be called. This kind of approach could be called a functional theory of media, and it is exactly what the essays in this book all do. Cybertextuality is understood here as a perspective allowing us to make elementary sense of the medium and start talking across traditions, practices, conventions and technologies. With a well balanced mix of scholarly articles this book hopes to create a broad forum for cybertext discussion, in which practitioners, developers, designers, users, critics, and scholars may participate. “The Cybertext Yearbook 2000 is a very timely and engaging volume. I do recommend the volume both to those who begin their adventure with cybertextuality and those who are ready to move beyond the hyper and into the cyber.” (Pawel Frelik, American Book Review)