Ars Hypertextualia (original) (raw)

Babel’s library is a metaphor for the limits, or infinities, of the world and the knowledge it encompasses. The computer, however, has occasioned a shift in the world, complicating the relation of text to books on the one hand, and to memory on the other. In pre-literate societies, that which we now refer to as the “text” existed solely within the realm of memory, inside our heads. With the invention of writing, the text moved to the manuscript, but, like the discrete work of art, was a rare and precious object. The technology of printing transformed the text into an exchangeable commodity, ever more plentiful over the centuries. And today, we live in vast libraries yet have almost no access to the text we need.