The Vortex of Nonlinear and Segmental Reading
A bit more rambling. Let us not underestimate the very power of nonlinear and segmental reading. Consider the following images of the index visualizations of this Scalar book. I discuss visualizations in another section. Here, I'll talk about how index visualizations help us understand better nonlinear and segmental reading. An index visualization represents the Scalar book as rows of connected boxes, or segments, and each path, page, media, tag, annotation, and comment is depicted as a segmented box. In this visualization, clicking on any of the blue boxes, which represent the paths, causes to appear a dotted line that tracks and hence visualizes the direction of the selected path.
Notice that, in the following index visualizations of the Regular Path, Exposition Path, Interpretation Path, Experience Path, and Tailpiece Path, nonlinear lines which signify their respective paths materialize. Click on the "Details" box of the images to see them magnified. Regarding their zigzag-like orientations, a keen observer may find these lines reminiscent of Tristram Shandy's own line visualizations of the first four volumes of his digressive narrative. What does this resemblance suggest? It suggests that nonlinear and segmental reading is fundamentally digressive and diversionary. It furthermore insinuates that the the way to knowledge is not, as commonsense tells us, a straight line. Instead, the paths to knowledge unfold as curvatures, meanderings, deviations, coilings, and winding twists. Hyper and deep reading is a vortex, a "widening gyre." The apparent complexity of this vortex is observable in the following visualization where the index visuals of the Regular, Exposition, Interpretation, Experience, and Tailpiece Paths have been superimposed on each other. This is hyper and deep reading par excellence: look on and marvel at the intersecting, intercoiling, and interweaving lines. But instead of unravelling into "mere anarchy" as Yeats would say, the gyre of hyper and deep reading seems to sustain itself upon its condition of nonlinearity. There is order in this vortex, and this order is the order of well-designed paths. As long as we give our paths an intended purpose and governing thesis, then we create paths that serve as anchors, or gravity wells, keeping our digressing readers from drifting off into nebulas of ignorance.
Notice that, in the following index visualizations of the Regular Path, Exposition Path, Interpretation Path, Experience Path, and Tailpiece Path, nonlinear lines which signify their respective paths materialize. Click on the "Details" box of the images to see them magnified. Regarding their zigzag-like orientations, a keen observer may find these lines reminiscent of Tristram Shandy's own line visualizations of the first four volumes of his digressive narrative. What does this resemblance suggest? It suggests that nonlinear and segmental reading is fundamentally digressive and diversionary. It furthermore insinuates that the the way to knowledge is not, as commonsense tells us, a straight line. Instead, the paths to knowledge unfold as curvatures, meanderings, deviations, coilings, and winding twists. Hyper and deep reading is a vortex, a "widening gyre." The apparent complexity of this vortex is observable in the following visualization where the index visuals of the Regular, Exposition, Interpretation, Experience, and Tailpiece Paths have been superimposed on each other. This is hyper and deep reading par excellence: look on and marvel at the intersecting, intercoiling, and interweaving lines. But instead of unravelling into "mere anarchy" as Yeats would say, the gyre of hyper and deep reading seems to sustain itself upon its condition of nonlinearity. There is order in this vortex, and this order is the order of well-designed paths. As long as we give our paths an intended purpose and governing thesis, then we create paths that serve as anchors, or gravity wells, keeping our digressing readers from drifting off into nebulas of ignorance.
This page is a tag of:
| Previous page on path | Interpretation, page 5 of 13 | Next page on path |
Discussion of "The Vortex of Nonlinear and Segmental Reading"
Add your voice to this discussion.
Checking your signed in status ...