One of the main takeaways that I got from of chapter 3 by Scott Rutberg was that technological advancement has allowed the genre of hypertext fiction to develop and evolve. From our class on Monday, we established that Jorge Luis Borges’ story “Garden of Forking Paths” published in 1944 ,even though itself was not a hypertext fiction, served as inspiration for later hypertext fictions. One example of a hypertext fiction that used Borges’ story as inspiration was Staurt Moulthrop’s Victory Gardens published in 1992. Rutberg describes that Victory Gardens was a hypertext fiction with multilinear narrative structures and multiple potential outcomes, similar to Tu’ui Pen fiction novel in the Garden of Forking Paths. This grand undertaking of hypertext fiction was only made possible with the advancement of technology and different software. At this point in 1992, most hypertext fiction were published by Eastgate publishers and used Storyspace as their software of choice . As technology developed, so did the possibilities for hypertext fiction. It was now possible for hypertext text to become “playable media” with the invention of the web. Moulthrop describes this idea of hypertext fictions now being ‘playable media” instead of conventional point and click hypertext fiction. As mentioned in this chapter, with the invention of the web it was no longer necessary to be published by Eastgate publishers and it allowed these hypertext fictions to be overwritten and changed.
The hypertext fiction, Olia Lialina’s My Boyfriend Came Back from the War, that we were assigned for today’s readings was the first hypertext fiction to be published on the web. This hypertext fiction, for me, in a way demonstrates how the pictures and gifs help us understand the underlying context of the hyperfiction novel. My body-Wunderkammer published in 1997, was another hypertext fiction assigned to us. This hypertext fiction highlighted the multilinear component of hypertext novels. In this hypertext fiction when you clicked on a body part, it took you to page with a story about that particular body part. Then some specific words were hyperlinked and depending on the word you clicked on, it would take you to a page of another story. Lastly, I believe that both Olia Lialina’s My Boyfriend Came Back from the War and my body-Wunderkammer demonstrate the hypermedia elements that developed due to technological advancement.