In Winter Break, I had the chance to read Yuval Noah Harari’s 21st Lessons for the 21st Century. Although the book’s focus is on the prospective effects of technological advancements on the structure of our society as a whole, one argument that got me thinking about the importance of stories in our lives was that “humans think in stories rather than in facts, numbers, or equations, and the simpler the story, the better.” As we continue to develop and advance new technologies, we will continue to share our complex experiences in simpler forms with the help of increased interactivity and connectivity.
In Electronic Literature, the author discusses how the rise of internet and interactive web browsers led to the hypertext movement, during which multiple authors explored novel techniques to tell their stories. Interactive via the Netscape Navigator, My Boyfriend Came Back From the War allows the reader to progress through a story of a woman and her soldier boyfriend. What stroke me in this piece was the effective use of HTML elements such as hyperlinks and images to engage the user with the conversation that takes place between two characters of the story. In a similar fashion, my body – a wunderkammer presents the author’s physical and mental insecurities through the links on body parts that takes the user to a narrative.
Interacting with these early forms of hypertext in 2020, I predict that works like My Boyfriend Came Back From the War are under the threat of becoming obsolete. In Electronic Literature, Rettberg touches on Moulthrop’s Reagan Library, which is defunct due to QuickTime VR being no longer supported by Apple. Recently, Mark Zuckerberg made the bold claim that there would be a breakthrough in virtual and augmented reality glasses within the upcoming decade. As these technologies will be adapted, there is a chance that we will no longer use web browsers. In that scenario, what happens to the earlier works of hypertext like My Boyfriend Came Back From the War still remains as an unanswered question.
As a virtual reality developer and researcher, I could imagine a revised version of My Boyfriend Came Back From the War, where the user interacts with the story within the woman’s self-avatar. The user then can interact with objects in this dark room and could engage in a conversation with the boyfriend through voice-recognition, but would these kinds of revisions be welcomed by the creator of early hypertext pieces? Would the authors feel the need to revise their work to keep the authenticity of their stories? Is there even a need to revise and revisit these literary pieces? Only time could tell.