In 1995, “Patchwork Girl” by American author Shelley Jackson was released, which today is a paradigmatic example in the field of digital literature. Its value can be found both in the fact that the work is consistently and qualitatively executed hypertext and a redefinition of ‘old’ media – literature – using new technology, as well as because “Patchwork Girl” leads to questions about what a person is, how their perception functions, how it can be related to the creation of notions about traditional and seemingly ‘eternal’ values, as well as opportunities to change these notions.
In 2007 the literary researcher and lecturer at the University of Amsterdam, Manuela Rossini***, the co-creative director and the first resident in the Latvian-based Electronic Text + Textiles Project (e-t+t) presented the lecture “Creating the Posthuman Subject: Shelley Jackson’s ‘Patchwork Girl’”, approaching the work as a prism through which the thoughts, ideas and activities of our contemporary Western civilisation can be viewed.
Iliana Veinberga: What is the traditional perception of the concepts ‘text’ and ‘textuality’? What is usually understood by these ideas?
Manuela Rossini: Traditionally the word ‘text’ is understood as a non-material, mental construct which has been created by a genius. In this case ‘textuality’ relates only and solely to style, feelings, thoughts and opinions, which are evaluated as the main components of a literary work. The origins of these abstract notions about text and textuality can be found in the 17th century, when they were closely entwined with the idea of the author as an AUTHORitative and independent being; this idea in turn served as a tool to define the boundaries of so-called ‘real’ literature. ‘Real’ literature is ‘pure’, that is, it has no physical manifestation and it is not associated with anything material, not even with paper or ‘dirty’ ink.
This dematerialised understanding of text is very closely related to gender because it relates back to the idea of the manly, masculine spirit as a creator – who gives birth to books – while feminine creation is associated only with a woman’s physical body that is, giving birth to a child.
The most important is the assumption that a text is the product of one unique mind, which does not recognise the collaboration of writers, readers, designers, publishers, printing presses and other technical aids in the creation of a literary work.
I.V.: How does Shelley Jackson’s “Patchwork Girl” change the traditional understanding of text and its writing?
M.R.: As this work is created with so-called lexia or text boxes, which are joined to each other by many links, then the text appears as a network, or, in Shelley Jackson’s own words, as a “fabric of relationships” or – more precisely – “a piece of fabric made by sewing together many small pieces” (patchwork). In this instance authorship is regarded as shared: the writer can compose fragments of text and compile these into a unified whole, through which the main character of the work, the person – in this instance the Patchwork girl – can only be revealed through the assistance of the computer and the active participation of the reader.
On a structural level – this is the most important – “Patchwork Girl” breaks the linearity of text – a feature which characterises a majority of published literary work, meaning that the story or so-called narrative has an introduction, body and conclusion. Hypertext does not follow this kind of linear order, although you could not assert, for example, that “Patchwork Girl” absolutely ignores linearity. It sooner demonstrates multilinearity: there are various ‘beginnings’, in place of the ‘body’ you encounter fragments and lines of text between these, and each ‘ending’ becomes a new beginning, which in turn leads again to a different ‘ending’. The creation of the ‘corpus’ of the text (the analogy of a person’s body) in this way promotes the understanding that sense, meaning, and identity are never rigid and unchanging, but are instead diverse and exist in a constant state of flux.
I.V.: Is this writing practise really as innovative as it sounds or does it also have some historical basis? What legitimates this kind of writing?
M.R.: Many contemporary authors have experimented with non-linear narratives. It is possible that the most well-known example is the novel “Hopscotch” by Argentinean writer Julio Cortázar ,with its ‘open-ended’ structure and opportunity to ‘jump’ between sections in place of linear reading. In an interview Shelley Jackson tells of how she has always composed her written works as hypertexts, but has done so without digital media: “I have never written anything from the beginning to the end, it is always in a circular fashion or in fragments which I later put together into a unified text.”
Therefore it is possible to conclude that it is the technology of execution which is new, not the practice itself.
Jackson was motivated to use digital media in her work because of her wish to make this type of writing clearer and easier to understand, which is composed of linked fragments and is created without an earlier plan, as well as the wish to allow the writing to appear unencumbered, with the mediation of a computer, instead of forcing a static version on the reader.
I.V.: Reading and reading comprehension – how does the above-mentioned writing practise influence these two concepts?
M.R.: In hypertext reading also becomes a kind of writing, because the reader is the one who has to construct the storyline and characters, using the parts, pieces and snippets that are provided. As is said by the woman-monster: “If you wish to see everything as a whole, then you will have to sew me together yourself?” As far as the discussion of textual meaning and understanding goes, it must be noted that the way in which the text contains meaning also changes what it means. The most important issue in electronic textuality and its use is the understanding that navigation in the digital space doesn’t lead us to some hidden secret meaning or truth, but instead the process generates meaning itself. Namely the range of functions of a computer programme influences the way in which we read a text and through this, also the message the text holds for us. Reading therefore becomes the acceptance of the activities offered by hypertext and its use or precisely the opposite – its disuse. Furthermore the interface design, digital graphics, including colour, font, dimensions, animation and other material components are just as significant as the grammatical structure and punctuation of a text when creating a digital literary work.
I.V.: What important questions and themes are addressed by “Patchwork Girl”?
M.R.: Many! (laughs). Firstly I viewed this work as a paradigmatic example of the way in which digital media can portray, also construct new forms of subjectivity, which appear in a contemporary real world.
The Patchwork girl is a monster created by Dr Frankenstein, from Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel “Frankenstein”, but he decides to destroy her before she comes to life. In her own work, Jackson collects body parts once belonging to others – women, men, also animals – and decides to ‘resurrect’ the Patchwork girl instead. In this sense “Patchwork Girl” suggests a model of how to imagine identity outside the socially defined, binary logic of ‘I/other’, ‘woman/man’, ‘nature/culture’, and ‘human/animal’. A human here is viewed not as a unified and autonomous subject, but as an assembly – intersubjectivity and intercorporeality replace the traditional assumptions of identity.
I.V.: How is it possible to speak of the connection between the ‘body’ of a text and the body of a person?
M.R.: Firstly it is important to emphasise that there is not only a connection between symbolic, biological and technological bodies, but – for ethical reasons – also differences. Namely, that a car is not ‘alive’ in the same way that, for example, an organic being is alive. We can’t quickly and easily change the colour of our skin or sex, although the creation of a textual body always limits some conventions and forms of binary explanation.
Turning to the textual and ‘biological’ body in “Patchwork Girl”, it can be seen that, similarly to Jackson’s other works, the text and body are ‘stitched together’ in a monstrous way, with the aim to create a new body: in both cases a new and in some ways foreign formation is created from old and familiar parts. Jackson takes fragments of text which are written by other philosophers and writers in order to create her own textual ‘body’, the same way in which she – with the help of Mary Shelly and the computer – sews together various body parts, lent from ‘other’ beings, to co-create her own ‘I’, in which there are no hierarchical differences between itself and others, there are only dependent relationships on both sides.
I.V.: What role do digital technologies play in all of this?
M.R.: The hybrid nature of humans allows one to search for parallels with how a hypertext organism works. Digital technology makes the textual body diverse: actions are divided between the writer, computer and reader, and non-stop traffic occurs between these organic and inorganic bodies. We reach the text through the body (digital graphics), and we travel back from this text undergoing a three-dimensional experience and reinforcing the feeling that the readable text really has a body, unlike reading two-dimensional text: printed words in a book.
With hypertext a computer no longer functions only as an instrument which can be used by a human writer or reader, but also acts as an active participant in the creative process. This interaction of ‘machine/human’ is one of the versions of how one can think about relations outside the traditional hierarchy.
I.V.: In your lecture you compared reading to the process of weaving or twisting, drawing parallels with textiles. Why? Doesn’t that confuse the issue even more?
M.R.: The link between text and textiles is not so unnatural. The word ‘text’ stems from the Latin textum, which refers to woven fabric, netting, material, also composition – how things are spoken, also how they are written. Looking back in history you can see that humanity is constantly conceptualising the world as a network that has ‘coded’ materials with various kinds of texts and non-verbal signs. In my case I pay attention to Roland Barthes’s emphasis, that text is like a canvas, which can be made through ‘regular weaving’ and in which man ‘dissolves’, instead of existing as a separate individual, divided from others. These are powerful analogies between twisting, weaving, intertextuality, intercorporeality and intersubjectivity, which are also the central concepts of “Patchwork Girl”.
I.V.: Currently this seems more like intellectual speculation. Is there some practical justification of the necessity to speak about a person in this way?
M.R.: You are right – initially the antihumanists challenged the ideal of the enlightened man; and this was basically an intellectual process which was motivated by atrocities and the denial of basic human rights which were legitimised and carried out in the name of this ideal. There is still an acute need not only to think about, but also to redefine the concept of ‘humans’, if we wish to value and be just towards all living creatures, which have historically been excluded, have suffered and continue to suffer under the androcentrism, anthropocentrism and ethnocentrism of the dominant ‘human’ paradigm.
The second important reason why we should talk about the necessity to be posthuman, not human, is related to the influence of biotechnology furthered by information and global capitalism. Namely, that the boundaries between humans, animals and machines are actually being broken down: our inability to exist without computers or mobile telephones; the replacement of body parts with metal or animal organs, etc. Of course, the boundaries have always been doubtful, although in the era of techno science we experience our lives even more radically as cyborgs or hybrids of humans-animals or humans-machines.
Many people fear the possible posthuman world: however, in my opinion, the nostalgic defence of nature of essentialist humans is also no comfort. I would rather follow Jackson and create texts that have a positive view of our habit-forming technologisation, recognising its diverse forms of humanity, which are based on the ethical principles of coherence and sustainability.
I.V.: What is the future outlook for the posthuman world view? Will this leave some real effect?
M.R.: Unfortunately I can’t look into the future, but I wish to express my hopes for changes which also motivate me to work in the so-called critical posthumanism both theoretically and practically. Posthuman thinking and action accents the mutual corporeal connection between the living entity – the human, the animal – and machinery with the world. Using the metaphor: we are all in the same boat, and it would be better to row together, because each of our individual rescues is dependent on cooperation. Therefore my largest hopes for the future are that this type of world view, and more importantly, action to create a world in which we have the realisation that we are nevertheless living a ‘patchwork existence’ would create more empathy, intimacy, and solidarity in all the inhabitants of our planet. Dream on! (laughs)
More realistically speaking, the sign of posthumanism to a large degree is related to the main positions of e-t+t, that is, to improve understanding about text as a result of the influence of various forces (not always human), as well as, what is more important, to unite creative individuals in transdisciplinary cooperation, who are currently working mostly in separate institutions – writers, artists, scientists, academics, programmers, designers etc.
* http://www.ineradicablestain.com/stain.html
** http://www.amazon.com/Patchwork-Girl-Shelly-Jackson/dp/1884511236
*** http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/m.s.rossini/
**** http://www.electronicbookreview.com/public/e-t-t.html