Comments on: from originality to remix

By: Kathleen Fitzpatrick

Kathleen Fitzpatrick — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 16:36:02 +0000

Well, as you can see, the frequency of my replies has fallen off more than a little already. This version of the text will in fact be a persistent artifact — preserved as long as I can keep the software working — and so I hope to preserve the process by which the text developed. At some point I may find myself needing to post something saying “I’m not in this text anymore; I’m over here working on this new thing,” but I definitely want the discussion to continue — it may just morph into a discussion amongst readers rather than feedback from readers to the author.

By: carrual

carrual — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 02:04:29 +0000

I echo David’s question, as your analysis here prompted immediately this point about the book.

By: Paul F. Gehl

Paul F. Gehl — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 02:26:27 +0000

This note prompts me to ask what you see as the future of the CommentPress version of your book. If, as I understood from the introductory matter, you will be publishing it in print form, do you also imagine that it will be a permanent (or even semi-permanent) on-line artifact as well? And if so, will it continue to invite comment? So that your work on it never ends? Talk about intensive, time-consuming scholarship!

By: Natalia Cecire

Natalia Cecire — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 02:57:57 +0000

This talk of open and closed texts puts me in mind of Lyn Hejinian’s essay “The Rejection of Closure” (1983) which is not about a medium but about a mode of writing. “In the ‘open text’…all the elements of the work are maximally excited”; the open text “is open to the world and particularly to the reader.” It seems as though you’re looking for something on the level of the medium that Language poets were looking for on the level of poetics.

By: David Parry

David Parry — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 13:08:38 +0000

Yeah one thing we have to consider here is how much more work this kind of scholarship involves, coding, building databases, or just embedding links in writing. This is another reason to value collaborative work, as it is difficult for someone to build/write a quality online production without significant outside help.

By: Kathleen Fitzpatrick

Kathleen Fitzpatrick — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 20:30:45 +0000

The primary reason was just that I ran out of time in building the book — not a great reason, but one that speaks to the question of labor that comes up later. This is a good reminder, though, to go back and see where links and illustrations might usefully be added…

By: David Parry

David Parry — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 20:20:16 +0000

Is there a reason this text doesn’t have any links? Or at least any that I can find which link outside its borders? How would this text change if The Grey Album linked to a YouTube video of one of the remixes, or better yet a torrent site to download the album (which would as I understand be illegal).

By: Kathleen Fitzpatrick

Kathleen Fitzpatrick — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 20:17:46 +0000

The difference may be a bit precious, but I’d probably put it something like this: when I buy a book, I’m of course buying a copy of a book, but (unless something has gone wrong) one identical to every other copy out there, part of an authorized edition assumed to be static and complete. When my browser loads a web page, on the other hand, it makes a copy, and then in fact interprets the copy of the code that it has made in way that could well differ from any other copy out there, depending on my browser and the settings and plugins I’ve added on to it. So there’s something far more fluid in this manner of copying, as there’s an interposed act of rewriting between the code on the server and the web page I actually see…

By: David Parry

David Parry — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 20:11:49 +0000

Of course the text really isn’t “finished,” or it wouldn’t be possible to have second editions which update the text for contemporary times, or corrections, or the “edited with a new introduction.”

By: David Parry

David Parry — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 20:09:25 +0000

“the web page I open in my browser window is never the document itself, but a copy of the document, and, in fact, my browser’s representation of a copy of the document”
How is this structurally different from a book which is only a copy of the book, or a word processor document which is just a representation of code. I think it is, but I am not clear here what you take the difference to be.

By: Kathleen Fitzpatrick

Kathleen Fitzpatrick — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 04:54:37 +0000

I think you’re right — it’s in keeping with the kinds of curatorial work I’m interested in being taken seriously as a mode of scholarly production…

By: amandafrench

amandafrench — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 03:25:31 +0000

I feel that there’s a ghost hovering over this section and the last: Wikipedia. Wikis, of course, are open to even deeper revision than that “in the form of comments.” Of course, I’d hate to say that you *must* make the ritual move of discussing Wikipedia when you talk about collaborative authorship, and while one could argue that Wikipedia-editing ought to be considered at least a minor form of countable scholarship, making that argument would probably detract from your focus here. Maybe an acknowledgeatory (I just made that word up) note is in order.