My pen scratched at the paper, stalling, leaving only pressured inscriptions where I intended ink. Frustrated, I had to admit how cleverly my dilemma materialized, or “instantiated” as Hayles might say, the central considerations of the work. The glossy paper was not at all conducive to note-taking with a pen or a pencil, so I was left with the yellow highlighter, margin stars, and little to none of my usual chatty insertions. It was the same sort of interaction that I have with a computer screen, except that I was holding a text which lead me to project certain expectations on the book, such as a reading experience that would be similar to innumerable other reading experiences rendered by texts superficially identical to the one I was holding. But Hayles jarred me out of my expectations on the second page of the preface when I first attempted to write a note in the margin, setting me up for the introduction of “Media-Specific Analysis” through the interaction with this particular medium that had just occurred.

I found Hayles’ ideas fascinating, and when she states, “…that we are not so much racing toward a final implosion as participating in an ecology in which one medium is remediated in another, only to be remediated in turn” (5,6), I could not help but think of Nietzsche’s idea of the eternal recurrence. This association was underscored later when Hayles talks about “ergodic texts” which were defined as “those literary systems that require ‘nontrivial effort’ to allow the user to traverse them” (28). As Nietzsche’s aphoristic texts, could, I think, be called “ergodic texts,” I am intrigued by the possibilities that such an association opens up. Are computer games the aphoristic texts of today? Are the primary dialogues of learning going to transcend the traditional Socratic methods and take place on a new level where the text is a hyper medium and the interaction is more of one between user/medium than teacher/student? Or will the new mediums serve as merely one of the many interactions that have always constituted learning?

And beyond the realm of learning, how is interaction between people going to continue to change as mediated by machines? The development of machines as modes of communication has never been more dramatic than over the past few years, and as use of these machines in the form of cell phones, Instant Messenger, e-mail, etc. transmute communication into an interface with an electronic screen rather than a human face, what will be the material consequences? Hayles states, “Focusing on materiality allows us to see the dynamic interactivity through which a literary work mobilizes its physical embodiment in conjunction with its verbal signifiers to construct meanings in ways that implicitly construct the user/reader as well” (130, 131). Hayles makes a fascinating argument regarding electronic hypertext as an important consideration in relation to pedagogy, criticism, and theory, broadening to address the materiality of every medium of communication and the effect of that materiality in constructing meaning through its interaction with the reader/user. While I am very interested in these ideas as a theoretical construct, I am even more interested in observing how they play out in the dialogues, interactions, and interfacing of everyday life as people continue to communicate, struggle to make meaning, understand, and find their interactions multiply mediated – or if they even see the mediation at all. Perhaps for many the construction of the user/reader is silent, unconscious, and completely unrecognized. So then, does recognition of the interactions of the media/user create a heightened experience? The endless questions….

-Cassie