New Possibilities in Audiovisual Ergodic Narratives

Espen J. Aarseth defined in his work Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature (1997) ergodic literature as one in which “a non-trivial effort is required to allow the reader to pass through the text”. Based on the analysis of a representative body of narratives found within the ergodic spectrum, this article aims to bring order to the classification of ergodic narratives; and contribute to the development of two possibilities of this type of narrative: transmedial and raccontian. Transmedial ergodic literature takes into account the new media and the latest technologies available to the teleuser in order to transform his limited role from decision making to an acting role in the narrative, becoming an off-stage character. The raccontian proposal is characterized by the application of alterations in the hidden layer of a storyline using the Schrödinger cat effect. Ergodic decision-making dynamics are applied in racconto scenes (Rondolino e Tomasi 1995) to manipulate the timeline prior to the story world’s starting point. This allows a greater diversification of outcomes by varying elements that usually remain inflexible and truncated. Two proposals that therefore affect different areas of transmedia communication, as we will demonstrate in this article.

Interioritas Ruang Gerak Membaca Literatur Fiksi Ergodik House Of Leaves

Ergodic fiction literature is different from other fiction literature. Ergodic literature elements determine the space of the reader. It affects the reader to move that is not limited to the hand and eye movements, but also spatial movements of other limbs. This paper discusses the interiority that occurs behind the body space of readers of ergodic fiction literature. Through a qualitative analysis of the mapping of body space in reading the ergodic literature of Mark Z Danielewski’s House of Leaves (2000), the result shows that elements of ergodic fiction such as narration, nodes, options, multiple paths, and peritext are part of the interiority of space.

Jak czytać planszówki? Gry planszowe zorientowane na narrację a powieści hipertekstowe

How to Read Board Games: The Similarities between Narrative-Oriented Board Games and Hypertext Novels In Storytelling in the Modern Board Game: Narrative Trends from the Late 1960s to Today, Marco Arnaudo describes how board games can create narratives by using the tools that ludology and postclassical narratology provide. The way narratives emerge from tabletop games is extremely unique and interactive: they are created through the synergy of the game rules, material components, and actions undertaken by players. Board games, treated as transmedial narrative systems in which the text is entangled in various relations with images, sounds, or the ludic aspects of games, can become an area of research in literary studies. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate that a scholar can effectively use knowledge of hypertext novels or ergodic literature to study narrative-oriented board games.

Adam Thirlwell’s Kapow! – the Montage Book

In the context of new times, new types of writing are created in order to meet the demands and wishes of the contemporary public. Printed books make no exception especially given that the reading of (especially printed) books has declined, despite variable statistics over the years. The book reading habits have thus decreased, so making printed books attractive to readers has been a matter of concern for contemporary writers like Adam Thirlwell, as illustrated in his novella Kapow! (2012). In line with the contemporary mind-set of revolutionizing the way in which narrative is presented and the technique in which it is composed, Thirlwell plays with readers’ conceptions and expectations about literary texts, producing a highly experimental work. Along with the montage/collage technique, which will be discussed in the present paper, such concepts as ergodicity, autofiction, metatextuality, paratextuality, metamodernism or altermodernism are central to a proper understanding of how Thirlwell’s novella works and represent highlights of the exploratory undertaking of this article. Keywords: ergodic literature; metamodernism; altermodernist fiction; contemporary autofiction; revolution of the text; intra-notes; collage/montage.