We've quoted him as saying that interactivity compromises solemnity. That assertion is a strong thread throughout his recent book, The Electronic Word, but is one of the main points in the chapter, "Digital Rhetoric and the Digital Arts." The quote, however, actually comes from the version of that chapter that he published in Myron Tuman's Literacy Online: The Promise and Peril of Writing and Reading with Computers called "Digital Rhetoric: Theory, Practice, and Property." He makes a slight revision in his own book. Here are both versions, in case anyone is interested in an analytical comparison.
Doesn't electronic text often practice a similar comic reversal? The fundamental motivational structure of electronic text is as comic as print is serious. We can illustrate this reversed polarity of seriousness with another familiar pre-electronic icon, Duhamp's most famous "Readymade, the mustachioed Mona Lisa. The title of this work, the letters L.H.O.O.Q., if pronounced phonetically in French yield--learned commentators tell us--the words "Elle a chaud au cul" or, in fractured French, "This chick has hot pants." What, in the process, has happened to "Mona Baby"? First of all, she seems to have undergone a devastatingly effective and economical sex-change operation. By thus desecrating Perfection, Duchamp has elictited a sexual ambituity in the picture we had not seen before and could come to see in no other way. Outrageous Art is Didactic Criticism once again. Second, Duchamp calls our attention to a powerful canonical constraint. The timeless perfection which Mona Baby represents condemns us to passivity. No interaction allowed. Canonical vision moves in only one direction, does justice to an external reality that exists independent of us, but never recreates that reality in the act of perceiving it. The traditional idea of an artistic canon brings with it, by the very immortality it strives for, both a passive beholder and a passive reality--waiting to be perceived, the best that has been thought, said, or painted, perhaps, but unchangeable in its perfection, a goddess we can adore but never ask out to play. And so Duchamp asks her out to play. Criticism again. And, again, not so much an attack on the artistic canon as a meditation on the psychology of perception that canon implies. One perceptive critic has called this Readymade full of "quiet savagery." Not at all; playful didacticism rather. Interactivity compromises solemnity--just as it does electronic text. If we need a tutelary goddess for digital writing and reading, Mona Mustache is just the girl for the job. (pp. 229-230)
Doesn't electronic text often practice a similar comic reversal? The intrinsic motival structure of electronic text is as comic as print is serious. Let me illustrate this reversed polartiy of seriousness by alluding to another familiar pre-electronic icon, Duchamp's most famous "Readymade," his mustachioed Mona Lisa. The title of this work, the letters L.H.O.O.Q., if pronounced phonetically in French yield--learned commentators tell us--the words "Elle a chaud au cul" or, in somewhat fractured French, "This chick has hot pants." What, in the process, has happened to "Mona Baby"? First of all, she seems to have undergone a devastatingly effective and economical sex-change operation. By thus desecrating Perfection, Duchamp has elictited a sexual ambituity in the picture we had not seen before and could learn to see in no other way. Outrageous art as didactic criticism once again. Second, Duchamp calls our attention to a powerful canonical constraint. The timeless perfection which Mona Baby represents condemns us to passivity. No interaction allowed. Canonical vision moves in only one direction, does justice to an external reality that exists independent of us, but never recreates that reality in the act of perceiving it. The traditional idea of an artistic canon brings with it, by the very "immortality" it strives for, both a passive beholder and a passive reality--waiting to be perceived, the best that has been thought, said, or painted, perhaps, but unchangeable in its perfection, a goddess we can adore but never ask out to play. And so Duchamp asks her out to play. Criticism again. And, again, not so much an attack on the artistic canon as a meditation on the psychology of perception that canon implies. One perceptive critic has called this Readymade full of "quiet savagery." Not at all; playful didacticism rather. Interactivity deflates solemnity--even as it does electronic text. If we need a tutelary goddess for digital writing and reading, Mona Mustache is the perfect wo/man, or god/dess, for the job. (p. 38)I probably wouldn't bother displaying two so similar paragraphs if not for the fact that I was so taken with the phrase in the earlier version and saw it changed later. "Deflates" is a more evocative word and more dramatic in the effect it suggests, but I harbor a certain loyalty to "compromises." It suggests that interactivity's effect on solemnity is less brutal but perhaps more insidious. "Compromise" often refers to agreements that find some mutually dis/satisfactory ground. Or it can refer to the degradation of integrity. The question is, are we talking about the degradation of (print) solemnity's facade or its structure? Is the dissolving facade revealing the structure beneath for the first time in centuries, or is the structure itself beginning to crumble. Or both? ¤