Stephen+CAP_Cayley

John Cayley, "Time Code Language: New Media Poetics and Programmed Signification."  pp. 307-333.

Stephen Zimmerly


 * Overview**

Cayley differentiates between the kinds of “code,” and the uses of “code,” or “writing code:” he gives five ways to “write code.” The first three function in similar ways, generally adhering to the academic understanding of writing—the code and its processes are evident on “the surface,” but not necessarily during the process of writing. His fourth and fifth ways to write code deal with multilayering, simultaneity, and the effects and consequences of coding—as opposed to the elementary understanding of what coding produces.

Cayley applies these concepts to a new definition and application of “hypertext.” Looking first at some work by Jim Rosenberg, he highlights how Rosenberg’s work “cannot be read unless its underlying codes—the ones that reveal the constituent layers—are running in a waiting state, ready to be evoked” (320). Cayley postulates that Rosenberg’s work requires the readers to restructure their understanding of time, as they work through the multiple layers or text and code.

Finally, Cayley positions code and layering within Ted Nelson’s theory of the “ongoing braid,” an idea capturing the evolutionary process of a text, including “every textual event” within a text—“all writing, everything written, everything inscribed as language” (323). Cayley asks the same questions we’ve asked all semester: can a work be printed? Can a work be printed //out//? (324)

He ends by suggesting that code allows time to be “built” into the text (327), stating that code, although hidden, “leaves traces on the surface of literary culture that cannot be denied or ignored” (328).


 * Commentary**

It takes a while to get through Cayley’s article, but it is relatively accessible once you get into it. Some of his points could be trimmed away, such as the sections on “Punctuation Colon Programming,” and “Temporal and Literal Institutions.” Although Cayley uses these sections to build upon his main points, they could easily be skipped or removed without a major loss of understanding.

The idea that text, as created/influenced by code and code-writing, is an ongoing evolutionary process has been fundamental to our own understanding of digital lit—even if we haven’t used that precise definition until now. Cayley chooses to use hypertext in his argument, first stating that “classic” hypertext is merely a “instantaneous replacement of one composed fragment of intergral text by another” (317). In other words, Cayley believes classic hypertext to be something of a digital lit pretender—it only gives the impression of a digital process. His illustration of Rosenberg’s work and Nelson’s theory give flesh to the idea of process—code is working both visibly and invisibly in Rosenberg.


 * For Discussion**

The most interesting part of Cayley’s piece is his highlighting of the many functions of code—visible or not. In one sense, Cayley argues that the use of code in proper hypertext works literally captures the time and creativity used to create the work—that the work always exists as a process, even when it is “finished.”

Considering the pieces we’ve studied this semester, where would you place them on a scale of “finished work” to “ongoing-braid-process?”

Where have we seen code working? Where have we missed code’s influence—where did we skip right over it?

How does the idea of code creating time and code processes influence your own understanding of digital texts?