Cummings eases his reader toward that material which they might consider somewhat more incomprehensible, beginning with an outline of those principles on which the TEI was founded. Having done so, he begins to introduce more overtly technical elements, but to the author’s credit, he always keeps such details within the context of the piece. Cummings refrains from losing sight of the central issue, the study of literature, refraining from the provision of irrelevant technicality, a trap that many commentators who possess expertise in this field can often fall into.
Where the language does become increasingly technical, Cummings alleviates any possible conceptual difficulties by providing relevant coding examples. In doing so, he presents his piece as somewhat daunting upon first glance, but when examined more closely, it turns out to be far more accessible than similar accounts of standardisation in electronic literature.
Throughout the article, Cummings supports the need for standardisation, but provides a balanced discussion in relation to the strengths and weaknesses of the TEI. However, as is alluded to by the author, such weaknesses can be addressed by the evolutionary nature of the standard. It is true to say that, as technology continues to advance, and in turn, more varied and distinct implementations of that technology continue to emerge, the TEI’s standardisation will face difficulties in terms of its application. However, this standardisation is not static, but rather reactive, and as such implementations emerge, appropriate sub-standards can be devised as a response to the sphere’s fluctuating demand. Effectively, standardisation will evolve.

As Cummings continues, he draws profound comparisons between the technicality of mark-up languages and the literary theories of Barthes, Foucault, Bakhtin and Derrida. Perhaps it is in digital scholarship that supporters of Derrida’s thesis can find further evidence to support his deconstructionist claims: electronic texts can often be a remarkably practical example of the notion of the signified always containing a signifier within itself. Furthermore, digital scholars are advantageously placed to examine the paradigmatic and syntagmatic relationships in a text, and may even be positioned to expand on the thinking of the aforementioned theorists. Essentially, in studying mark-up language, we can study structure, something which Cummings claims that the TEI have recognised: “The desire to have markup be of use in helping to elucidate the nature of the text is entirely reasonable. While XML allows the easy marking of most textual structures of interest to the study of literature, the specification which defines XML creates certain limitations with regard to the encoding of multiple overlapping hierarchies.”

As Cummings draws his analysis to a close, he further champions the TEI cause. He rejects the ad-hoc approach taken by Project Gutenberg, where texts are digitised, but not standardised. By taking such an approach, individuals are again faced with the daunting prospect of having to scratch their way through the unconstrained growth of the mark-up jungle. To me, taking such an approach to electronic literature is akin to handwriting physical editions, and so I would be firmly on the side of Cummings. In addition, a lack of properly sourced materials renders the Gutenberg editions as less than scholarly, defeating what, too many, is the entire purpose of the digital project. The requirements of academics must be met: sources must be consistently and correctly cited, content must be verifiable and structure must be uniform. Otherwise, the value of electronic editions will dwindle. The mission of the TEI is to ensure that this does not happen, something which will be infinitely beneficial in the study of literature.

The concept of a collective consciousness has only grown in significance, since the release of Stapleton’s novel, and one can now draw reference to a great many examples of its use in science fiction, both in literature and in film. Examples of its use in literature include the Giants in Adam Roberts’ New Model Army, Blindsight, by Peter Watts, in the book’s portrayal of Amanda Bates, the Bugs in Robert A. Heinlein’s Starship Troopers, and the Phindin, from the Star Wars franchise, first cited in the Jedi Apprentice series written by Dave Wolverton and Jude Watson. In film, one can point to the Rutan Host from the Doctor Who television series, Star Trek’s Borg, the Xenomorph species in Ridley Scott’s Alien, and the Machines from The Matrix Trilogy. Many video games have also made use of the concept, including Mass Effect and Halo.

Of all the works of science fiction that I have encountered, New Model Army makes the most apt use of the idea of collective consciousness because it does so in a way that relates directly to us. The collective intelligence of the internet is something which most members of the human race have by now experienced. In novels like Blindsight, the hive minds that we encounter are based on a scientific foundation the likes of which most of us will never witness. New Model Army, conversely, draws on networking technology, and the applications of such, like wikis, that are common now, in our own time. The approach that Roberts takes allows authors to chart both the opportunities and dangers of collective intelligence in a way to which we can all relate. Throughout his novel, we are presented with ways by which collective consciousness can facilitate greater social interaction, cooperation and democracy – true democracy. At the same time, it underlines the fears associated with such an advance, primarily the improved efficiency and cost effectiveness of war, an important aspect of many of the works in the genre. Those other works of science fiction that make use of the notion of collective consciousness do the same. Take, as a final example, the Borg from Star Trek. I would suggest that the Borg represent anxieties that surround the assimilation that one might associate with society’s continued progression toward collective intelligence. The collective consciousness that the Borg share also highlights fears in relation to our own constant supervision by some higher authority, reflecting some of the themes found in Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, as the Borg, like the Xenomorphs, are connected directly to their queen. By the same token, the Borg underline the opportunities that collective consciousness can present, particularly when one considers the sophistication of their social organisation, and the benefits of being part of a collective intelligence in terms of their own knowledge and adaptability, much in the same way as these benefits are portrayed in New Model Army. What remains open to debate is whether the benefits of collective consciousness outweigh the dangers. As John Robb puts it in Brave New War: “What if warfare was reinvented and nobody bothered to tell the Pentagon?”[3]

In “Imagining the New Media Encounter”, Alan Liu explores the collision between information and the various mediums of communication that it has inhabited throughout the ages. As the author so aptly puts it, media history is a recapitulation of “first-contact narratives”, with technology and literature simply being the latest, rather than the first, to have amalgamated. Liu strengthens this claim by drawing reference to Leonard Doob’s Communication in Africa, but there are far more examples which can be drawn upon in an effort to support this suggestion.

Tracing back through the ages, we can see early examples of such an encounter, namely the first medieval manuscripts, which saw theological symbols and language merged into visual form. But we can trace back further still, to the Upper Paleolithic era. It is to this period, the Late Stone Age, that we can perhaps attribute the first new media encounter: cave paintings. After all, there was a time when the inscription of symbols upon a stone surface was, in itself, a collision between information and a new medium upon which that information could be expressed. If history is indeed a narrative of new media encounters, then cave paintings may be cited as a prehistoric new media encounter, or more simply, the first new media encounter. What we have now, is effectively new new new new ……… new media, or as I said previously, simply newer media.

In the article, Liu conducts and interesting sociocultural effects of this trend, and one need only look as far as any social networking site in an effort to see that to which the author is alluding. He emphasises the notion of the “born digital”, the idea that the current generation are, as a result of the technologically dependent society in which we live, fluent in digital verse. It is here that Liu raises an interesting issue: technology might well be second nature to us all, but is this to be viewed positively? It is true to say that society’s ability to use technology has opened up a world of knowledge collaboration that previous generations did not enjoy: consider Wikipedia, and the vast resource of information that it is. Conversely, however, people now tend to take technology for granted, the advent of user-friendly applications removing the need for most people to develop a real understanding of the underlying technology. To illustrate this criticism, one need look no further than DOS, which, not so long ago, required PC users to possess a relatively basic understanding of file systems. Now, in what I would dub the overly user-friendly age of “drag and drop”, all one needs to operate a computer are login credentials.

Also interesting is Liu’s assessment of “media determinism” – I particularly enjoyed his reference to the “Prospero BBC”. Of course, I’ve always been somewhat uneasy with the typical portrayal of media determinism. I would think it better to live in a society where we can form thoughts based on a multitude of sources, rather than live in a society where no one is subject to such influencing factors, but rather, remains ignorant of the outside world – but this is something of a digression on my part.

I would be slightly critical of Liu’s comment: “Pity the author of an ad hoc website or blog who inserts hand-crafted source code in an open-source environment, only to run up against code puritans who say, “Thou shalt not transgress against XHTML and CSS.” Code, like any language, requires syntax and grammar. If we are quick to point to one’s mistakes in a line of English, then we should be equally quick to point to an error in a line of XHTML. Furthermore, in English, a poorly constructed sentence may still communicate its meaning, whereas when one is speaking the language of machines, syntactical errors will not be so easily forgiven.

Liu’s piece also refers to Marshall McLuhan’s concept of the media being the message. By this, McLuhan is alluding to the symbiotic relationship that is formed between the medium and the message, and how the medium informs how it is that the message is received. McLuhan, who also coined the phrase, “global village”, was rightfully sceptical in relation to how we’d handle our entry into the Digital Age – it’s not been as smooth in all quarters as some might think. In 1995, he wrote: “It’s inevitable that the whirlpool of electronic information movement will toss us all about like corks on a stormy sea, but if we keep our cool during the descent into the maelstrom, studying the process as it happens…we can get through.” From this he went on to write many highly respected works, many of which have sought to aid us in keeping “our cool during the descent into the maelstrom”.

Liu, in this article, seeks to do the same, by demonstrating to us that the “whirlpool of electronic information” into which we all now face is not as strange an encounter as we might have originally perceived. If our Stone Age ancestors can face up to such a new media encounter, then surely, we can do the same.

Well worth a read: Imagining the New Media Encounter by Alan Liu.

Bibliography

Federman, Mark. “What is the Meaning of The Medium is the Message?.” Web. 17 Feb. 2011.
McLuhan, Marshall. Understanding Media. 2nd ed. Routledge, 2001. Print.
“Playboy Interview: Marshall McLuhan.” Playboy (1969): pp. 26–27, 45, 55–56, 61, 63. Print.
Siemens, Ray, and Susan Schreibman. Companion to Digital Literary Studies (Blackwell Companions to Literature and Culture). Hardcover. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Professional, 2008. Web. 17 Feb. 2011.