|
the construction of meaning The authors use hypertext to create a medium in which the many facets of Arnold Schwarzenegger can be investigated in their constituent form: be it film, sound, physical presence, dream, picture or significance. The site is a rich, thick collection of sources related to Arnold's place in history, culture and hypertext. However, many of the sources used are not academically recognised as legitimate, and this lack of authority somewhat compromises the multiple meanings and historical agendas at play in the site. The dream is not yet recognised as a research tool, and for good reason. The hypertexturality and cyberspace undoubtedly at work in the human mind is too subject to the influences of id, ego and super-ego to provide acceptable information to the traditional rationalism found in current scholarly discourse. The rationality and logic required in acceptable, sustained argument of the traditional academy does not reflect the associative, tangential thinking of hypertext and postmodernism, where structures can be dissolved or made transparent through different lenses for greater interaction with the subject. This slipperiness causes friction in this project, mainly because it is neither totally textural nor totally hypertextural, it is a strange hybrid of the two. This leads to a great deal of unnecessary barriers and hindrances to learning in the text. I feel that while the authors are clearly concepturalising their aims for the site, their technical and hypertextural features are underdeveloped and frustrating. The desire to present a non-linear narrative is not wholly realised, despite different attempts at doing so. On close inspection, the site has a linear core, and it is possible to see much of the data contained on it as ancillary. The unedited, incomplete and incorrect are evident in most of the areas on the site, with missing citations, useless personal information and dead links. Dreaming Arnold Schwarzenegger is a deft illustration
of Arnold's infiltration of certain aspects of culture, and certainly upon
the minds of the authors. However, the historicisation and formulation
of Arnold is not at the foreground, with his bulky form becoming swamped
in lengthy texts and expositions. Rather than providing a clear floor map
of Arnold, this site presents more of a maze: there are certain ways of
looking at it built into the site by its very form. it does not achieve
its goal of being an easily accessible and transparent document, but it
does contain many exciting elements that justify its place in hypertext
scholarship.
|