This paper is an attempt to describe a building design as a hypertext genre. It represents a single– or multi-volume document that has to be submitted when applying for a planning permission issued by an appropriate administrative authority, usu. by Building Surveyors. Its broad thematic scope provides the best proof of its multidisciplinary character – indeed, it bears witness to the complexity of investment process which has to result eventually in the completion of a new building. Building designs consist of texts featuring various genres that belong to different discourse types – apart from administrative ones, they involve texts dealing with architecture, urban architecture, structural engineering, interior fit-outs, electrical and heating facilities, sanitary fittings. Law regulations precise the exact content of a building design, which heavily depends on the putative function of a building, its degree of complexity and environmental setting. A building design thus turns out to be a multilayered genre whose composition is related to extra linguistic factors (design location and its function). It exhibits features typical of hypertext genres: non-sequentiality (non-linearity), component independence of hyperstructure, polyphony (many authors), primacy of global coherence and interactivity. All the characteristics make it difficult to apply traditional models of describing linear texts to building designs, thus proving that the dividing line between text and hypertext genres is independent of the media boundary.
The purpose of the article is to broaden readers’ understanding of how code is used in digital literary forms. Although digital poetics in the Polish context seems relatively established, the code aspect of works, particularly when we consider works in which a computer program becomes an active, causative subject beyond the full control of author and reader, requires some additional clarification. Using examples from Polish electronic literature, the article recapitulates the typology of code formulated by John Cayley, a pioneer in digital poetry; next, it examines a series of works by Cayley and Howe in which programmed “readers” – supplied with a source text and linguistic resources indexed by Google – are sent on a special mission in search of poetic originality. Three main theses are formulated: programming is a new kind of poetics in action; code in temporal or internet texts attains the status of an autonomous actor, situated in between text, author, and reader, and maintaining contact with other programs on the web; hypertext as a primary paradigm of digital textuality turns out to be a transitional form, from the point of view of the practices of Cayley and Polish cybernetic poets, much closer to the print paradigm, that was originally acknowledged.
PL
Celem artykułu jest poszerzenie rozumienia kodu w cyfrowych formach literackich. Choć poetyka cyfrowa na polskim gruncie zdaje się ugruntowywać, to kodowy aspekt dzieła, zwłaszcza gdy przedmiotem refleksji są utwory, w których program komputerowy zamienia się w czynny podmiot sprawczy, poza pełną kontrolą autora i czytelnika, domaga się dodatkowych rozróżnień. Opierając się na przykładach polskiej literatury elektronicznej, zrekapitulowana zostaje typologia kodu według Johna Cayleya – pioniera poezji cyfrowej, a następnie przybliżona zostaje seria prac Cayleya/Howe’a, w ramach których zaprogramowane „czytniki” na podstawie tekstu źródłowego i zasobów językowych indeksowanych przez Google, wysyłane są na misję specjalną: poszukiwanie oryginalności poetyckiej. W pracy sformułowano trzy tezy: programowanie jest nowym rodzajem poetyki w działaniu; kod w tekście temporalnym i sieciowym osiąga statut autonomicznego aktora, sytuującego się pomiędzy tekstem, autorem i czytelnikiem, i będącego w kontakcie z innymi programami w sieci; hipertekst jako pierwotny paradygmat tekstualności cyfrowej okazuje się formą przejściową, z punktu widzenia praktyki Cayleya i polskich poetów cybernetycznych, bliższą paradygmatowi druku.
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