Ergodic literature

Concept

Aarseth's book contains the most commonly cited definition of ergodic literature:

In ergodic literature, nontrivial effort is required to allow the reader to traverse the text. If ergodic literature is to make sense as a concept, there must also be nonergodic literature, where the effort to traverse the text is trivial, with no extranoematic responsibilities placed on the reader except (for example) eye movement and the periodic or arbitrary turning of pages.

His aim in providing this definition is to offer a radical break from earlier theories of Hypertext, which he says fall trap to 'an essentialist idea of "the computer medium" as a singular structure of well-defined properties,' and thus remain blind both to the plurality of types of media that a computer can support, and of the forms that text can take outside of a digital medium. Additionally, without free text search, many hypertext works end not less, but more linear than the conventional codex, in stark contrast with the technoutopist visions of hypertext and its capabilities. To this end, he aims to develop a model of literature organised not around the medium in which the work is contained, but instead around the manner in which the text itself functions and interacts with its reader.

Aarseth divides the text into three core constituent elements: the medium itself, the human operator, and the strings of signs which make up the text itself. The last of these he divides into two distinct categories: textons – strings of signs as they appear (or are encoded) in the text itself – and scriptons – strings of signs as they appear to the reader or user of the text. From there, Aarseth develops a typology of possible media positions for texts, organised around seven axes:

• Dynamics: Whether scriptons are constant and unchanging (Static), or variable: in which case scriptons may vary in content or number, whilst textons remain fixed (Intratextonic Dynamics, or IDT), or both scriptons and textons may vary (Textonic Dynamics, or TDT). As an example, he gives Michael Joyce's afternoon, a story, which is a hypertext, but its scriptons and textons both remain fixed, and contrasts it with Multi-User Dungeons, where neither the number, nor amount of scriptons and textons can be known

• Determinability: Whether a scripton's adjacent scriptons are always the same (Determinable), or whether they may change (Indeterminable). As an example, he gives adventure games, where sometimes the same action will always produce the same result, making it predictable, or it may involve some degree of randomness, such as a dice throw, making it unpredictable

• Transiency: Whether the text requires direct input from the reader for the text to change (Intransient), or if it may change on its own (Transient). As an example, he gives William Gibson's Agrippa (A Book of the Dead), where the text scrolls past the screen at its own pace, regardless of user input.

• Perspective: Whether the text requires its reader to play a strategic, intradiegetic role within the text (Personal), or not (Impersonal). As an example, he gives Italo Calvino's If on a winter's night a traveler, where he says there is little for the reader to actually, strategically, do, in contrast with Multi-User Dungeons, where the player is (at least partially) responsible for their character

• Access: Whether scriptons are readily available to the user (Random) or not (Controlled). As an example, he gives the typical codex, which may be opened to any page, at any time, in contrast with hypertexts such as Stuart Moulthrop's Victory Garden, where accessing a specific passage may require from the reader to follow a specific path through other passages.

• Linking: Whether the text is organised by links that are available to the reader at any point (Explicit), or only under certain circumstances (Conditional), or whether there are no links in the text whatsoever (None). As an example, he again gives Michael Joyce's afternoon, where certain parts of the text are accessible only once the reader has visited specific other passages.

• User functions: Whether the reader only interprets the text (Interpretative) - a function present in all texts - or if they also decide what paths to take (Explorative), chooses or creates scriptons during a specific reading session (Configurative), or adds permanently to the body of the text (Textonic). As an example of a text that the reader explores he gives Julio Cortázar's Rayuela, for a text that the reader configures he gives Raymond Queneau's A Hundred Thousand Billion Poems, and for a text the reader permanently alters, he gives Allen S. Firstenberg's Unending Addventure.

These seven variables are capable of producing a total of 576 unique media positions (3 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 3 x 4), of which conventional hypertext and literature represent only a small part. Among these, Aarseth defines an 'ergodic text' as any one which requires at least one of the three other user functions beyond mere interpretation. Thus, both paper-based and electronic texts can be ergodic: "The ergodic work of art is one that in a material sense includes the rules for its own use, a work that has certain requirements built in that automatically distinguishes between successful and unsuccessful users."