Scripting Reading Motions ― The Codex and the Computer As Self-reflexive Machines

In Scripting Reading Motions, Manuel Portela explores theexpressive use of book forms and programmable media in experimental works of both print andelectronic literature and finds a self-conscious play with the dynamics of reading and writing.Portela examines a series of print and digital works by Johanna Drucker, Mark Z. Danielewski, RuiTorres, Jim Andrews, and others, for the insights they yield about the semiotic and interpretiveactions through which readers produce meaning when interacting with codes. Analyzing these works asembodiments and simulations of the motions of reading, Portela pays particular attention to the waysin which awareness of eye movements and haptic interactions in both print and electronic media feedsback onto the material and semantic layers of the works. These feedbacks, he argues, sustainself-reflexive loops that link the body of the reader to the embodied work. Readers' haptic actionsand eye movements coinstantiate the object that they are reading.

Porteladiscusses typographic and graphic marks as choreographic notations for reading movements; examinesdigital recreations of experimental print literary artifacts; considers reading motions in kineticand generated texts; analyzes the relationship of bibliographic, linguistic, and narrative coding inDanielewski's novel-poem, Only Revolutions; and describes emergent meanings ininteractive textural instruments. The expressive use of print and programmable media, Portela shows,offers a powerful model of the semiotic, interpretive, and affective operations embodied in readingprocesses.

Manuel Portela is Assistant Professor in the Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures at the University of Coimbra, Portugal, where he is Director of the Doctoral Program in Advanced Studies in the Materialities of Literature.