At this point, it is very difficult to say what the new culture will be like. But if we assume that art always uses the means available, perhaps by extension we can predict some of the impending developments. I want to attempt to understand what the key characteristics of the medium computer are and how they can be applied to making art. Electronic hypertext can be seen as the externalisation of the reading technique of an erudite person, a next step in the evolution of the written word. And it is precisely there that the new, exciting possibilities of digital culture lie.
Computers offer authors a way to tighten their grip on the reader.
The writers of coming generations will not only make use of them because the technology is available, but because they offer a way to make meaningful statements in our culture, which is characterised by an overabundance of text. The preceding hundred years have seen an increasing displacement of the meaning and aesthetics of art to the context instead of the content. The contentual acts of the artists migrate from the text itself to the connections that they establish between texts. This is a general social tendency which is not only evident in art. This book is a good example.