Hyperwords – a choragraphical operation

Too often searching the web or browsing the internet–a gamed based in words, words as the connectors ( i.e., keywords)–we work under the illusion that we can link, look, or “go” anywhere.  We generally don’t question, don’t critically investigate this illusory freedom (Sean Williams has done work in this area).  Instead, we move through the www as if we were in control of the navigation, of the connection, the links we make.  While there are certain freedoms we exercise in online environments, and those freedoms are noticeably greater than in the literate apparatus (the linearity of text), we still do not make moves as “freely” as we would believe.  In truth, hyperlinks are done by web authors–they/we determine what you can (and cannot) link to from any given page they/we have created.  Search engines work based on algorithms determined by programmers.  Web connectivity, as we traditionally approach it, only occurs on pre-set lines, even if very fluid lines; connections established by authors, not users.

We might look at a site like StumbleUpon as starting to change this relationship, but it doesn’t push the bar far enough.  Enter Frode Hegland’s Hyperwords.  This add-on to your (firefox) browser, “makes every single word or phrase on a [web] page into a hyperlink—not just those chosen by a website’s authors” (from The Economist, click here for full article).  It makes browsing choragraphical, perhaps even paralogical, and it subverts the dominant hierachy of the web browser’s relationship to web author.  Check out the video below to see some of the potentialities involved with Hyperwords.