Breathalyzing physio-cybertext
Astrid Ensslin · 2007
This poster investigates the creative interplay between readerly intentionality and corporeality in 'physio-cybertext', exemplified by Kate Pullinger et al.'s The Breathing Wall. This gothic murder mystery uses the reader's respiratory system as driving force for disclosing essential referential meaning, or 'clues'. TBW deviates from - and thereby reconfirms metagenerically - the rules of the conventional thriller by leaving the solution of the mystery not only to the reader's intention-driven, cognitive engagement with the plot, but chiefly to his or her very physical condition. Drawing on Aarseth's (1997) 'text/machine' and notions of intentionality and physical situatedness, I introduce the concept of 'cybertextual retro-intentionalization'.