HIDDEN TEXT | HIDDEN CODE
Jessica Loseby's Code Scares Me

     Net.art, art that uses the Internet as its primary medium or platform, offers examples of how code and words interact with one another and how reading both code and text can add to the overall richness of a work. An example of this is illustrated in Jessica Loseby's Code Scares Me. In this Flash-based animation, the text If I could only get rid of this darkness I could see you and you could see me is seemingly hidden behind multiple layers of HTML code which hover overtop of the written text. In a reversal of the typical computer user experience, HTML code is not hidden but visible on the surface of the computer screen while the written text is veiled behind the code. As Loseby writes, "as an artist who is fascinated by words, the prospect of a language that is both hidden and alien to me haunts my work on the net. Like most prejudices, it is born out of fear. I am afraid of what lies buried within the under text" (Loseby, 1). To Loseby, the fear of invisible and unknowable code is disturbing because it is "initially understandable only in terms of impenetrable darkness" (Raley, 2002, 2). One could choose to read code to better understand computer processes, but most people do not find it necessary to learn how to read code. As such, when code comes to the surface, whether as an annoying error page or as unintelligible HTML, one cannot help but feel a sense of fear or frustration. To many who cannot read code, it is something foreign and better left hidden behind a computer interface. Loseby does, however, give us the tools to see past the HTML. As she writes, "through interactivity with the code itself, the 'real' dialogue can begin and the darkness loses its potency" (1). In the bottom corner of the user's screen, Loseby has provided Zoom In and Zoom Out buttons which allow the user to view past the distraction of the HTML and easily read the text If I could only get ride of this darkness I could see you and you could see me. However, with the right tools, one can easily interact with the code without needing such shortcuts.

     Someone who is comfortable reading basic HTML may be drawn to reading the hovering code in Loseby's work before trying to decipher the written text, or make use of the Zoom buttons. While the code does hover quickly across the screen, most experienced web-developers may be alarmed by the excessive overuse of font tags (the code that governs the size, style and color of the text), perhaps noticing the repetition of the Hex value #666666, which makes the written text a Medium Grey (60% black). In modern popular culture, the number 666 has become one of the most widely recognized symbols associated with Satan or the Anti-Christ, known simply as the Number of the Beast. Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia refers to the fear of this number. This fear helps explain Loseby's use of the hex value #666666, as the excessive reference to the number on the surface layer of the screen emphasizes the fear Loseby equates to code. Using a monochromatic color scheme (variations in lightness and saturation of a single color), a lighter grey hex value of #7F7F7F or a darker grey hex value of #4C4C4C could have worked just as well to control the color of the surface text. However, these non-descript color values, especially to someone who does not read code, would not have embodied the same instant symbolism as #666666, nor would they have been as effective as a tool for showcasing why code is scary. Using the hex value #666666 is not the only example of how Loseby went out of her way to make her code more "scary" than it needed to be. After allowing the animation to loop a few times, one can piece together the sentence If I could only get ride of this darkness I could see you and you could see me by reading between the font tags within the HTML?thus never having to use the Zoom In or Out buttons to decipher the written text. The hidden text in Loseby's work could have easily been constructed with a fraction of the HTML used. However, that would not make the HTML seem quite as intimidating, nor would it cover as much surface area when a user Zooms Out, thus achieving less of the effect intended by the artist.

     Personally, as a developer, one of first things I did when I watched this animation was check the web page's source code using my web-browser. This is not the code that Loseby has made visible on the screen; rather, it is the underlying code that governs how the web page is to be viewed in a browser. Within the source code, I noticed that the web page has its background color set with a hex value of #000000 (100% Black). If code is initially seen as something that inhabits, as Rita Raley writes, "impenetrable darkness," upon further examination we see that it is the 100% Black (background-color: #000000) that brings the text to light (2002,2). Ironically, with a lighter colored background, say a heck value of #FFFFFF (100% white), the Medium Grey text would be much more difficult to read and fade into the background. Like Ed Ruscha's painting, words would become "progressively light and insubstantial ... disappearing into space" (Richards, 90). The black background allows for enough contrast for the words to be easily read. Whether or not Loseby intended viewers to read the source code of her work, it remains another way one can interact with the code-allowing code's darkness to lose its potency.

     Web-developers may have a completely different experience examining Loseby's work than someone with no coding experience. "There is something of an artist in all of us, likewise there is something of an engineer in every artist," writes Mark Dougherty (76). In this regard, depending on the type of person who views Loseby's work, some may spend more time trying to read the code while others may simply try to read the text. The perspective that is the more privileged of the two is subject for debate. Even Loseby's choice of title-Code Scares Me-may seem ironic to some. To most developers who are taught to write code parsimoniously (i.e., with as few lines as possible), Loseby's overly excessive use of HTML may seem rather humorous, even a bit scary. Undoubtedly such excessive use of font tags could easily warrant a failing grade in many entry-level HTML courses. For some, a more fitting title may be sloppy code scares me. Whether it is feared or understood, code is, as Adrian Mackenzie writes, "something whose visibility or readability is questionable from different angles" (26). Approaching Loseby's work from the perspective of both an artist and a coder allows one to fully realize the thought that went into the project and how code and text influence and interact with one another.

HIDDEN TEXT | HIDDEN CODE
Kenneth Goldsmith's Soliloquy

     If we approach digital works, as Dougherty suggests, from both an engineering and artistic perspective, not only do we gain a broader perspective towards a work, but we are able to appreciate, "the underlying technologies that drive digital expression" (Maeda, iv). By examining the underlying technologies, we understand how artists and poets are able to leverage technology to meet their needs. Kenneth Goldsmith's Soliloquy offers an example of how a few simple lines of code allow digital text to take on greater meaning than it would have on printed paper. According to the author's description, Soliloquy is an unedited document of every word he spoke during the week of April 15-21, 1996: from the moment he woke up Monday morning to the moment he went to sleep on Sunday night. The text was shown in a gallery exhibit and later published as a 281-page original book. However, it is the textual treatment of the web version of Soliloquy that, as Goldsmith writes, "perhaps more truly references the ephemerality of language as reflected by the book's epigraph: 'If every word spoken in New York City daily / were somehow to materialize as a snowflake, / each day there would be a blizzard'" (1). When viewing the web-version, one can select a day of the week by clicking on it. By moving one's mouse down the page, individual sentences are revealed. Instead of making the entire day's text visible on the screen, as one would see in a book, the user has to interact with the text by revealing one sentence at a time-a process seemingly more in line with the ephemeral nature of spoken language. Goldsmith also prefaces the web-based version with a disclaimer:

In order to achieve this effect, the web version is available only to users of Microsoft Internet Explorer and Netscape 6+. Unfortunately, none of the prior versions of Netscape support the CSS tag used here: "a { text-decoration: none }" ; to view the piece in web form without this function enabled would be to ruin the intended experience of this work (1).

Without Cascade Style Sheets (CSS), a type of code not supported by older web browsers, the desired effect would not be met.

     CSS is a way that a web developer can control the size, shape, color, etc of large amounts of text within a website with a very minimal amount of code. Unlike the excessive font tags used in Loseby's Code Scares Me, Goldsmith is able to produce his desired effect, more or less, with 6 lines of CSS code and one line of HTML:


Goldsmith sets the background color of his webpage to 100% White (bgcolor="FFFFFF"), he then makes every sentence on the page, except for the first, a dead link (a link that goes no where). He then uses simple CSS code to control the color of the links. The links remain 100% White until one hovers over them with a mouse; in which case, the links become #9c9c9c (dark grey). For all intents and purposes, the entire text is displayed on the screen, however, the lack of contrast between the page's background color and the text/link color renders the text invisible. When one compares Soliloquy to Loseby's Code Scares Me, one may see that while code is initially seen as invisible and inhabiting impenetrable darkness in Code Scares Me, the written text of Soliloquy is also initially invisible, however, not by darkness, but by the brightness of over saturated white. Like Code Scares Me, it is not until one interacts with the code in Soliloquy, by hovering one's mouse over the text, that hints of darkness (darker shades of text) are able to make the written text visible within the blizzard of white space. The power of code, as expressed in Soliloquy, is its ability to modify the appearance and behavior of text.

CODING WITH THE GRAIN
Myspace Layouts

Just as the brush in the hand of a master calligrapher seems to flow at once unpredictably and with inimitable precision, choosing from infinite possibilities the one perfect, instantaneous apprehension of form, so in the hand of a master designer HTML is a tool to be brushed as much against as with the grain - Alan Liu, 227.

     As Alan Liu writes, web-designers, like artists, are free to use their tools in countless different ways. Most designers write code in a conventional and precise fashion, while others choose to break the norm and write code in seemingly unconventional ways. With the above analogy, I consider the "grain" to be the existing "pattern" or underlying structure that controls the operation of any given computer system. For the Internet, this would involve a programmer creating a web page so that the code is rendered correctly within the structure of a given web-browser. On the other hand, "coding against the grain," as done by many Internet artists, involves writing code that does not fit into the structure of a computer system. Coding against the grain intentionally tries to write code that creates "errors" and undermines the rules of the computer system that runs the code-computer viruses being an extreme example.

     Based on the massive number of functioning websites and web applications, it is fair to say that the majority of web-developers code "with the grain." Developers make their living writing code that works-and works well across multiple platforms. As such, a developer must recognize or be aware of the logic and rules that will translate or run the code. In some ways, it is similar to a carpenter having to understand or be aware of building codes and the logistics involved with acquiring permits before building a house. As is the case with most web-based code (HTML,XML, PHP, CSS, etc), the web-browser (Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari, Chrome, etc) is the tool that translates a programmer's code into a web document. The rules for translating HTML documents are established by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), which publishes official standards for HTML and other web-based languages. Despite W3C standards, however, every web-browser and its corresponding versions interpret code slightly differently. Because of the varying nature of web-browsers, a fair amount of a web-developer's time is spent testing web documents for cross-browser compatibility, i.e. making sure that one's code is rendered correctly (or how the programmer intended it) in as many popular and up-dated web-browsers as possible. As a result, it is crucial that web-developers write code that meets the standards of the W3C, adheres to the differing logic of most web-browsers, and operates correctly within third-party web platforms.

     The growth in popularity of social networking sites like Myspace has allowed web-developers and designers to offer code for users to employ themselves within their Myspace profiles. Myspace, for instance, allows a user to copy and paste CSS and HTML code into his or her profile to change its look and feel. Such readily available and, for the most part, free code has allowed for the type of command and control over an existing web platform where "the written word has the power to remake appearances" (Moulthrop, 700). One's personal profile, with a few lines of simple code, is enhanced from simply written text to a collection of images and colors that reflects each person's distinct personality. This opportunity to code within the grain of a popular social network site has, in turn, given rise to a new breed of coders.

     Whateverlife.com is a website that grew simply by offering creative Myspace.com layouts for free. What makes it unique, however, is the story of how the site was created. Ashley Qualls, whateverlife's founder, started the site when she was 14. The site is considered "one of the first sites offering MySpace layouts specifically for girls," and in 2007 was bringing in as much as $70,000 a month from advertising revenue (Salter, 1-3). Qualls' success comes from providing unique layouts geared towards young girls who are eager to customize the look and feel of their Myspace profiles. As Chuck Salter writes, "think of it as MySpace clothes; some kids change their layouts nearly as frequently" (1). Using bright colors, flowers and pictures of celebrities, Quall is able to offer layouts that meet the changing needs and tastes of her constituents.

The 2.0 version of whateverlife.com has now become a social network site, in and of itself. Users are encouraged to set up profiles to share their own "creations" and become "a design start" (whateverlife.com/faq.php, 2009). Quall's updated site is encouraging young girls not only to cut and paste code from the site but to also write their own code, designs and layouts to upload to share with the whateverlife community. Users then rate designs and collect points to spend in the whateverlife store. The site also periodically selects a "Staff Love Member" whose uploaded designs are "both a high skill level and of great quality, to be featured on the WL front page" (whateverlife.com/faq.php, 2009). Quall has been able to use CSS and HTML to create designs that suit the tastes of a fickle and increasingly web-savvy group while inspiring them to create their own designs and become more proficient in HTML. As Alan Liu writes,

This is why it is not possible, when discussing the Web, to be wholly unambiguous about which perspective-the Web author's or user's -we are assuming. Not only is an ever larger number of users becoming literal Web authors and designers (as ordinary word processing, desktop publishing, database, and other office products evolve Web publishing capabilities), but the very concept of using the Web implies a degree of designing the Web (230).

As a growing number of web users become proficient coders, more people will be using code to enhance the look and feel of written words on the computer screen. Coding with the grain will allow users to utilize both code and written text to display their ideas, thoughts and personal tastes online in different ways. /div>

CODING AGAINST THE GRAIN
Jodi.org

     One of the more famous works of Net.art that can be considered an example of "coding against the grain" comes from wwwwwwwww.jodi.org-a collective of two Internet artists: Joan Homemaker and Dirk Peasants. Jodi's work is regarded as "a creative misuse of code [where] 'errors' muddy the boundaries between interface and code by showing that code is another interface, one often less visible, but nonetheless always concomitant" (Mackenzie, 38-41). On the surface, the wwwwwwwww.jodi.org homepage seems to consist of a string of meaningless words and numbers. For some, it may appear at first glance to be a mistake in which one's web-browser fails to render the page correctly. Within some browsers, the text blinks, making it even harder to decipher any meaning from the web page. However, by looking at the HTML source code, one discovers a layer of pictorial ASCII text art hidden below the surface. The hidden ASCII art is a collection of detailed images of hydrogen and uranium bombs-symbolizing the destruction of the webpage caused by the code. As Peter Lunenfeld writes, "in referencing the Volksgraphics of the emerging digital class and in embedding this richly associative material in the site's HTML, jodi.org conceptualizes code as essential to the structure of the web as communication art" (84). In order to better understand the association used in Jodi's work, one must draw a distinction between the two formats employed in the piece, approaching the work from a medium specific form of analysis.      Medium-Specific Analysis, Pressman et al write, is "a mode of critical inquiry attentive to the specificity of the medium in which a work is instantiated" (1). Understanding how different media interact with code gives one a deeper understanding of digital works. Specific media formats, Pressman et al continue, "can inform and inspire critical awareness and engagement ... [and] make evident how digital form and platforms inform the presentation of digital content and affect content" (1). The wwwwwwwww.jodi.org homepage makes use of both HTML and TEXT formats and offers a good example of how two separate mediums render the same code differently. Most static web pages like wwwwwwwww.jodi.org are viewed as HTML documents within a web-browser. When someone views the source code of such pages, most web-browsers will open the code as a TEXT document. As mentioned earlier, web-developers write code within the standards of W3C and the parameters of most web-browsers. The wwwwwwwww.jodi.org homepage, however, was not written to be viewed simply within the surface layer of a web-browser but also within the TEXT document that displays the code. One aspect that separates a TEXT document from an HTML document is that TEXT documents parse ASCII carriage return characters into new lines. That means that when you hit the "return" key while constructing a TEXT document, the TEXT document will record a new line by inserting an invisible character. An HTML document, on the other hand, requires one to actually type an HTML tag (br) within the document to achieve the same result. Moreover, a TEXT document renders text in a fixed-width font allowing for a consistent view of the text while table parameters and font tags would need to be inserted into an HTML document to produce the same result. The wwwwwwwww.jodi.org homepage, therefore, does not include carriage return characters or table parameters, so the ASCII art, while rendered correctly within the TEXT document, is rendered as basically a long string of letters and numbers in your browser. Jodi.org's Net.art, as Brett Stalbaum writes, "utilizes the browser's way of presenting information visually to demonstrate that an image is just as much a result of the various codes that interpret it, as it is the result of authorial intention or audience perception" (2). The desired effect of this particular Net.art is the result of how two different media formats render code and display text. When the two formats are referenced together, one has a more complete understanding of the piece and the true intention of the author. By referencing the code, one can see Jodi.org's work as associative communication art as opposed to just unintelligible strings of text.

CODING BOTH WITH AND AGAINST THE GRAIN
Jim Andrew's Seattle Drift

     Jim Andrew's Seattle Drift (1997) offers a good example of how a single web document can simultaneously employ examples of coding with and against the grain. Creating a dynamic HTML (DHTML) file consisting of CSS, Javascript and HTML, Andrews offers a web document where an embedded scripting language, in this case Javascript, modifies variables within the web page. Each time the web document reloads, the Javascript modifies the appearance and function of those variables on the page. For Andrew's web document, the variables are 26 words and 4 periods. Each variable is given a unique absolute position within the document so that when the file loads the variables are positioned as such:

SEATTLE DRIFT
I'm a bad text.
I used to be a poem
but drifted from the scene.
Do me.
I just want you to do me.

When a user clicks on the "Do the text" link, the Javascript start function is activated and each variable floats away from its initial unique position. Andrews also includes a Math.random function that generates a random value between 0 and 1 which handles the variables movement, allowing the variables to traverse along different paths when the document is reloaded or when the variables are "disciplined" and returned to their initial positions. Seattle Drift offers a good example of the idea that, as words float across our computer screens, code can be seen as the underlying thought and form of expression that supports those words. To help visualize this fact, it is best to take the emphasis away from the words and simply view them as objects governed by a simple algorithm. To do this, I have updated Andrew's code, modifying each object with the following attribute: background-color:#FFFFFF (click here to view). When one activates the Javascript start function by clicking the "Do the text" link, one can focus simply on the movement of the objects, as opposed to the words-giving one a greater sense of how the Math.random function modifies the movements of the objects. This represents coding with the grain because Andrews provides viewers with a collection of static markup language (HTML), a client-side scripting language (JavaScript), and presentation definition language (CSS) which seamlessly work together in one dynamic HTML document that appears to work across multiple browsers. Moreover, it is very easy for developers to modify and comprehend the code because all elements of the code are included within a single document. As far as the mechanics of this digital program are concerned, Andrews has written clean and well-functioning code.

     As a digital poem, however, Seattle Drift may be considered an example of coding against the grain. Within the source code, Andrews offers examples of what he calls "neath text," i.e., text beneath the surface text. Within the source code of Seattle Drift, Andrews states that neath text "isn't a footnote, but another representation of the text. Some will read this neath text more carefully than the other representation" (line, 181). What makes Andrews digital poem unique is that the source code is very well documented, i.e., it includes in-depth comments from the author about his intentions for the piece. As expressed in the neath text, Andrews offers enough information so that some readers may spend more time reading the source code than viewing the actual poem. Disrupting the traditional computer user experience, the neath text places greater emphasis on the source code than the surface layer text of the poem.

     As a web-document, Seattle Drift is not an example of coding against the grain. If anything, it can be considered an example of literate programming. Literate programming is an approach to coding, developed by Donald Knuth in the late 1970s, that involves incorporating a program's documentation into its source code. Knuth encourages coders "to write about coding in [their] code" (Barton, 3). Literate programming, as far as web-development is concerned, is a well-established and accepted paradigm. Andrews claims that Seattle Drift is both a poem and a program, stating that dynamic HTML "turns documents into programs" (1998,1). When viewed as a program, Seattle Drift's "neath text" is simply thorough, and perhaps somewhat verbose, source code documentation. As a program, Seattle Drift's neath text does not necessarily make the program creative or artistic. As Matt Barton writes, "I've tried to assert that coding itself can be artistic; that eloquent commenting can complement, but not substitute for, eloquent coding. To do so would be to claim that it is more important for artists to know how to describe their paintings than to paint them" (6). Andrew's neath text acts as a hidden level of information that helps readers gain greater insight into his code, the poem and the reasoning behind the code. From the perspective of a program, the actual "art" rests in how concise the code is and how well it operates across multiple browsers-not in how well or creatively it is documented.

     Therefore, whether Seattle Drift is viewed as coding with or against the grain may depend on one's perspective. Some may view Andrew's neath text as creative while others may see it as basic documentation. By approaching the work from the perspective of both an engineer and an artist, however, one may gain a deeper appreciation for the work as a whole, and draw conclusions accordingly.

CODE AS CREATIVE WRITING

Writing will no longer be understood as producing text ... the definition of writing is about to widen - Michael Heim, xvii.

The process of preparing programs for a digital computer is especially attractive, not only because it can be economically and scientifically rewarding, but also because it can be an aesthetic experience much like composing poetry or music - Donald Knuth, 12.

     Net.artists have shown that code can be written in multiple and creative ways. One can choose to code with and/or against the grain to display online text with new and exciting techniques. Programming languages, artist Casey Reas writes, "allow people to convert their ideas into code in different ways" (Maeda, 44). The question then becomes, does enough creative thought go into writing code to make it a form of creative writing? To exhibit how code can be seen as a form of creative writing, I will demonstrate a number of different ways of reproducing the following text: Change the code, keep the text without actually writing the sentence. Using digital media, code, and my creative process, I will find new and creative ways to construct the above sentence. Like Jodi.org and the other Net.art pieces already examined, it will be crucial to examine both the source code and written text together in order to appreciate the overall work. I will also encourage other programmers to upload their examples of Change the code, keep the text via the Internet, collecting as many examples of creative programming as possible.

     The sentence Change the code, keep the text comes from a section of George Landow's book Hypertext 3.0: Critical Theory and New Media in an Era of Globalization. The quote from Landow's book, however, is slightly different. Landow writes:

With computers, writing, which had always been physical, now became a matter of codes-codes that could be changed, manipulated, and moved in entirely new ways. 'Change the code, change the text' became the rule from which derive the advantages of so-called word processing (Which is actually the composition, manipulation, and formatting of text in computer environments). The advantages of word processing over typewriters became so immediately obvious themselves in business and academia that dedicated word processors and then personal computers swiftly made typewriters obsolete. 'Change the code, change the text' also produces the 'styles' option in word-processing software, such as Microsoft Word, which permits a writer to create and deploy styles containing font, type size, and rules for various text entities (2006, 90).

In Landow's description, modifying code also modifies text. Word-processing software has allowed users to easily modify the underlying source code of a document that then changes the style and appearance of text-all without having to ever read or view the code. In this regard, code remains subordinate to text. Code is designed to elevate and manipulate text in countless different ways-but the code itself is to remain hidden and out of view of the regular user. With Change the code, keep the text, code becomes less subordinate to text. The emphasis is now placed on the code. Code is elevated to the level of traditional text and becomes something to be viewed, read and interpreted in its own right.

     The creative process involved in writing code for Change the code, keep the text is similar to that of traditional creative writing. John Simon Jr, an artist who creates software art from the perspective of a traditionally trained painter, considers writing code a form of creative writing because "the process of coming up with an idea, developing it, and finally, sitting down to type it is still the same" (Maeda, 46). A major difference, however, between traditional creative writing and code as creative writing is the media used. Besides ink and paper, digital artists must be aware of how the underlying structures of a system ("the grain") will render and manipulate their work. In doing so, one can choose from countless programming languages and digital media to write creative code. However, regardless of the writing media one chooses, the writing itself, Landow explains, should still "boast clarity, energy, rhythm, force, complexity, and nuance" (2006, 214). Because it is meant to be read and interpreted by humans, creative programming will always be more than simple machine operation. Mark Dougherty asks,

Is writing a computer program like writing a novel? Strangely enough, in some ways it is. Now the reader is to be either a computer or another computer scientist and for many, this seems to be a more comfortable situation. Thus we find a great emphasis on clarity and aesthetics. It is not enough to write program code that works well, it has to appeal to some higher sensitivities (84).

Creative code is meant to inspire thought in the mind of the reader and exhibit some form of creative expression that a computer program may fail to appreciate. Using the links below, one can check the surface layer, the source code and a description of each piece. The description explains the creative process used in each piece, i.e., the process of coming up with an idea, developing it, and writing it. Within the source code, one can see that nowhere is the sentence Change the code, keep the text actually written, making code the primary form of writing. While a web-browser interprets the code and displays it on the screen, it is up to the reader to interpret the value of each piece as creative expression.

Unicode example
Screenshots example
ASCII code example
Webcam example
RSS Reader example
Audio File example
Fonttags HTML cross-stitch example
HTML tables example
Hypertext Tag Cloud example

CODE WITHIN THE STUDY OF LITERATURE

Literature comes in all shades of artfulness and comprehensibility - Stan Kelly-Bootle, 49.

     If code is seen as a form of creative writing, then one must ask: what role does code play in literature? Janez Strehovec, among others, has argued that, "inside the digital medium the word loses its authority and solidity-which characterized its role in printed texts-and appears as the raw material for numerous transformations and interventions" (2004, 147). According to this perspective, programming languages have seemingly unstabilized the foundations of the printed word or, as Friedrich Kittler puts it, "have eroded the monopoly of ordinary language' (1997, 148). Without the formal demands of the medium of the printed page, Christopher Funkhouser writes, code "often seeks to expose, and sometimes subvert, the various binary oppositions that support our dominant ways of thinking about literature (and, perhaps, about communication in general)" (2007, 3-4). The convergence of code, literature and art have, Funkhouser continues, fostered "an entirely different set of circumstances on the reader" (2008, 1). As demonstrated by the works of Jodi.org, Jim Andrews, Jessica Loseby and Kenneth Goldsmith, examining code and text together allows one to gain greater insight into digital works and better understand the relation ship between written text and code. As such, while the code included in digital media strengthens existing cultural forms and languages, Lev Manovich writes, 'it simultaneously opens them up for redefinition" (333). The role of code in literature is yet to be defined, but its presence in literary discussion shows the significant impact it has already created.

     Personally, I agree with Kitler that code does unstabalize the monopoly of ordinary languages. There is no denying the fact that there is a plethora of programming languages ("code") that Net.artists, programmers and developers can use to express themselves. With that said, I do not believe that code challenges the authority of text but rather elevates text in novel ways. Code and written text work together in unison to produce engaging works of digital literature. As Florian Cramer writes,

The alphabet of both machine and human language is interchangeable, so that "text" - if defined as a countable mass of alphabetical signifiers - remains a valid descriptor for both machine code sequences and human writing ... I believe it is a common mistake to claim that machine language would be only readable to machines and hence irrelevant for human art and literature and, vice versa, literature and art would be unrelated to formal languages. It is important to keep in mind that computer code, and computer programs, are not machine creations and machines talking to themselves, but writings by humans (2001. 5).

As more people become comfortable reading and understanding code, it will continue to be a growing part of our literary traditions. Users will not just read online text but also the underlying code that interacts with that text. Code, Adrian Mackenzie writes, "is so ubiquitous that it should be an important material for cultural practice and representation" (25). While computer users are free to read web-based text without ever having to view the code, referring to both the source code and the written text together will give one a more complete understanding of online words.

CONCLUSION

The works of Jessica Loseby, Kenneth Goldsmith, Jodi.org, and Jim Andrews demonstrate how looking past the surface layer text of a computer screen and examining its code can give a more complete understanding of digital literature. Moreover, while the creative use of code does challenge the monopoly of traditional text, it can also elevate text by allowing words to be manipulated in more ways than were traditionally available on the printed page. Within changethecode.com, code, video, hypertext and regular text all work together to display words in numerous dynamic and creative ways that would have been impossible on the printed page. Both this essay and changethecode.com, therefore, work together to showcase how readers can approach the same text in many different formats. This interaction provides a multiplicity that plays out as the central idea of change the code, keep the text. If "words without thought never to Heaven go," then in the digital age we find that words without some level of creative thought can never upload. Regardless of the media that we adopt to read online text, all digital words are supported by some form of code-code which requires careful planning and attention to detail to write and execute. When we take a moment to contemplate the relationship between text and code, it becomes clear that online text cannot exist without code. Code remains the underlying form of thought which prevents digital words from physically or metaphorically disappearing into cyberspace.

ABOUT

BACKGROUND INFO
Given that a large portion of this project is web-based, I feel it is important to provide a description of the programs used and the logic behind many of the choices for the website changethecode.com. From the beginning of this project, I knew that it would require a web-based platform that could handle video, code, text and hypertext. Some people may choose to read the code, while others may not. Some may simply view the videos and never interact with the hypertext. There is no right or wrong way to approach the text online. Ideally, users will try more than just one format in order to better understand my thesis that the creative use of code, while it challenges the monopoly of traditional text, elevates text by allowing words to take on more dynamic properties than were traditionally available on the printed page.

DEMONSTRATIONS
The power of visual demonstration became a key motivating factor for using video on changethecode.com. As Peter Lunenfeld writes:

The demonstration, or 'demo,' has become the defining moment of the digital artist's practice at the turn of the millennium. For artists and designers who work with technology, no amount of talent, no ground-breaking aesthetic, no astonishing insight makes up for an inability to demonstrate their work on a computer in real time in front of an audience (13).

Given that this essay is written for both audiences who are familiar with code and those who are not, I feel that online demonstrations are crucial to help visualize some of the more complicated technical concepts-concepts that would have been confusing to many if expressed simply with written text. Performing various textual operations within video demonstrations allows me to more effectively express my arguments and, in general, provides a visual context for analyses of the central concept of 'change the code, keep the text.'

NAVIGATION
On changethecode.com, I chose to arrange the videos on a horizontal line because I wanted to try to both simulate the experience of reading a scroll and disrupt the typical navigation flow of a graphical user interface (GUI). In multiple civilizations throughout history, scrolls remained one of the earliest formats for the inscription of editable record keeping text. For the most part, the aesthetic of a left-to-right scroll is intuitive to an English speaking audience; however, somewhat ironically, the same audience has been conditioned for a top-to-bottom navigation on a web interface. Vertical scroll has remained the natural flow for website navigation for a number of years. Notice, for instance, how many computer mice have a special scroller designed exclusively for vertical scrolling. Nowadays, however, it appears that more websites have begun using horizontal scrolling (see examples: here). Such navigation allows for information to remain "above the fold" while a user navigates a site's content. Perhaps the most recent and best example of the intuitive nature of a horizontal scroll is exhibited in the touch screen interface of the Apple iPhone and iPad. By choosing to adopt a horizontal scroll, I hope to exhibit both how computer code controls and dictates how one reads text online and how a programmer is free to choose from countless different ways to present text online.

TEXT TO SPEECH
Nextup.com's Text Aloud is the software used for each online video to encode Text To Speech (TTS). TTS engines use voice synthesis to convert text into spoken audio. Undoubtedly, listeners will hear numerous "errors" throughout the videos on changethecode.com because Text Aloud, like most TTS engines, has difficulty normalizing text and making phonetic representations of heteronyms, numbers, and abbreviations. For the purposes of this essay, however, the seemingly flawed aesthetic of a mechanized voice works to highlight the interplay between code and text. Text Aloud uses an embedded algorithm to define the logic for encoding text into speech. When hearing the software's interpretation of text, a human listener is made aware of certain flaws in the code. In short, the more unnatural the sound, the more aware one may become of code interpreting text. The text for the audio in each video was not changed in any way and was simply pasted into Text Aloud's software to be converted into an audio file. This process allows for an audio context for analyses of the central concept of 'change the code, keep the text,' as the sounds you hear in each video represent how Text Aloud's code, while at times flawed, works to interpret the text.