HyperLink is a poetic series of multimedia speculations on the links between the Arabic language and computer languages.
HyperLink v1.0: The Opening
The Holy Quran is both a book of faith and literature with a unique textual medium; it exploits both words and structure to manifest a message. For example, The Holy Quran speaks about the human in different chapters where each verse is separate and has a different context. However, the human narrative is bounded by the overall corpus. This declares two points: the narrative is a value by itself which only reveals itself in relation to the whole text.
The Quranic narrative has distinctive attributes, one of which is the narratee. The narratee is an active receiver of the Quranic text; given that he brings into its reading as much as the text offers, this makes his experience personalized and customized in all levels. Likewise, how to provide an experience that is responsive and meaningful while maintaining the shared narrative?
The attempt here is to create a HyperLink, a web-based interactive narrative investigating this link through the lens of Quranic devices. For example, spatio-temporal circumstance, mode of action, and duration, all by reintroducing them through different verbal, audible, and visual mediums. HyperLink: The Opening uses webpage(s) as the primary medium of narrative to set the virtual space to bring its off-reality perception to awareness and remind the user that code is subject to human principles, desires, impulses and beliefs.
Online, we expose ourselves by what we search for, read about, follow, and watch. This information is all archived as keywords. HyperLink: The Opening uses these keywords to further define potential links and expand its narrative in a feedback loop. However, web-based narrative conceals times, it challenges the webpage capacity to contain an engaging narrative arc.
«The Most Compassionate, Taught the Qur’an, Created man, [And] taught him eloquence.»
[Qur’an 55:1-4]
The Opening is an interactive web-based narrative reformatting the told and the telling on Twitter. The Opening explores potential alternative information structures to reach the meta-narrative by using two mechanisms: Quranic narratology, as a built-in structure, and feedback loop to fill in content.
The Cube (HyperFlip) is a 3D symbol of the Hadith of Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him which says: "The Prophet (PBUH) drew up a square and in the middle of it he drew a line, the end of which jutted out beyond the square. Further across the middle line, he drew a number of smaller lines. Then he (PBUH) said, "The figure represents man and the encircling square is the death which is encompassing him. The middle line represents his desires and the smaller lines are vicissitudes of life. If one of those misses him, another distresses him, and if that one misses him, he falls victim to another.""
The Opening explores obscure meta-narratives concepts, such as the narrator-narratee relationship and how the medium shapes the narrative. It begs the question how to isolate the narrator from the process of explicitly linking the story’s content?