Feral Hypertext: When Hypertext Literature Escapes Control

Abstract

This paper presents a historical view of hypertext looking at pre-web hypertext as a domesticated species bred in captivity, and arguing that on the web, some breeds of hypertext have gone feral. Feral hypertext is no longer tame and domesticated, but is fundamentally out of our control. In order to understand and work with feral hypertext, we need to accept this and think more as hunter-gatherers than as the farmers we have been for domesticated hypertext. The paper discusses hypertext in general with an emphasis on literary and creative hypertext practice.