Between the link and the vortex: poetics of post-hypertext

Abstract

This article analyzes the literature in cyberspace, beginning with the transition from verbal hypertext to image-based hypertexts and QR stories. This qualitative study is based on a literature review and interpretive analysis of selected texts. Therefore, the first part of the development discusses image-based hypertexts as an evolution of verbal hypertexts, emphasizing the replacement of words with images and valuing interactive reading. The second section discusses the post-hypertextual experience and performative reading made possible by QR stories, which encode short but impactful narratives. This study considers the concepts of these theorists: Wolfgang Iser, who understands reading as a game and emphasizes the importance of challenging the reader with unconventional structures; George Landow, who analyzes the effects and characteristics of hypertextual structure; Henry Jenkins's concepts of media convergence; Lucia Santaella and her perspective on multisensory and cyberliterature; Katherine Hayles, who analyzes reading as a practice embedded in technological systems; and Ramon Tessmann, who defines cyberspace as an environment conducive to experimentation and the speed of digital technology. The study discusses the influence of cyberliterature in redefining the role of the reader, who becomes discoverer and co-author of the work. To demonstrate this, the interactivity and synthesis typical of QR stories are highlighted, which relate to the connective and rhizomatic logic of hypertext. Thus, it is argued that both texts establish a new dynamic of reading that combines language, technology, and body. Consequently, these texts expand the reach of literature and propose new forms of presence, authorship, and reading, challenging the standards of creative writing and consolidating digital literature as aesthetic-critical experimentation.