An Abstract Activity

Non-linear thinking – like non-linear writing required by the web – is an abstract activity. Viewed from the perspective of the art world, for example, it’s useful to see how abstract art sprang from a rejection of what is known as “representational art.”

Representational art is just that – it represents visual “reality.” It displays an image that is often revered for its mastery in how “real” it looks; how much it represents reality. With the advent of photography, however, representational art found itself in for some revolutionary changes.

Movements towards feelings and experiences as representational of reality – as seen with the arrival of impressionism and on through to increasing abstractions – heralded a broadening of the function of art. For example, dissolving into a Rothko canvas was (and is) an experience for the viewer. Conceptual ideas and questioning of ideas, as well as time and space based performances, among other schools of artistic expression, soon entered both the gallery and other kinds of space.

And the function of art continues to be questioned, to question itself, and to question other functions – each new response moving society further along in tandem with various other schools of style.

Although certainly not “art” as that term has come to mean, web copy has moved text into a more abstract realm. Along with the broadening of function, comes a multiplicity of form. Just as modernism decrees that form should always follow function, and as postmodernism in turn questions this command, the web demands more function from text. As such, the debate for postmodernism will have to wait. The form of web copywriting continues to most certainly follow function for the time being.

With respect to the experience of reading web copy, it can be said that the user interacts with web copy much more than in a traditional linear text. As an example, I recall a series of books called “Choose Your Own Adventure” that were popular when I was about 10 years old. The reader was able to choose which chapter to read next: at the end of each chapter, a choice would present itself which directed the reader to the next chapter. How you chose the character’s next action would change (form) the entire story. That’s a very simple example of a non-linear text. Web copy expands this idea. And that simple idea becomes a whole new way of relating to copy.

It is with this new relation that copy evolves.

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