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Articles

Volume 18, Number 2 (1993)

The Word Entrances: Virtual Realities in Dewdney's Log Entries

  • Christian Bök
Submitted
May 22, 2008
Published
1993-06-06

Abstract

Christopher Dewdney's Log Entries explores the solipsism of consciousness by parodying a traditional genre of objective documentation; the text documents consciousness perceiving reality as a side-effect of consciousness and thereby becomes such a side-effect, ultimately calling into question the whole project of objective interpretation. The text operates upon the principle that, if the senses are deceptive, then all knowledge built upon empirical evidence may be nothing more than a fragile web of illusions; it explores the implications of such neurolinguistic solipsism. The text acts as a metaphorical model of perceptual experience; the identity of the male chronicler (if he is a single person) appears to be fragmented, playing various roles interchangeably: both a performer of an experiment and a performer in an experiment. Log Entries can be read as a ciphered text that does violence to itself in order to provide misinformation for a reader who aspires to textual omniscience.