Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Did I coin the term hyperdrama?

I did according to Astrid Ensslin, author of Cononising Hypertext: Explorations and Constructions:

The term was coined by hyperdramatist and theorist Charles Deemer, who understands `traditional drama as a special case of hyperdrama' ("The New Hyperdrama") because of its mono-perspectival approach."


Now this is all very interesting (mono-perspectival!). I don't recall "coining" the term. I know when this ride began with Chateau de Mort in the mid-80s, we wanted to call this new theater form "a living movie," which is what Tamara was called, but the term had been registered as a trademark(!). We called it "simultaneous-action theater," which sucked. Some time later I began using hyperdrama, a natural derivative from hypertext, of course, but I don't recall if I read it somewhere or just started using it. At any rate, apparently I have early documented uses of the term and for this reason alone, perhaps, am given credit for it. I'll take it -- but frankly I have no idea if I coined the term or not. I just started using it. I don't recall if I first saw it somewhere else.

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