A hypertext is not a closed work but an open fabric of heterogeneous traces and associations that are in a process of constant revision and supplementation. The structure of a hypertext is not fixed but is forever shifting and always mobile. The interplay of surface and depth gives way to a perpetual displacement of surfaces that is anything but superficial. Branching options multiply, menus reproduce, windows open on other windows, and screens display other screens in a lateral dispersal that disseminates rather than integrates. Hierarchy unravels in a web where top and bottom, up and down, lose consistent meaning. Everything everywhere is middle. Instead of an organic whole, a hypertext is a rent texture whose meaning is unstable and whose boundaries are constantly changing. There is no clearly defined preestablished path through the proliferating layers of a hypertext. Though the network is shared, the course each individual follows is different. Thus, no hypertext is the product of a single author who is its creative origin or heroic architect. To the contrary, in the hypertextual network, all authorship is joint authorship and all production is co-production. Every writer is a reader and all reading is writing. While sometimes printed on a page, the medium of the hypertext is essentially electronic. Neither simply universal nor individual, general nor particular, fixed nor fluctuating, structured nor amorphous, grounded nor groundless, original nor copy, hypertextual space displays and evokes an alternative architecture.

Taylor, Mark C. , and Esa Saarinen. "Telewriting." Imagologies: Media Philosophy. New York: Routledge, 1994. 6.