%0 Journal Article %T ¨¹ksildus k¨¹berruumis: autori individuaalsus ja teksti autonoomia. Solitude in Cyberspace: the Individuality of an Author and the Autonomy of a Text %A Virve Sarapik %A Piret Viires %J Methis : Studia humaniora Estonica %D 2011 %I University of Tartu and Estonian Literary Museum %X The keywords in analyses of digital literature and cybertexts (literature that has been created by and is read on a computer) mostly derive from the vocabulary of increasing collectivism: shared authorship, readerviewer interaction, their active participation in creating text etc. However, this article focuses on the opposite phenomenon: the essence of individualism in the process of digital text creation, that is, solitude. At the same time, the paradoxes related to collectivism and solitude are also addressed. In this article, solitude is regarded as a technical term, indicating the number of different agents in a creative process. This primarily means: whether the text can be associated with one author and his intention, or whether authorship is distributed between several people who have participated in the creation of the text, as well as if and how much texts presume activity on the part of the reader. We can claim that when writers write their texts they are usually on their own. A text is born in the writer¡¯s head and he or she needs some kind of form to present it. When the form of literature was mostly what was recorded on paper, we could say that the author formalised his text in solitude ¨C writing alone on pieces of paper. Only after the manuscript was handed in were other participants added, such as the editor, designer and printer, who took part in the completion process of the literary work. However, when the end result of production is not a printed book, but a cyber- or hypertext, we can assume that these relationships change significantly in the case of digital literature. In addition to the author of the text, cybertexts and hypertexts need active co-authors: programmers, designers etc. Creating a cybertext is, therefore, basically a collective act (although there are of course exceptions). The author of a cybertext is no longer the only and unique creator. At the same time, the solitude of a creative work in cyberspace disappears. After publishing a book in print, the text is left alone; it begins living its own life. In cyberspace, on the contrary, connections in various forms between the author, the work and the reader are retained. Alan Kirby has launched the concept of digimodernism, which marks the cultural stage connected with the spread of Web 2.0. The ¡°digimodernist turn¡±, in the form of blogs, Facebook and Twitter, has also brought about a change for authors of digital literature. The technological simplicity of the new software means that authors no longer need any urgent technical assistance. This again raises the problem o %U http://ojs.utlib.ee/index.php/methis/article/view/552