Figurski at Findhorn on Acid is a comic hypertext novel originally published in 2001 and reconceived for the modern web in 2021. The novel’s scenes are generated from every possible combination of three characters, three artifacts, and three places, and yet it also has an overall, chronological (if unconventional) plot that takes place in the 1990s. At the center of the plot is a valuable 18th century mechanical pig, plus a near-identical forgery, automatons which the characters separately pursue across global and virtual locations. The pigs become a metaphor for the novel—like the hypertext, they both have exactly 147 parts, parts which the characters disassemble and then must try to reassemble in the end when they finally come together “all on the same page.” Likewise, the experience of reading the novel involves a constant (re)assembling of its disparate elements into scenes, as the reader traverses hypertext links and chooses navigational paths. In these ways Figurski may be seen as both literally and symbolically about disconnection and reconnection.
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