Submitted by Cathy Davidson on Aug 15, 2006, 08:31 PM
Workshop on Electronic Literature Katherine Hayles We broke into groups and looked at several pieces of electronic literature---Richard Holeton?s ?Frequently Asked Questions about Hypertext? is an academic parody of the prejudices around hypertext. This was the group I was in but it felt too much like my day job so I moved around the room and spied on other EL, hoping for something with sight and sound. Robert Kendall?s ?Faith? is a quite abstract Flash poem with sound, color, and animation. Lauce Olsen?s ?10:01? is an intriguing Flash production in a movie theater with mysterious actions (grenades!) and Josh Hartnett too. Emily Short?s ?Galatea? is a play with an interactive character whose complex personality defies simple manipulation. And Donna Leishman?s ?Deviant: The Possession of Christian Shaw? confounds control by mouse, with a fabulous character (Christian) appearing morosely and depressively and without command. ?Deviant? is my fav, gorgeous graphics, vaguely Hiroshi Naka, and full of surprise in the tensions between literal and representational visual elements and abstract ones, plus great sound. Way nice. Watch it here: http://www.flashgoddess.com/html/spotDLeishman.html http://www.6amhoover.com/xxx/ Conversation: Hypertext group lends itself very well to theoretical discussion. Faith is pretty. Concrete poetry, harp and ambient techno. Faith?is it in, of, off. Is faith in the active reading of the poem? What kind of reading is this? Is it any different than other kinds of reading? 10:01---frustrating dynamism between static and dynamic elements. Representationality is traditional, narrative not. Interesting frustration between demands of eyes and mind. Can explore story linearly or not. Everyone is in the theater but movie never seems to start. Deviant is just so beautiful . . . scary, bodies opening, little things popping out, rats, worms, pretty, imaginative and with sordid and monstrous hauntings of a girl with tiny body and large head and body. Horrid little ratfaced guy does a kind of happy jig. Must find that which is hidden, difficult to navigate, but lyrical in its difficulty. ?It?s about neuroses, little stories about ourselves that we create to explain things.? (Way smart comment by someone in the group, not moi.) Galatea is a conversation with a statue. What surprised one of our group and pleased her was that electronic literature didn?t just refer to the medium but to the visual process unfolding. The poem in a print format (this is ?Faith?) would not have been so exciting, but static and limited. The field of Electronic Literature goes back to 1960s with computer-generated poems but 1987 and hypertext is real beginning, and characteristic was considered to be linking structure. But Flash and Director make EL much more exciting and multimedia. I?m hooked on Donna Leishman. Read an interview with her: http://www.flashgoddess.com/html/spotDLeishman.html And here?s one with her resume of exhibitions and installations: http://www.wordwrap.de/htreadings/donnalei.html ?The specificity of these works is that they are all underlain with code.??Kate Hayles. ?The code must be considered as part of the work. If you try to focus on the screen, then you are doomed. Programmable media is work of algorhythmically generated work. So question arises of where is the text? On the screen? Somewhere else? Electronic literature is as media-specific as print literature. Field is still very young and artists have matured as has the field. The complexity of the work encouraged collaboration. KH says this is a rooting of different knowledges, different traditions of expertise and theory and critique. But all are necessary to understand full complexity of the works. This DVD with these works on it will be available soon for the Electronic Literature Society plus in a book and dvd edited and on the web for download from Nortre Dame University Press.
Workshop on Electronic Literature Katherine Hayles We broke into groups and looked at several pieces of electronic literature---Richard Holeton?s ?Frequently Asked Questions about Hypertext? is an academic parody of the prejudices around hypertext. This was the group I was in but it felt too much like my day job so I moved around the room and spied on other EL, hoping for something with sight and sound. Robert Kendall?s ?Faith? is a quite abstract Flash poem with sound, color, and animation. Lauce Olsen?s ?10:01? is an intriguing Flash production in a movie theater with mysterious actions (grenades!) and Josh Hartnett too. Emily Short?s ?Galatea? is a play with an interactive character whose complex personality defies simple manipulation. And Donna Leishman?s ?Deviant: The Possession of Christian Shaw? confounds control by mouse, with a fabulous character (Christian) appearing morosely and depressively and without command. ?Deviant? is my fav, gorgeous graphics, vaguely Hiroshi Naka, and full of surprise in the tensions between literal and representational visual elements and abstract ones, plus great sound. Way nice. Watch it here: http://www.flashgoddess.com/html/spotDLeishman.html http://www.6amhoover.com/xxx/ Conversation: Hypertext group lends itself very well to theoretical discussion. Faith is pretty. Concrete poetry, harp and ambient techno. Faith?is it in, of, off. Is faith in the active reading of the poem? What kind of reading is this? Is it any different than other kinds of reading? 10:01---frustrating dynamism between static and dynamic elements. Representationality is traditional, narrative not. Interesting frustration between demands of eyes and mind. Can explore story linearly or not. Everyone is in the theater but movie never seems to start. Deviant is just so beautiful . . . scary, bodies opening, little things popping out, rats, worms, pretty, imaginative and with sordid and monstrous hauntings of a girl with tiny body and large head and body. Horrid little ratfaced guy does a kind of happy jig. Must find that which is hidden, difficult to navigate, but lyrical in its difficulty. ?It?s about neuroses, little stories about ourselves that we create to explain things.? (Way smart comment by someone in the group, not moi.) Galatea is a conversation with a statue. What surprised one of our group and pleased her was that electronic literature didn?t just refer to the medium but to the visual process unfolding. The poem in a print format (this is ?Faith?) would not have been so exciting, but static and limited. The field of Electronic Literature goes back to 1960s with computer-generated poems but 1987 and hypertext is real beginning, and characteristic was considered to be linking structure. But Flash and Director make EL much more exciting and multimedia. I?m hooked on Donna Leishman. Read an interview with her: http://www.flashgoddess.com/html/spotDLeishman.html And here?s one with her resume of exhibitions and installations: http://www.wordwrap.de/htreadings/donnalei.html ?The specificity of these works is that they are all underlain with code.??Kate Hayles. ?The code must be considered as part of the work. If you try to focus on the screen, then you are doomed. Programmable media is work of algorhythmically generated work. So question arises of where is the text? On the screen? Somewhere else? Electronic literature is as media-specific as print literature. Field is still very young and artists have matured as has the field. The complexity of the work encouraged collaboration. KH says this is a rooting of different knowledges, different traditions of expertise and theory and critique. But all are necessary to understand full complexity of the works. This DVD with these works on it will be available soon for the Electronic Literature Society plus in a book and dvd edited and on the web for download from Nortre Dame University Press.
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