Digital Literature: Theoretical and Aesthetic Reflections

As it was clear in Text Rain, highly complex digital objects will often demand and benefit from both hermeneutical and non-hermeneutical “readings”. Despite their lexical natures – and the interpretative responses elicited by them – their physical apprehension generates material effects of presence, which are not to be ignored. Borrowing from theorist Andrew Darley’s terminology, Roberto Simanowski speaks of a shift in spectatorship modalities, from readers concerned with conceptual and symbolic attributions to spectators veered towards corporeal stimulation (SIMANOWSKI, 2011). Always a believer in de-paradoxifying attitudes, I will claim the following: (a) In digital installations, the effects of physicality encompass an increasing sense of self-awareness on the interactor’s part, a surrendering to a state of relaxation akin to the focused serenity of waiting for a revelation Gumbrecht ascribes to Gelassenheit (GUMBRECHT, 2004). (b) Profiting from this sensory and cognitive oscillation, mixed reality digital installations subvert hermeneutic order even more drastically than non-digital installations would, for in the latter the matter/immaterial modulation is not manifest. Moreover, (c) I suspect that this increased awareness of corporeality and embodiment has not emerged of its own accord. It is not a spontaneous happenstance, but rather represents a cultural tendency that has gained currency as an aesthetic trend because it fulfills certain pre-cognitive needs not fully addressed by the hermeneutical/metaphysical paradigm. It is no wonder that this reactive sensory/affective technological turn has led several authors and researchers of new media to speak of biometric sensors, cortex-encased protoplasts, cyborg bodies and prototyping platforms, promoting a shift away from visual interfaces to proprioceptive interfaces.