The Importance and Function of Media Labs for the Preservation of Works of Digital and Electronic Literature

The aim of current thesis is to propose an applicable model of an archive for works of digital and electronic literature in the context of a media laboratory that would document, collect, preserve and maintain works by native artist/authors in the Turkish scene. This thesis is both intended as a co-mediation that investigates and critiques the material infrastructure of the contemporary archival practices with a trajectory on the now-speculative forms of archival evolution such as DNA- storage through a media archaeological observance of existing examples of media laboratories that focus on the preservation of works of digital and electronic literature; and, rendered as a proposal for an actual archival project that would be utilized so as to establish a certain media laboratory for the archival, collection, documentation, preservation and maintenance of such literary works that defy the print-culture-bound dimension of traditional humanities. It aims to encourage the mediated thinking. By employing works of digital and electronic literature as digital objects, it also provide an ontological grounding for the media inherent thereof. Throughout the thesis, a media archaeological critique is reached in terms of contemporary archival studies through the notion of World Literature, that is the base of Comparative Literature, in order that a sense of interdisciplinary practice may be developed with media studies at large and computational arts for the betterment of knowledge preservation, and sharability thereof.

Keywords: Archive, Digital Literature, Electronic Literature, Media Archaeology, Media Laboratory