Vectors, Scalar, and Magic: Emerging Platforms for E-lit Scholarship

Emerging media forms do not merely excite artists; they also inspire critics to develop innovative scholarly works. For over seven years, the USC-based Vectors Journal has promoted webbased scholarship by developing and publishing projects that utilize experimental design interfaces, data structures, and digital authoring tools. In this presentation, Vectors’ Creative Director Erik Loyer, Info Design Director Craig Dietrich, and 2011 Fellow Mark Marino will present glimpses of critical works that use innovative platforms to explore their material. Loyer will begin with a presentation that looks at several of his collaborations with scholars to create the dynamic multimodal works of Vectors. Dietrich will follow with a look at the new platform Scalar, a publishing platform based on Vectors’ workflows and Semantic Web technology. Dietrich will also detail Magic, an experimental design fork of Scalar centered on the presentation of software code. Marino will then present his Scalar piece based on the Magic fork which analyzes a work of electronic literature, the Transborder Immigrant Tool, including annotations of the tool’s code. (Source: Author's abstract, 2012 ELO Conference site)