Laboratorie NT2

The NT2 Laboratory (new technologies, new textualities) is a university-based research project whose mission is to promote the reading, understanding, and archiving of Hypermedia Literature and Art (Web art, net art, e-literature, etc.). Its main purpose is to assess and promote the expressions of cyberculture, while developing new publishing strategies for ongoing research relating to contemporary imagination and culture. Researchers involved come from six universities and work in Literature, Film Studies, Art History, Media Art, Library Science and Game Studies.

NT2 and its online environment play a seminal role within the digital community (artists, students, researchers, writers) interested in Hypermedia. The Hypermedia Art and Literature (HAL) Directory is at the core of the NT2 project. Work on this database began five years ago as an answer to a question: how can we give an accurate account of the forms of art and literature emerging in cyberspace, considering that they are among the first manifestations of a genuine cyberculture? If hypermedia creations now seem to represent a form of avant-garde, our hypothesis follows that they might be, quite simply, the future of art and literature. Within this context, developing a critical perspective, and recognizing early forms of hypermedia artistic and literary works become absolutely essential means of understanding our contemporary culture and imagination.

The HAL Directory is a showcase for hypermedia art which consists of 3,000 files, providing information on recent works of Net art, Web art, new media, and all forms of e-literature. The directory also redirects the user to the art work itself. In addition to the Directory, NT2 has created a pool of resources that help to understand and promote Hypermedia. Among these is a series of thematic dossiers that highlight specific phenomena linked to the Directory entries. These dossiers focus on such topics as transmedia adaptations; political activism in video games; artistic uses of GPS technology; Second Life; Machinima; etc. Our site also offers short films about hypermedia artists, an extensive critical bibliography, extended descriptions of Hypermedia creations, and articles outlining ideas for reflection or simply the latest news on the Web. There is also bleuOrange, the hypermedia literary creation online magazine (http://revuebleuorange.org), which publishes both French literary productions and Hypermedia art in French translation.

Thus, NT2's Website is not just a showcase for Hypermedia Art and Literature, but a complete and dynamic knowledge and research environment, available to both scholars and the public. With the same focus on developing knowledge and research environments, NT2 also develops and hosts a dozen online databases in Literature and Cinema, with a wide range of subjects, such as: Borges novels, fictions about 9/11, science and literature, Slam and oral poetry, gaming, and literature in the public space.