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1. Taroko Gorge Remixed: Repetition and Difference in Machine Texts

   In 2009 Nick Montfort wrote a short program--first in Python and later in Javascript--that generated an infinite nature poem inspired by the stunning Taroko Gorge in Taiwan. While Montfort never explicitly released the code of “Taroko Gorge” under a free software license, it was readily available to anyone who viewed the HTML source of the poem’s web page. Lean and elegantly coded, with self-evident algorithms and a clearly demarcated word list, “Taroko Gorge” lends itself to reappropriation. Simply altering the word list (the paradigmatic axis) creates an entirely different randomly generated poem, while the underlying sentence structure (the syntagmatic axis) remains the same. Very quickly Scott Rettberg remixed the original poem, replacing its naturalistic vocabulary (“crags,” “basins,” “rocks,” “mist,” and so on) with words drawn from what Rettberg imagined to be a counterpoint to Montfort’s meditative nature scene--a garage in Toyko, cluttered with consumer objects. J.R.

   Eric Dean Rasmussen - 18.06.2012 - 13:36

2. The (Problematic) Issue to Evaluate Literariness: Digital Literature Between Legitimation and Canonization

   The first experiments in digital literary forms started as early as
   the 1960s. From then, up to the mid-90’s, was a period that,
   according to Chris Funkhouser (2007), can be considered as
   a ‘laboratory’ phase. The rise of the Internet has resulted in the
   proliferation of creative proposals. The first involves indexing
   creative works in the form of databases, sometimes giving access
   to hundreds of works without any hierarchical order. Since 2000,
   digital literature has been experiencing a new phase, marked by
   the creation of anthologies. Over the years, the evaluation and
   selection criteria have proved to be as problematic as they are
   necessary for these projects. The main issue of this paper is to
   provide a critical discussion of these criteria.

   Eric Dean Rasmussen - 22.06.2012 - 16:40

3. Performing the Digital Archive: Remediation, Emulation, Recreation

   The aim of ‘PO.EX '70-80: A Digital Archive of Portuguese Experimental Literature’ (http://po-ex.net/) is to represent the intermedia and performative textuality of a large corpus of experimental works and practices in an electronic database, including some early instances of digital literature. This paper shows how the performativity of digital archiving and recoding is explored through the remediation, emulation and recreation of works in the PO.EX archive. Preservation, classification and networked distribution are also discussed as editorial and representational problems within the current database aesthetics in knowledge production. (Project reference: PTDC/CLE-LLI/098270/2008).

   Eric Dean Rasmussen - 22.06.2012 - 16:42