Search

Search content of the knowledge base.

The search found 6 results in 0.007 seconds.

Search results

  1. Deeper into the Machine: The Future of Electronic Literature

    N. Katherine Hayles's keynote address for the 2002 State of the Arts Symposium at UCLA. Hayles identifies two generations of electronic literature: mainly text-based works produces in Storyspace and Hypercard until about 1995-1997, and second-generation works, mainly authored in Director, Flash, Shockwave and XML in years after that. She identifies second-generation works as "fully multimedia" and notes a move "deeper into the machine." She then reads a number of second-generation works in the context of their computational specificity.

    Publication note: Also published online in Culture Machine Vol. 5 (2003)

    Scott Rettberg - 30.05.2011 - 12:38

  2. Artists, Personas, Mediums, Instruments: Envisioning the Visionary

    In his artist essay "Steps Into Performance (And Out)," Vito Acconci writes: "...if I specialize in a medium, then I would be fixing a ground for myself, a ground I would have to be digging myself out of, constantly, as one medium was substituted for another - so, then instead of turning toward 'ground' I would shift my attention and turn to 'instrument,' I would focus on myself as the instrument that acted on whatever ground was available." 

    Is it true that the artist is the visionary medium or instrument best positioned to transform the cultural landscape and that the tools we use, the theories that justify it all, and the outcomes that all too often play into the preconceived agendas and methods of the academic research community as well as the corporate R&D divisions should have very little to do with the way an artist or collaborative network of artists bring their creative compositions into society? 

    Scott Rettberg - 09.01.2013 - 10:43

  3. Fixing the Computer World

    Nelson believes today's computer world is based on tekkie misunderstanding of human life and human thought.

    These have led to unfortunate traditions and structures: hierarchical directories, the PARC user world (the so-called "modern GUI"), the division of the software world into high-walled applications, WYSIWYG documents (simulating paper under glass that you can't mark or cut up), the redefinition of "cut and paste" from their important meaning of previous centuries, the one-way non-overlappable links of the World Wide Web, the locking of Web pages to Internet locations, XML with its imposed hierarchy and non-overlappable attributes of locked-in descriptors, and now the Semantic Web-- a plan for tekkie committees to standardize the universe of human ideas.

    All these, Nelson says, are based on warped notions of how ideas, and people, work, and come from traditions and mind-set of the tekkie community. But it is not too late to provide alternatives, because the problems of the present approaches corrupt our work and lives at every level, and huge improvements are possible.

    (Source: Author's abstract, Incubation3 conference site, trAce Archive)

    Scott Rettberg - 19.01.2013 - 23:18

  4. Thinking Paratextually: Making Meaning from Paradigm Shifts in the Age of Digital Culture

    Based on the dual perspective of looking back and moving forward, this talk will explore the
    underlying tensions in recent work on paratextual theory and on elements that may – or not – fall
    under an evolving definition of what constitutes digital paratext.

    Alvaro Seica - 29.08.2014 - 10:04

  5. Things Rarely Turn Out the Way I Intend Them To

    A version of this illustrated article about creative process was given by J.R. Carpenter as a Keynote Address at the New Media Writing Prize Award Event at Bournemouth University in January 2017.

    J. R. Carpenter - 30.06.2017 - 12:25

  6. Electronic Literature: Documenting and Archiving Multimodal Computational Writing

    The field of Electronic Literature comprises new forms of literary creation that merge writing, computation, interactivity, and design in the creation of writing that is specific to the context of the computer and the global network. While electronic literature is a field of experimental writing with a history that stretches back to the 1950s, it has grown most expansively in the late two decades. Forms of electronic literature such as combinatory poetics, hypertext fiction, kinetic and interactive poetry, and network writing bridge the 20th century avant-garde and practices specific to the 21st century networked society. Yet electronic literature has faced significant hurdles as it has developed as a field of study, related to the comparative instability of complex computational objects, which because of their formal diversity are often not easily accommodated by standardized methods of digital archiving, and are subject to cycles of technological obsolescence. Rettberg's presentation will address efforts to disseminate, document, and archive the field of electronic literature.

    Scott Rettberg - 01.10.2019 - 12:08