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Hostages of the Ephemeral: A Preservationist View of Electronic Literature
Throughout history, stewards of cultural heritage collections have advocated for technologies of external memory based on their proven ability to endure into the future. Despite studies that demonstrate how zeros and ones inscribed on digital media often stand up well to the ravages of time, the long-term preservation of the content they encode—particularly in the field of electronic literature—has proven to be a challenge. This is because the accessibility of electronic literature depends as much on the preservation of bit-streams as on the long-term viability of specialized computing environments and their constituent hardware and software components, thereby placing works of electronic literature at considerably greater risk of disappearance than their analog predecessors. Although authors of electronic literature have cultivated a growing awareness of best practices in digital preservation, they still lack tools designed with the posterity of their creations in mind. This paper explores these issues, as well as the question of ephemerality for electronic literature, by assessing contemporary digital formats within the broader history of preservation technologies.
Jill Walker Rettberg - 23.08.2013 - 10:33
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Authorship and Autership in the Collaborative Development Process of Text-Based Games
The collaborative development of text-based Multi-User Dungeons (MUDs) has afforded writers an electronic medium for the discussion, production, and publication of e-literature. A MUD is designed to provide an immersive and interactive experience, and is achieved by the creation of a code-based structure that supports a literary text. However, when multiple contributors are involved there is a tension between the inherently fixed nature of literature and the more fluid versioning of software. In many software development environments, ownership over a work is considered to be counter-productive, whereas authorship of literature is assumed more freely and, as a means of contextual explication, is actively encouraged. MUDs must therefore function under colliding principles of authorship and ownership. The production of a large MUD’s literary text is conceived similar to the cinematic production of a film, with the lead designer of a MUD assuming the role of a ‘director’. The production and proliferation of electronic literature presents new and unique challenges to both the longitudinal administration of a MUD and to the coherence of the literary text.
Jill Walker Rettberg - 23.08.2013 - 12:04
