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1. The Experience of the Unique in Reading Digital Literature

   Traditionally in literary criticism, importance has been laid on the uniqueness of the expression (the author says something that nobody else has said before, or, says something in a way that nobody else has done before) and the uniqueness of experience (my reading of a book is always different compared to any other readings). With digital literature we are facing a wholly new situation. Cybertextual literature possesses devices for creating a different textual whole for each reader and reading session. Even though the piece of computer code underlying the work remains the same, the surface level may be different on each and every run. In this situation the reader may truly face a unique text, something that nobody else may ever see.

   I will ponder the consequences of this new textual condition, especially from the perspective of personal reception and interpretation. I will also present some examples of this sort of works, and classify certain main categories, such as truly unique vs. pseudo unique text, and text where uniqueness is created through programming alone, and such where (one or several) reader(s) is partly responsible.

   Patricia Tomaszek - 12.01.2011 - 20:40

2. Third Hand Plays: The Comedy of Automation

   Third Hand Plays: The Comedy of Automation

   Eric Dean Rasmussen - 10.10.2011 - 14:47

3. Generating Books: Paradoxical Print Snapshots of Digital Literary Processes

   Since the advent of the internet, advocates and critics alike have heralded the end of the book. George P. Landow observed that hypertextuality and poststructuralism emerged at the same moment, both due to dissatisfaction with the printed book and hierarchal thought. Derrida argued the question of writing could only be opened if the book was closed. Consider, then, the paradoxical position of Vienna-based publishers TRAUMAWIEN. Recognizing that although the vast majority of the text produced by computer systems – protocols, listings, error logs, binary codes – is never seen or read by those who consume it, this text is internal to our daily thoughts and actions and is thus literary. TRAUMAWIEN conceives of the print books it publishes as snapshots of computer generated literary processes which would otherwise be disappearing as soon as they are written. This paper will discuss the iterative processes by which I generated one such book published by TRAUMAWIEN in 2010.

   J. R. Carpenter - 25.11.2011 - 12:05

4. Warfare and Conventionality: How avant-garde computer-generated text can be

   Computer generated text has been considered warfare carried out against conventionality and was accordingly tagged “cybernetic Dadaism”, which seems to be obvious given that most computer generated text is nonsensical. However, there are attempts to have the machine generate meaningful text ideally indistinguishable from text by a human. This is where the problem starts. If a machine aims to be as good as a human writer, can it still afford to do what a human writer may aim at: writing like a machine? Wouldn’t any idiosyncratic style – which might in conventionally generated literature be understood as avant-garde – be perceived as a failure of the program? In other words: Can literature be avant-garde (or rather: advanced) in both, its way of production as well as its style? The lecture will discuss the issue with a closer look at Michael Mateas’ and Andrew Stern’s interactive drama Façade.

   Jill Walker Rettberg - 09.12.2011 - 10:44

5. Who Grabbed My Gorge

   Who Grabbed My Gorge

   Meri Alexandra Raita - 19.02.2012 - 19:52

6. Electronic Poetry: Understanding Poetry in the Digital Environment

   This study has as its main research object the new forms of poetry based on informatics and it is located in the fields of critical theory, hermeneutics, semiotics of the text and digital culture.

   These new forms emerging from the meeting of poetry and informatics are collectively called Digital Poetry. Digital poetry – also referred to as E-poetry, short for electronic poetry – refers to a wide range of approaches to poetry that all have in common the prominent and crucial use of computers or digital technologies and other devices. Digital poetry does not concern itself with the digitalization of printed works, it relates to digital texts. This work studies only electronic poems created to be read on the computer accessible online. It offers the close-readings of 35 e-poems in 5 different languages (English, French, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish).

   Eric Dean Rasmussen - 19.03.2012 - 08:16

7. Between Code and Motion: Generative and Kinetic Poetry in French, Portuguese, and Spanish

   This article looks at works of electronic poetry in French, Portuguese, and Spanish. While video and digital experiments in these languages date back to the 1970s and 1980s, the works considered here are mostly post-World Wide Web, i.e., produced between the mid-1990s and 2009. The article discusses the work of Philippe Bootz, founding member of Lecture, Art, Innovation, Recherche, Écriture (LAIRE) and theorist of programmed literature. It comments on the relationship between digital computer code and literature, addressing the materiality of the display and poetics. Other topics explored include programming poetry, patterns of specific writing processes, and automatic text generation. Through analysis of computer-assisted multimodal and retroactive forms, this essay discusses the role played by code and motion in digital works. It also stresses the function of language as cultural form in electronic literature.

   (Source: Author's abstract)

   Scott Rettberg - 23.01.2013 - 23:20