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Transculturation, transliteracy and generative poetics
author-submitted abstract:
What effect are the current profound changes in global communications, transport and demographics having on language and its readers and writers, those defined through their engagement with and as a function of language? What happens to our identity, as linguistic beings, when the means of communication and associated demographics shift profoundly? What is driving this? Is it the technology, the migration of people or a mixture of these factors?Language is motile, polymorphic and hybrid. Illuminated manuscripts, graphic novels, the televisual and the web are similar phenomena. The idea that the ‘pure’ word is the ultimate source of knowledge/power (a hermeneutic) was never the case. Don Ihde’s ‘expanded hermeneutics’ (1999), proposes, through an expanded significatory system, that what appear to be novel representations of phenomena and knowledge are, whilst not new, now apparent to us.
Fernando Ortiz (1947) proposed the concept of ‘transculturation’, which may offer possible insights in relation to these questions.
Simon Biggs - 21.09.2010 - 11:07
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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
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Kissing the Steak: The Poetry of Text Generators
Syntext, developed by Pedro Barbosa and Abílio Cavalheiro in the early 90s (later partially re-versioned on the World Wide Web), is a collection of fifteen computer programs from the 70s, 80s, and 90s that automatically generate various styles of poetry in DOS. Though the texts made by each of the programs are thematically unrelated, through these pioneering works by Barbosa, Nanni Balestrini, Marcel Bénabou, and others, each of the predominant fundamental attributes of text-generators is clearly divulged. Syntext, despite being primitive on the surface, powerfully brings to light the expressive possibilities, versatility, and variation within permutation texts, and provides sufficient evidence upon which a typology of computer poems can be established.
(Source: abstract of conference presentation)
Eric Dean Rasmussen - 31.01.2011 - 15:28
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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
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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
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Primal Affective Ground and Digital Poetry
Since the first symbolic scripts emerged, language has always been visual. My own work explores how language's visual can be read both as art and as poetry; how affect is amplified by sound; how generative and combinatorial layouts of text-video-sound open art from linear readings into infinite variations perspectives.
For ELO, I am interested in creating an artist talk that utilizes content derived from two essays on digital poetry written for my comprehensive exams in the summer of 2009. The original essays are entitled: "Affecting Language: interdisciplinary explorations of emotion (new media, neuroscience, phenomenology and poetry)" and "Defining Creative Conduits: mediations on writing in digital media". Since both essays (as take-home exams) were each written over a brief 72 hour span, I look fwd to the opportunity of synthesizing and refining their argument into a presentation format.
(Source: Author proposal)Eric Dean Rasmussen - 20.03.2012 - 12:42
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Re:Cycle - A Computationally Generative Ambient Video System
Ambient video art is designed in the spirit of Brian Eno's ambient music - it must never require our attention, but must reward our attention whenever it is bestowed. It comes in many forms, ranging from the kitsch of the Christmas yule log broadcast to more mature moving image art created by a number of contemporary video artists and producers. The author has created a series of award-winning ambient video works. These works are designed to meet Eno's difficult requirements for ambient media - to never require but to always reward viewer attention in any moment. They are also intended to support viewer pleasure over a reasonable amount of repeated play. These works are all "linear" videos - relying on the careful sequencing and meticulous transitioning of images to reach their aesthetic goals. Re:Cycle uses a different approach. It relies on a computationally generative system to select and present shots in an ongoing flow - but with constant variations in both shot sequencing and transition choice. The Re:Cycle system runs indefinitely and avoids any significant repetition of shots and transitions.
Eric Dean Rasmussen - 21.06.2012 - 12:57
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The E-ssense of Literature
Many works of electronic literature use text generation algorithms or interactive interfaces to present the reader with a different text upon each reading. Such variable texts can be difficult to analyze and discuss because it can be prohibitively difficult to take into account all possible permutations. The standard critical methodology for approaching these texts is to discuss excerpts from different readings, perhaps comparing passages that involve alternative renderings of the same textual content. While this approach can convey a general sense of the work and its possibilities for variation, it usually doesn't allow a thorough treatment of a complex work's structural framework. This essay presents a method for analyzing a work's source code to define the most important constant and variable properties of its constituent elements. It then applies the method to a generated electronic poem, "Snaps," by Dirk Hine. The source structure thus defined provides a springboard for critical interpretation of the work.
Jill Walker Rettberg - 09.10.2012 - 21:12
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The Broadside of a Yarn: A Situationist Strategy for Spinning Sea Stories Ashore
"The Broadside of a Yarn: A Situationist Strategy for Spinning Sea Stories Ashore", by J. R. Carpenter, reflects upon The Broadside of a Yarn, a multi-modal performative pervasive networked narrative attempt to chart fictional fragments of new and long-ago stories of near and far-away seas with nought but a QR code reader and a hand-made print map of dubious accuracy. The Broadside of a Yarn was commissioned by ELMCIP for Remediating the Social, an exhibition which took place at Inspace, Edinburgh, 1-17 November 2012. The Broadside of a Yarn remediates the broadside, a form of networked narrative popular from 16th century onward. Like the broadside ballads of old, the public posting of The Broadside of a Yarn signified that it was intended to be performed.
J. R. Carpenter - 16.10.2012 - 14:52
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ELIZA Revisited
This presentation reconsiders one of the most famous works of electronic literature: Joseph Weizenbaum'sEliza/Doctor. Created in the mid-1960s, this conversational character's success led Janet Murray to name Weizenbaum "perhaps the premier" literary artist in the computer medium. Such evaluations, however, don't take into account what happens during the playful engagement that the system's freeform textual interaction encourages: a breakdown that reveals the shape of the underlying processes. An alternative to this is extremely constrained interaction, which can help maintain the illusion. But a more exciting direction is to design processes that reward readers as they are revealed.
Scott Rettberg - 09.01.2013 - 14:47
