Welcome to the "Electronic Literature" Exhibit at the MLA 2012 Convention, curated by Drs. Dene Grigar, Lori Emerson, & Kathi Inman Berens

"Electronic Literature" is an exhibit featuring over 160 works by artists who create literary works involving various forms and combinations of digital media, such as video, animation, sound, virtual environments, and multimedia installations, for desktop computers, mobile devices, and live performance. The works presented at this exhibit have been carefully selected by the curators because they represent a cross-section of born digital—that is, works created on and meaningfully experience through a computing device—from countries like Brazil, Canada, Australia, Sweden, the UK, the US, and Spain, and highlight literary art produced from the late 1980s to the present. Thus, the exhibit aims to provide humanities scholars with the opportunity to experience, first-hand, this emergent form of literature, one that we see as an important form of expression in, as Jay David Bolter calls it, this "late age of print."

Making the exhibit more poignant is the fact that 2012 marks the 20 year anniversary of the 1st session held at the MLA on the topic of Electronic Literature. The panel, entitled "Hypertext, Hypermedia: Defining a Fictional Form" , featured noted theorists and artists Terence Harpold, Michael Joyce, Carolyn Guyer, Judy Malloy, & Stuart Moulthrop. We have, indeed, come full circle.

Exhibit Location and Time

"Electronic Literature" takes place in Seattle, WA, at the Washington State Convention Center in Room 609. Exhibit times are:

Thursday, 5 January, 12 noon to 7:00 p.m.
Friday, 6 January, 9:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.
Saturday, 7 January, 9:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.

Exhibit Catalog

A catalog of all works featured in this exhibit is available as a downloadable pdf that can be used during the exhibit on visitors' smart phones and tablets. Paper copies will also be available at the exhibit.

Twitter Hashtag

The Twitter hashtag we will be using throughout the conference for this exhibit is #mlaelit2012. Be sure to check out all of our social media—Twitter, Facebook, Google Maps, and YouTube.

Readings & Performances

In conjunction with the exhibit, a special evening of Readings & Performances by artists featured at the exhibit will take place on Friday, January 6, from 8-10:30 p.m. at the Richard Hugo House, located about 1.5 miles from the convention area at 1634 11th Ave, Seattle, WA 98122-2419. This event, curated by Lori Emerson, is free and open to the public. Special door prizes created by electronic literature artist, Jason Nelson, will be awarded at the event. To learn more about them, visit The MLA Elit 2012 Exhibition Prize website. The hashtag for the event is #mlaelitprize. A downloadable poster (.pdf file) is available for the event.

Student Docents

Along with the curators, undergraduate student docents from The Creative Media & Digital Culture Program at Washington State University Vancouver, trained in digital media and electronic literature, will be on-hand to provide technical assistance to visitors of the exhibit and talk about the works in the show.