Courses
Taught by Dene Grigar: Electronic Literature, Digital Storytelling
Exhibits
Moving Words: An Exploration of Kinetic Poetry and Prose, 1984-2014. Illuminations Gallery, National University of Ireland Maynooth. Curated by Dene Grigar. March 2014.
“Pathfinders: 25 Years of Literary Experimental Art.” The Modern Language Association 2014 Convention. Curated by Dene Grigar & Stuart Moulthrop. January 2014.
“Exploring the Electronic Literary Landscape of the Pacific Northwwest.” The 2013 Digital Humanities Summer InstituteCurated by Dene Grigar & Brenda Grell. Victoria, Canada.
“Electronic Literature & Its Emerging Forms.” The Library of Congress. Curated by Dene Grigar & Kathi Inman Berens. Washington D.C. April 3-5, 2013.
“Avenues of Access: An Exhibit & Online Archive of ‘Born Digital’ Literature. The Modern Language Association 2013 Conference. Curated by Dene Grigar & Kathi Inman Berens. Boston, MA. January 2013.
“Electrifying Literature.” The ELO 2012 Conference. Curated by Dene Grigar & Sandy Baldwin. Morgantown, VW. June 2012.
“Electronic Literature.” The Modern Language Association 2012 Conference. Curated by Dene Grigar, Lori Emerson, & Kathi Inman Berens. Seattle, WA. January 2012.
“mediartZ: Art as Experiential, Art as Participatory, Art as Electronic.” North Bank Artists Gallery. Curated by Dene Grigar. Spring 2009.
“Visionary Landscapes.” The Electronic Literature Organization Media Art Show. Curated by Dene Grigar. North Bank Artists‘ Gallery & Clark College. June 2008.
“Wild Nature and the Digital Life.” Leonardo Electronic Almanac. Curated by Dene Grigar & Sue Thomas. November 2006 Volume 14, Issues 07-08. ISSN NO : 1071 – 4391.
“Project X + The Planetary Collegium Media Art Show.” Curated by Dene Grigar. Project X. April 2005. Dallas, TX.
For Further Study
Books
Espen Aarseth. Cybertext: Perspectives of Ergodic Literature. Johns Hopkins University Press: Baltimore, MD, 1997.
Jay David Bolter. Writing Space: The Computer, Hypertext, and the History of Writing. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers: Hillsdale, NJ, 1991; and Writing Space: Computers, Hypertext, and the Remediation of Print, 2001.
Philippe Bootz and Sandy Baldwin, Editors. Regards Croisés: Perspectives on Digital Literature. West Virginia Press: Morgantown, WV, 2010.
David Ciccoricco. Reading Network Fiction. The University of Alabama Press: Tuscaloosa, AL, 2007.
C. T. Funkhouser. Prehistoric Digital Poetry: An Archaeology of Forms, 1959-1995. The University of Alabama Press: Tuscaloosa, AL, 2007.
Loss Pequeño Glazier. Digital Poetics: The Making of E-Poetics. The University of Alabama Press: Tuscaloosa, AL, 2001.
Terry Harpold. Ex-Foliations: Reading Machines and the Upgrade Path. University of Minnesota Press: Minnesota, MN, 2009.
N. Katherine Hayles. Electronic Literature: New Horizons for the Literary. Notre Dame Press: Notre Dame, IN, 2008.
—. How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics. University of Chicago Press: Chicago, IL, 1999.
—. My Mother Was a Computer: Digital Subjects and Literary Texts. University of Chicago Press: Chicago, IL, 2005.
—. Writing Machines. The MIT Press: Cambridge, MA, 2002.
Christiane Heibach, Karin Wenz, Bill Seaman, Eduardo Kac. P0Es1S: The Aesthetics Of Digital Poetry. Hatje Cantz Publishers: Ostfildern, Germany, 2004.
Michael Joyce. Of Two Minds: Hypertext Pedagogy and Poetics. University of Michigan Press: Ann Arbor, MI, 1995.
—. Othermindedness: The Emergence of Network Culture. University of Michigan Press: Ann Arbor, 2000.
Eduardo Kac, Editor. Media Poetry: An International Anthology. Intellect Books: Bristol, UK, 2007.
George Landow. Hypertext: The Convergence of Contemporary Critical Theory and Technology. Johns Hopkins University Press: Baltimore, MD, 1992.; and Hypertext 2.0, 1997.
—. Hyper/Text Theory. Johns Hopkins University Press: Baltimore, MD, 1994.
Nick Montfort. Twisty Little Passages: An Approach to Interactive Fiction. The MIT Press: Cambridge, MA, 2003.
Adalaide Morris and Thomas Swiss, Editors. New Media Poetics: Contexts, Technotexts, and Theories. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2009.
Janet Murray. Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace. The Free Press: NY, NY, 1997.
Jaishree K. Odin. Hypertext and the Female Imaginary. University of Minnesota Press: Minnesota, MN, 2010.
Marie-Laure Ryan, Editor. Cyberspace Textuality: Computer Technology and Literary Theory. Indiana University Press: Bloomington, IN, 1999.
Jorgen Schafer and Peter Gondolla, Editors. Beyond the Screen. Bielefeld: Germany, 2010.
Roberto Simanowski. Digital Art and Meaning: Reading Kinetic Poetry, Text Machines, Mapping Art, and Interactive Installations. University of Minnesota Press: Minneapolis, MN, 2011.
Roberto Simanowski, Jorgen Schafer, and Peter Gendolla, Editors. Reading Moving Letters: Digital Literature in Research and Teaching, a Handbook. Bielefeld: Germany, 2010.
Sarah Sloan. Digital Fictions: Storytelling in a Material World. Ablex Publishing: Stamford, CT, 2000.
Brian Kim Stefans. Fashionable Noise: On Digital Poetics. Atelos: Berkeley, CA, 2003.
Joseph Tabbi. Cognitive Fictions. University of Minnesota Press: Minnesota, MN, 2002.
Jan Van Looy and Jan Baetens. Close Reading New Media: Analyzing Electronic Literature. Leuven University Press: Leuven, BE, 2003.
Online Journals
The Drunken Boat: An Online Journal of Art and Literature
In publication since 2001, Drunken Boat, publishes works of literary art annually. The journal is managed by a large staff of editors and directed by Ravi Shankar.
Contact: editor@drunkenboat.com
ISSN: 1537-0000
Electronic Book Review (ebr)
ebr is a top tier academic journal with a strong international focus. Founded by Joseph Tabbi, the journal gathers essays into 11 “threads,” or themes, developed by a series of guest editors at various institutional locations. Work appears continuously, on the network model, not on the model of the print ‘periodical,’ and each essay is presented for peer-to-peer review by everyone who has ever published in the journal.
Contact: ebr-contact@listserv.wvu.edu
ISSN: 1553-1139
Hyperrhiz: New Media Cultures
Hyperrhiz is both an academic and literary journal published bi-annually. Edited by Helen Burgess, it is “a forum for experimental new media projects (both critical and creative) located outside or across current disciplinary boundaries.” This approach has resulted in the journal’s strong reputation for the quality of the works published.
Contact: editor@hyperrhiz.net
ISSN: 1555-9351
Leonardo Electronic Almanac (LEA)
LEA is the online journal of Leonardo: Journal of Art, Science & Technology. A top-tier international journal in publication since 1993, it publishes critical and creative writing relating to the arts, science, and technology, with a particular interest in experimental media art. Lanfranco Aceti is Editor in Chief, and Paul Brown is Co-editor.
Contact: info@leoalmanac.org
ISSN: 1071-4391
The New River: A Journal of Digital Writing & Art
The New River was founded in 1996 by Edward Falco and publishes work of Electronic Literature and other forms of digital art. The journal is indexed by the Library of Congress and enjoys an excellent reputation for its quality and focus. It is published twice a year.
Contact: thenewriver@vt.edu
ISSN: 2151-8475
Rhizomes: Cultural Studies in Emerging Knowledge
Rhizomes oppose the idea that knowledge must grow in a tree structure from previously accepted ideas. New thinking need not follow established patterns. Rhizomes promotes experimental work located outside current disciplines, work that has no proper location. As our name suggests, works written in the spirit of Deleuzian approaches are welcomed but not required.
Contact: eberry@bgsu.edu
ISSN: 1555-9998
In Archive or Notable Past Journals
The Iowa Review Web (TIR-W)
TIR-W, launched in 1999, was the online arm of the prestigious print literary journal The Iowa Review in publication for over 40 years. A top tier publication, TIR-W published some of the best literary criticism and works relating to Electronic Literature. In 2008 TIR-W was discontinued. The Iowa Review has retained past issues on archive.
Poems That Go
Edited by Megan Sapnar and Ingrid Ankerson, Poems That Go was a literary journal that specialized in Electronic Literature that ran from 2000-2004. Many of the current Electronic Literature artists got their start publishing in this journal. Because of its importance to the field, the editors have kept a robust archive available for researchers and artists.
frAme: Journal of Culture & Technology
frAmewas an online journal associated with the Trace Online Writing Centre, an academic centre located at Nottingham Trent University in the UK from 1995-2006 and led by Simon Mills. Though no longer active, the journal enjoyed an excellent reputation for the cutting edge critical essays and literary works it published and played a significant role in the development of electronic literature.
Born Magazine
From 1996 until its retirement in 2011, Born connected over 900 contributors, generating an extraordinary record of collaboration between literary arts and multimedia. Born was launched during the fledgling days of the internet, and became one of the Web’s most innovative and enduring publications as it expanded possibilities for literary/arts in a time of rapidly evolving technologies.
Dichtung Digital
Dichtung Digital was founded by Roberto Simanowski in 1999 as an international, bilingual (German and English) Journal for digital aesthetics. It was relaunched as a peer-reviewed Journal of art and culture in digital media in 2012.
Organizations and Initiatives
Creative Nation: Writers and Writing in the New Media Culture
Creative Nation is an Australian Research Council funded project at the University of Western Sydney. Beginning in 2011, with Chief Investigators Associate Professor Anna Gibbs and Dr Maria Angel and Partner Investigator Professor Joseph Tabbi at the University of Illinois, Chicago, it will establish an annotated Directory of Australian new media writing and create a strong postgraduate cohort in both practice-led and scholarly research in electronic literature, text in new media art, and associated areas. The project group convenes conferences and symposia and offers seminars and workshops with visiting international and Australian researchers, artists, and writers in conjunction with the Writing and Society Research Centre and the School of Communication Arts at UWS. Website under development. Contact: Associate Professor Anna Gibbs, University of Western Sydney, Australia: a.gibbs@uws.edu.au
Electronic Literature Organization (ELO)
The ELO is a 501 (c) 3 organization founded in 1999 “to facilitate and promote the writing, publishing, and reading of literature in electronic media” and currently based at MIT. Its main initiatives include the Electronic Literature Collection, a DVD and website consisting of representative works of electronic literature; the Electronic Literature Directory, a large web-based collection of electronic literature and associated criticism; the ELO website that provides information about events, job openings, and grants for elit authors and scholars; and a biennial conference and accompanying media art show. It has also worked to retain the accessibility of “threatened and endangered electronic literature” through its project PAD (Preservation, Archiving, and Dissemination).
Website: http://eliterature.org
Contact: Nick Montfort, President, MIT, nickm@nickm.com
Partners: http://eliterature.org/partners/
ELMCIP
ELMCIP stands for “Electronic Literature as a Model of Creativity and Innovation in Practice” and is a 3-year research project that began in 2010 and is funded by the Humanities in the European Research Area (HERA) JRP for Creativity and Innovation. A collaboration among eight European academic and non-academic groups, it focuses on the electronic literature community in Europe, studying it as a model of networked creativity and innovation in practice. In that regard it has developed an international database of “cross-referenced, contextualized information about authors, creative works, critical writing, and practice related to electronic literature.” It also offers conferences, symposia and other meetings aimed at furthering research in elit.
Website: http://www.elmcip.net/
Contact: Scott Rettberg, Project Leader, University of Bergen, scott@retts.net
Hermeneia Research Group
Founded in 1999-2000, Hermeneia is comprised of 23 researchers from European and American universities, including the Universitat de Barcelona, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Universidad de Granada, American University (Madrid), Universit&eaute; d’Artois (France), University of Essex (U.K),Università degli studi di Bari, Universtiy of Jyväskylä (Finland), Brown University (USA), United States Naval Academy (USA), University of Miami (USA), Universidad Pontificia Javeriana (Colombia) and Faculdade Paulista de Artes (Brazil). It seeks to “offer resources for people interested on Digital Literature and all the transformations that Literature has experienced in the Digital Era including e-learning of Literature.”
Website: http://www.hermeneia.net/
Contact: info@hermeneia.net
Turbulence
Turbulence.orgis a project of New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc.(NRPA), a not-for-profit media arts organization founded in New York in 1981. Directed by Helen Thorington and Jo-Anne Green, Turbulence (1996-) commissions, exhibits, and archives net art and hybrid networked art. It also showcases the new media field via its two world-renowned blogs, Networked_Performance and Networked_Music_Review. Turbulence work has been exhibited at such venues as the Whitney Museum of American Art, Ars Electronica, the Sundance Film Festival and numerous media arts festivals world-wide.
Website: http://www.turbulence.org/
Contact: turbulence@turbulence.org
Consortia
Consortium for ELectronic Literature (CELL)
CELL is an international alliance of universities and academic organizations whose mission is to connect directories of electronic literature for the purpose of promoting elit and making it accessible world-wide. The project was initiated in 2009 by the Electronic Literature Organization under the leadership of Joseph Tabbi and now includes the University of Western Sydney (Anna Gibbs & Maria Angel), ELMCIP (Scott Rettberg); and the University of Siegen (Peter Gendolla & Jörgen Sch&a;umlfer.
Website: http://conference.eliterature.org/
Contact: Joseph Tabbi, jtabbi@gmail.com
Websites
Authoring Software
Authoring Software is a resource that began in 2008 with the Electronic Literature Organization Conference held at Vancouver, WA, and edited by elit scholar and artist Judy Malloy, that publishes essays and other works by new media poets and writers. It offers good in-depth information about software tools and applications for those interested in authoring electronic literary works.
Website: http://www.narrabase.net/
Contact: jmalloy@mail.com
Grand Text Auto
Grand Text Auto is referred to as a “group blog about computer narrative, games, poetry, and art.” Founded in 2003 and housed at the School of Literature, Language, and Culture at Georgia Tech, it was initially conceptualized as “centralized blog” where that authors Andrew Stern, Mary Flanagan, Michael Mateas, Nick Montfort, Noah Wardrip-Fruin, and Scott Rettberg posted information. Since then it has morphed into an “aggregator” of information about “authorship, design, and technology, as well as issues of interaction and reception.”
Website: http://grandtextauto.org/
Contact: scott@retts.net
I Love E-Poetry
It is scholarly blog created by Leonardo Flores that launched on December 19, 2011 as a constraint to read and critically reflect upon a work of e-poetry every day, leading the audience to revisit known works, discover new ones, and expand knowledge of this emergent poetic genre. Its initial performance was a continuous run of 500 daily entries, completed on May 2, 2013. It was also designed as a quick reference for those unfamiliar with e-poetry, with concise entries that provide poetic, technological, and theoretical contexts, close readings of the poems, and some strategies for readers to approach the work. This last aspect is an important part of Flores’ current work as an academic: to broaden the audience base for e-literature, both within and outside of academia. In order to extend its potential audiences, the blog broadcasts its content on Facebook and Twitter.
Website: http://iloveepoetry.com/
SFMOMA
Brian Stefans curated series of new Electronic Literature works, “Third Hand Plays,” for the SFMOMA blog July 5, 2011-September 27, 2011. He commissioned new works from digital artist/writers Jason Nelson, David Clark, Erik Loyer, Alan Bigelow, Jhave, Alison Clifford, Christine Wilks, Benjamin Moreno Ortiz, and Joerg Piringer–a group of artists from Australia, Canada, England, Mexico, Austria and the United States.
Website: http://blog.sfmoma.org/tag/third-hand-plays/
Contact: Brian Stefans, http://blog.sfmoma.org/author/bstefans/
Listservs & Communities
empyre: soft-skinned-space
empyre, an Australian community that was founded in 2002 by Melinda Rackham, offers an excellent listserv for discussing “critical perspectives on contemporary cross-disciplinary issues, practices and events in networked media by inviting guests -key new media artists, curators, theorists, producers and others to participate in thematic discussions.”
Website: http://empyre.library.cornell.edu/
Contact: empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
Archives: http://lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au/pipermail/empyre/
Conferences
Electronic Literature Organization (ELO)
The ELO conference began in 2002 at UCLA, three years after the founding of the organization. Following its 2006 conference at University of Maryland, College Park, the conference has been held biennially. It has received a strong reputation for both its academic and artistic focus. The 2014 conference will be held at U of Wisconsin Milwaukee in June.
E-Poetry: An International Digital Poetry Festival
E-Poetry is a biennial event of “performances, exhibitions, artistic presentations of poetics statements, scholarly papers, talks, and celebration of creative, visionary, and imaginative poeisis at the cutting edge of the triumphant spirit of the arts in the digital age.” It began at the University of Buffalo in 2001 and is directed by Dr. Loss Pequeño Glazier. The 2011 conference returned to its roots at the University of Buffalo.
Speciality Presses and Publishers
Eastgate Systems
Founded in 1982 by Mark Bernstein, Eastgate Systems is known for pioneering “hypertext technologies” and publishing “serious hypertext, fiction and non-fiction.” Along with publishing a catalog of notable works of electronic literature, Eastgate is also known for creating excellent authoring programs like Storyspace and Tinderbox. Website: http://www.eastgate.com/
SpringGun Press
“SpringGun is a registered not-for-profit web-based journal and print press promoting all forms of previously unpublished quality contemporary writing and interdisciplinary digital art.”
Editors: Mark Rockswold and Erin Costello
Website: http://www.springgunpress.com/
Tutorials
lynda.com
“lynda.com is an online learning company that helps anyone learn software, design, and business skills to achieve their personal and professional goals. With a lynda.com subscription, members receive unlimited access to a vast library of high quality, current, and engaging video tutorials. New courses and topics are added every week at no extra cost.”
Code Academy
“Codecademy is an education company. But not one in the way you might think. We’re committed to building the best learning experience inside and out, making Codecademy the best place for our team to learn, teach, and create the online learning experience of the future.”
YouTube Tutorials
“Founded in February 2005, YouTube allows billions of people to discover, watch and share originally-created videos. YouTube provides a forum for people to connect, inform, and inspire others across the globe and acts as a distribution platform for original content creators and advertisers large and small. Our partners offer a wide variety of video tutorials to help you sharpen your skills, create better content, and build fan bases.”
Media Sources
Creative Commons
“Please note that search.creativecommons.org is not a search engine, but rather offers convenient access to search services provided by other independent organizations. CC has no control over the results that are returned.”
Moving Image Archive
“This library contains digital movies uploaded by Archive users which range from classic full-length films, to daily alternative news broadcasts, to cartoons and concerts. Many of these videos are available for free download.”
Authoring Software
Interactive Fiction
Twine
“You don’t need to write any code to create a simple story with Twine, but you can extend your stories with variables, conditional logic, images, CSS, and JavaScript when you’re ready. Twine publishes directly to HTML, so you can post your work nearly anywhere. Anything you create with it is completely free to use any way you like, including for commercial purposes.”
Twine Basics: http://tinyurl.com/l3ugl2l
Inform 7
“Inform is a design system for interactive fiction based on natural language. It is a radical reinvention of the way interactive fiction is designed, guided by contemporary work in semantics and by the practical experience of some of the world’s best-known writers of IF.”
eLit Video
Zeega
“Zeega is revolutionizing interactive storytelling for a future beyond blogs. With Zeega, you can use any media in the cloud, transform the entire screen into your playground, and share your interactive creations with the world.”
YouTube Editor
“Founded in February 2005, YouTube allows billions of people to discover, watch and share originally-created videos.” The YouTube Editor, after signing up for an account with Google, allows for the remixing, editing, and publishing of user-created videos.
Mozilla Popcorn
“…Webmaker — a Mozilla project dedicated to helping you create something amazing on the web. Our tools, events and teaching guides allow webmakers to not only create the content that makes the web great, but — perhaps more importantly — understand how the web works.”
Text Tools
Telescopic Text
“telescopictext.org is an extension of telescopictext.com, and is primarily a set of tools for creating expanding texts in a similar way.”
Language is a Virus
“Languageisavirus.com exists to cure writer’s block and inspire creativity. You can choose from a multitude of writing games, gizmos, generators, writing prompts and exercises, tips, experiments and manifestoes from infamous avant garde writers and how-to articles on fiction writing and poetry.”
Spatial Tools
Google Maps Engine
“Layer your data on top of Google’s base map and create your own maps and geospatial applications that are supported by Google’s reliable, world-class infrastructure. Offering both a platform solution and professional application, Google Maps Engine enables a full spectrum of maps creation.”
HTML Tools
NotePad++
“Notepad++ is a free (as in “free speech” and also as in “free beer”) source code editor and Notepad replacement that supports several languages. Running in the MS Windows environment, its use is governed by GPL License.”
TextWrangler
“TextWrangler is the “little brother” to BBEdit, our leading professional HTML and text editor for the Macintosh. TextWrangler is a very capable text editor. What sets BBEdit apart is its extensive professional feature set including Web authoring capabilities and software development tools.”
Screen Capture
Camtasia
“Powerful, yet easy-to-use, Camtasia helps you create professional videos without having to be a video pro. Easily record your on-screen activity or import HD camera video, customize and edit content, and share your videos with viewers on nearly any device.”
Generative Poetry
Taroko Gorge
A generative piece that you can grab the source code of and modify.
Additional Resources
Digital Research Tools (DiRT)
“This wiki collects information about tools and resources that can help scholars (particularly in the humanities and social sciences) conduct research more efficiently or creatively. Whether you need software to help you manage citations, author a multimedia work, or analyze texts, Digital Research Tools will help you find what you’re looking for.”