Blog Post 6: Electronic Literature

@DTC_AlexTDTran

Of the three electronic literature pieces that I viewed, I would have to say that Ad Verbum would be the one I choose to evaluate. First of all, Ad Verbum is a piece of interactive fiction (Par. 10) that relies on word play and other strategies in order  to beat. This work is classified as interactive fiction because of it’s high reliance on it’s game element in order to progress the story. This work is not one that relies on art but rather narrative (Par. 10). This piece is a prime example of digital born work. Hayles claims that ““Unlike a print book, electronic text literally cannot be accessed without running the code. Critics and scholars of digital art and literature should therefore properly consider the source code to be part of the work, a position underscored by authors who embed in the code information or interpretive comments crucial to understanding the work.” In this case, Ad Verbum would not be able to run without the use of code and if it could be used with code, it could not be fully utilized i.e. one would not be able to  experience this work fully without being digital, “a first-generation digital object created on a computer and meant to be read on a computer”. Ad Verbum itself was created on a computer and must be experienced as such. This piece of interactive fiction is a digital-born work because of it’s reliance on the digital aspect of it’s nature.

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