Electronic Literature Lab

For Advanced Inquiry into Born Digital Media

  • Home
  • People
  • History
  • Research Output
  • Projects
    • Rebooting Electronic Literature 1
    • Rebooting Electronic Literature 2
    • Rebooting Electronic Literature 3
    • Live Stream Traversals
    • Afterflash
    • Reconstructing Kanji Kus
  • Catalog
    • Beta Catalog
    • Expanded Catalog
  • Podcasts
  • Exhibitions
  • Home
  • People
  • History
  • Research Output
  • Projects
    • Rebooting Electronic Literature 1
    • Rebooting Electronic Literature 2
    • Rebooting Electronic Literature 3
    • Live Stream Traversals
    • Afterflash
    • Reconstructing Kanji Kus
  • Catalog
    • Beta Catalog
    • Expanded Catalog
  • Podcasts
  • Exhibitions
ELL icon

About

Founded and directed by Dr. Dene Grigar, ELL contains 61 vintage Macintosh & PC computers, dating back from 1977, vintage software, peripherals, and a library of over 300 works of electronic literature and other media. One of a handful of media archaeology labs in the U.S., it is used for the advanced inquiry into the curation, documentation, preservation, and production of born digital literary works and other media.

For more information about the lab or for help with preserving or recovering born digital work, contact Dr. Dene Grigar at dgrigar[at]wsu[dot]edu.

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CATALOG

Visit the online catalog of computers and media works; designed and coded by the CMDC technical assistant Greg Philbrook. The new version of the catalog with expanded entries is now on preview.

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Other Media Archaeology Labs or Working Archives in the U.S.

Obsolete Computing & Media at the University of Victoria, directed by John Durno

Media Archaeology Lab at U of Colorado-Boulder, directed by Dr. Lori Emerson

The Trope Tank at the Massachusetts Institute for Technology, directed by Dr. Nick Montfort

The Deena Larsen Collection at the Maryland Institute in the Humanities at the University of Maryland, directed by Dr. Matthew Kirschenbaum, with Amanda Visconti

The Bill Bly Collection at the Maryland Institute in the Humanities at the University of Maryland, directed by Dr. Matthew Kirschenbaum, with Amanda Visconti, and Porter Olson

  • Updates

    Live Stream Traversal of Bernstein and Sweeney’s Historical Hypertext, “The Election of 1912”

    October 13, 2020 /

    Thursday, 10/15, 2020 10 a.m.-11:30 a.m. PDT Live on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzeZQ05p_1Tli0lDBeWMxOA/live #ELitLab Join us for a live YouTube event: A playthrough of Mark Bernstein and Erin Sweeney’s historical hypertext, The Election of 1912 (1988). For the playthrough we’ll be using the 3.5-inch floppy disk on which the work was originally published and a Macintosh SE running System Software 6.0.7. Performing the work are the two authors. Following their performance there will be a conversation and Q&A that includes the authors, hypertext scholar and ELL Research Affiliate, Mariusz Pisarski, and Dene Grigar. Safety precautions due to COVID-19 means we will be using a combination of Zoom, YouTube, and OBS software to…

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    Coping with Bits Project Meeting

    December 20, 2018

    Resetting the Table

    August 16, 2019

    Working on The Alan Sondheim Collection

    October 4, 2020
  • Updates

    Honoring Indigenous Day

    October 11, 2020 /

    On Indigenous Day the Electronic Literature Lab honors the work of media artist Jackson 2bears, a Kanien’kehaka (Mohawk) multimedia installation/ performance artist and cultural theorist from Six Nations, who is currently based in Lethbridge Alberta, Canada—Treaty 7, Blackfoot Territory. In spring 2012 Jackson served as Artist in Residence with the Creative Media & Digital Culture Program at Washington State University Vancouver. During that time he gave a multimedia performance entitled “Iron Tomahawks Episode 22, ” at the program’s launch party for its exhibition “Loud&Clear” held at the Northbank Artists Gallery. His work has been exhibited at the Musée d’art Contemporain de Montréal; Vancouver Art Gallery (Vancouver, BC.); the Banff Centre (Banff, AB.);…

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    Love and Loss in Kendall’s A Life Set for Two

    April 5, 2018

    Congrats to Holly, Kathleen, Mariah, and Moneca

    April 26, 2020

    Linking Literature & Games

    August 21, 2019
  • Updates

    Working on The Alan Sondheim Collection

    October 4, 2020 /

    Over a year ago, Alan Sondheim sent the lab five boxes of his personal papers, digital files, and other items to establish The Alan Sondheim Collection. We invited him to spend a week with us last March to go through the boxes and help with describing the material for the archives. He and his wife, Azure Carter, left their home by car and headed west to Vancouver, WA. By the time they arrived in Denver, the coronavirus had hit Washington State, and the governor issued the shut down order. When we all realized that the situation was not going to improve but instead worsen, Alan and Azure turned around and…

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    Finding Stephanie Strickland’s True North

    March 21, 2019

    ELL Undergraduate Researchers Reconstitute Deena Larsen’s Kanji-Kus

    April 6, 2019

    Announcing the Publication of Rebooting Electronic Literature!

    May 26, 2018
  • Updates

    Traversal of Bernstein and Sweeney’s The Election of 1912

    September 23, 2020 /

    Join us for the second of nine Traversals this year, The Election of 1912, performed by authors, Mark Bernstein and Erin Sweeney. Because The Election of 1912 is the first of 48 born-digital works published by Eastgate Systems, Inc., this event should be of interest of scholars of hypertext studies, electronic literature, early digital culture, material culture, and electronic writing. Also of interest to an Americans audience is the political ramifications of the 1912 election: Woodrow Wilson, a Democrat, ran against incumbent Republican president, Howard Taft, and 3rd party candidate Theodore Roosevelt of the Bull Moose Party, and won. It was the first time since 1892 that a Democrat had…

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    Live Stream Traversal of Judy Malloy’s its name was Penelope

    April 22, 2018

    Richard Holeton’s Writings & Art about the 1970s Counterculture, Drugs, and Pigs

    January 11, 2019

    Rhizome’s Linked Open Data/Wikibase Summit

    September 23, 2018
  • Updates

    Announcing ELL Affiliates, 2020-2021

    September 13, 2020 /

    Below is the press release from Washington State University Vancouver dated 8 September 2020 about our new ELL Affiliates: https://bit.ly/2Zvv9Rl WSU Vancouver’s Electronic Literature Lab hosts two international scholars Two internationally renowned scholars will spend the 2020/21 academic year at WSU Vancouver as research affiliates in the Electronic Literature Lab. They are Astrid Ensslin, professor in digital humanities and game studies and director of media and technology studies at the University of Alberta, Canada; and Mariusz Pisarski, of the Department of Media Communication and Journalism at the University of Information Technology and Management in Rzeszów, Poland. The two will collaborate with ELL Director Dene Grigar on such projects as live-streamed performances…

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    Rhizome’s Linked Open Data/Wikibase Summit

    September 23, 2018

    Literary Mobile Apps as the Next Frontier of Digital Preservation

    November 10, 2019

    ELL’s Undergraduates Win Award

    April 12, 2019
  • Updates

    Live Playthrough/Traversal/Performance of Robert DiChiara’s “A Sucker in Spades”

    September 3, 2020 /

    Friday, 9/11, 2020 11 a.m.-12:15 p.m. PDT Live on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzeZQ05p_1Tli0lDBeWMxOA/live #ELitLab Join us for a live YouTube event: A playthrough of Robert DiChiara’s detective-adventure game, “A Sucker in Spades” (1988). For the playthrough we’ll be using the 3.5-inch floppy disk on which the work was originally published and a Macintosh Classic running System Software 6.0.3. Performing the work are Mariusz Pisarski, an electronic literature researcher, editor, producer, and translator and Dene Grigar, director of the Electronic Literature Lab at Washington State University. Safety precautions due to COVID-19 means we will be using a combination of Zoom, YouTube, and OBS software to allow Pisarski, located in London, to remotely guide…

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    Resetting the Table

    August 16, 2019

    Deena Larsen Is Coming!

    October 28, 2018

    A Successful Presentation at the MLA 2020

    January 12, 2020
  • Updates

    Rebooting Electronic Literature Volume 3 Is Released!

    August 29, 2020 /

    Rebooting Electronic Literature Volume 3, co-authored by Dene Grigar, Holly Slocum, Kathleen Zoller, Nicholas Schiller, Moneca Roath, and Mariah Gwin, was released on Monday, August 31, 2020 at 8 a.m. PDT. This open-source, multimedia book produced on the Scalar platform features born digital literary works published on floppy disks, CD-ROMs, and other media formats held among the 300 in Grigar’s personal collection in the Electronic Literature Lab at Washington State University Vancouver. An annual publication, the book features selected works highlighted for a Traversal during the year.  The five works selected for Volume 3 all constitute long-form narrative writing often identified as a hypertext novel or interactive narrative. Several of them  have been deemed by critics over the…

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    Consider It Down

    September 22, 2019

    Provenance & Collecting E-Lit: A Case for Human-Centered Archiving

    March 25, 2018

    Project Update

    June 15, 2019
  • Updates

    How We Spent Our Summer Vacation, or No Rest for the Wicked

    August 25, 2020 /

    The ELL Team spent some time during our weekly team meeting yesterday reflecting about the projects we took up and/or completed over the 14 weeks of the summer. As the time passed, the list grew. A frequent, “Oh, we forgot this one!” and “Oh, remember we did that, too?” produced a litany of work recounted with no little bit of reverence by the five of us. So, in the spirit of documentation, here is the list that shows that we spent our summer vacation very fruitfully. . . Presented a paper the DHSI Project Management conference We kicked off our summer break with Holly, Kathleen and I preparing for the…

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    A Successful Presentation at the MLA 2020

    January 12, 2020

    Traversal of Eric Steinhardt’s Fragment of the Dionysian Body

    October 13, 2019

    Why a Lab Like ELL Is Needed for Digital Preservation and Archival Research

    November 12, 2018
  • Updates

    2020-2021 Traversal Schedule

    August 12, 2020 /

    Continuing with the documentation of born digital literature published on 3.5-inch floppy disks and CD-ROMs between 1986-2014, the Electronic Literature Lab is excited to announce the 2020-2021 Traversal  Schedule. Additionally we are honored to be collaborating with two prominent scholars in the field––Mariusz Pisarski (Poland) and Astrid Ensslin (Canada)––in order to expand the Traversal schedule to nine works and the publication output for the Rebooting Electronic Literature series to Volumes 4 & 5.  The Traversal process will differ from previous years due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Because we cannot bring authors to the lab to perform at the event, we are experimenting with remote performances via YouTube Live. The URL…

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    Bill Bly, author of We Descend, Will Visit ELL

    September 3, 2018

    ELL’s Undergraduates Win Award

    April 12, 2019

    Congrats to Nicholas Schiller

    July 30, 2018
  • Updates

    Well, Now What?

    July 19, 2020 /

    Having just spent the better part of a month preparing for ACM Hypertext ’20 and ELO 2020, especially on the reading and exhibition associated with “An Afternoon with afternoon,” the question is, “Now What?” Ah, dear readers, never fear! The ELL Team has plenty to keep itself busy with. Here is the rundown as of today: Rebooting Electronic Literature, Volume 3 Our annual book, now in its third year, is due at the end of August.  Electronic Literature Lab Catalog Yes, we are still migrating content from the old catalog to the new one. But it is gradually getting done. Electronic Literature Repository We continue to add works to this…

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    2020-2021 Traversal Schedule

    August 12, 2020

    Live Stream Traversal of Kathryn Cramer’s In Small & Large Pieces

    October 23, 2018

    Completed the Development of the Metadata for Turbulence.org

    July 4, 2018
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Current Exhibit
An Afternoon with afternoon: 30th Anniversary Celebration of Michael Joyce's afternoon, a story, Launch: Wednesday, July 15, 2020.

Podcasts
Listen to Traversals by and Interviews of prominent e-lit artists and scholars on our Soundcloud playlist

2020-21 Traversal Schedule
Friday, September 11, 10-11:30 am PDT: Robert DiChiara, A Sucker in Spades (1988)

Thursday, October 15, 10-11:30: Bernstein and Sweeney, The Election of 1912 (1988)

Thursday, November 12, 10-11:30: Carolyn Guyer, Quibbling (1992)

Thursday, December 3, 10-11:30: Deena Larsen, Marble Springs (1993)

Thursday, January 21, 10-11:30: Michael Joyce, Twilight: A Symphony (1996)

Thursday, February 18, 10-11:30: TBA

Thursday, March 25, 10-11:30: Kathryn Cramer, In Small & Large Pieces (1994)

Thursday, April 22, 10-11:30: Richard Smyth, Genetis: A Rhizography (1996)

Thursday, May 13, 10-11:30: Rob Swigart, Down Time (2000)

2021 DHSI Course for E-Lit Scholars “Retro Media & Machines.” Co-taught by Dene Grigar & John Durno. Digital Humanities Summer Institute 2020.  University of Victoria. 7-11 June 2021.

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People

Director: Dr. Dene Grigar, PhD, Professor, Creative Media & Digital Culture Program

Associate Director: Nicholas Schiller, MLIS, Associate Professor, Creative Media & Digital Culture Program

Technical and Instructional Assistant: Greg Philbrook, B.A., Creative Media & Digital Culture Program

Project Manager: Holly Slocum, B.A., Creative Media & Digital Culture Program

Videographer: David Alonzo, MFA, Creative Media & Digital Culture Program

Undergraduate Researchers: Kathleen Zoller, Betsy Hanrahan, Andrew Thompson, Arlo Ptolemy, and Katya Farinsky ELO Fellow: Sean Braune (Canada) Research Affiliates: Mariusz Pisarski (Poland) and Astrid Ensslin (Norway)

This website was created by Katie Bowen, Mariah Gwin, Holly Slocum and Austin Fields. Madeleine Brookman produced the ELL logo. All custom icons were designed by Holly Slocum. Header graphic design by Katya Farinsky.

Copyright © 2018