Electronic Literature Lab

For Advanced Inquiry into Born Digital Media

  • Home
  • People
  • History
  • Research Output
  • Projects
    • ELO’s The NEXT
    • Restorations & Reconstructions
    • Rebooting Electronic Literature 1
    • Rebooting Electronic Literature 2
    • Rebooting Electronic Literature 3
    • Rebooting Electronic Literature 4
    • Live Stream Traversals
    • Podcasts
    • Published Games
  • Catalog
    • Beta Catalog
    • Expanded Catalog
  • CMDC Studios
  • Home
  • People
  • History
  • Research Output
  • Projects
    • ELO’s The NEXT
    • Restorations & Reconstructions
    • Rebooting Electronic Literature 1
    • Rebooting Electronic Literature 2
    • Rebooting Electronic Literature 3
    • Rebooting Electronic Literature 4
    • Live Stream Traversals
    • Podcasts
    • Published Games
  • Catalog
    • Beta Catalog
    • Expanded Catalog
  • CMDC Studios
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. It is used for the advanced inquiry into the curation, documentation, preservation, conservation, and production of born-digital art, literature, and video games. The lab has created and continues to manage the ELO's The NEXT and supports video game R&D through CMDC Studios.

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

    Two E-Lit Works Accepted for the ELC4

    June 13, 2021 /

    Dene Grigar’s “The 24-Hr. Micro-Elit Project” (2009) and Annie Grosshan’s The World Is Not Done Yet V2.0 (2020) were both accepted for the Electronic Literature Organization’s Electronic Literature Collection (ELC) Volume 4, forthcoming in December 2021. The ELC is an anthology of works published every five years by the organization. As such, it provides “a mirror of a specific moment in time occurring across continents, languages, and platforms during the second decade of the twenty-first century” (“About,” ELC 3). The former was authored by the Director of the lab, while the latter is one recently preserved by members of the ELL Team. Grigar’s work is a collection of 24 works of micro-fiction she…

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    Dene Grigar

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    Curatorial Statement for “Tear Down the Wall” Exhibition at ACM Hypertext ’19

    August 11, 2019

    ELL’s Undergraduates Win Award

    April 12, 2019

    Conserving Community: The trAce Online Writing Centre

    April 6, 2020
  • Updates

    DHSI 2021 Starts

    June 7, 2021 /

    Today John Durno’s and my DHSI 2021 course, “Retro Machines and Media,” began with a Flash preservation workshop, led by Arlo Ptolemy, Andrew Thompson, and me. We used Alan Bigelow’s “This Is Not a Poem,” which the lab has not yet preserved for The NEXT, for a live demo of implementing Ruffle and Conifer to preserve it. Interestingly Ruffle did not resurrect it because, I surmise, the sound, video, and effects are just too complex for a simple solution. Conifer, however, did work. So, we were able to aptly show our process of moving from one method to another until something worked.  Tomorrow Greg Philbrook and I will take the…

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    Live Stream Traversal of Richard Holeton’s Figurski at Findhorn on Acid

    February 16, 2019

    Launch of The Digital Review

    June 9, 2020

    ELL Is Referenced in Holeton’s Article

    February 25, 2023
  • Updates

    Welcome Dan Walker to ELL

    May 30, 2021 /

    We are pleased to introduce Dan Walker, a recent graduate of Reed College in Portland, OR, who is joining us in the lab this summer as a Post Baccalaureate Fellow to work on our annual publication, Rebooting Electronic Literature Volume 4. Dan is funded by two grants from Reed, Summer Opportunity Fellowship Award, geared to students looking for mentors to work with at other institutions; and the  Eddings Opportunity Grant, offered to English majors at the college. He will spend his time learning how to create content and code in the Scalar platform, writing descriptions of the videos and images from our various Traversals, and working with with lab members to…

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

    September 3, 2020

    Donation of Educational Media

    June 28, 2018

    Launch of The Digital Review

    June 9, 2020
  • Updates

    Celebrating Richard Holeton’s Figurski

    May 16, 2021 /

    Since January 2021, the Electronic Literature Lab has been working on migrating Richard Holeton’s comedic hypertext novel, Figurski at Findhorn on Acid, published by Eastgate Systems, Inc. in 2001 to an open-access, archival version created in HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript. The project has been completed and is being tested for final release at https://figurskiatfindhornonacid.com. A formal celebration will take place on Friday, July 9, from 10-11 a.m. PDT via Zoom. I want to acknowledge the team involved in bringing Figurski back to the public: Betsy Hanrahan, Kathleen Zoller, and Holly Slocum were the prime movers; Sarah West and Dave Sabrowski assisted; and as always Greg Philbrook, the lab’s tech guru,…

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    Michael Joyce’s Traversal of Twilight, a Symphony

    January 20, 2021

    Week 3 Data Collection: The 1st Trial Run

    May 24, 2019

    2018-19 Live Stream Traversal Schedule

    October 12, 2018
  • Updates

    Curatorial Statement for The NEXT

    May 2, 2021 /

    We are presenting The NEXT to the Electronic Literature Organization’s Board of Directors on Wednesday, May 8, 2021. The space goes live nine days later on Monday, May 17. Below is the curatorial statement I created for it that explains the vision underlying The NEXT as well as the process it took to build it. As I prepared it for inclusion at the space, I thought of all of the people and organizations that supported us over the three years of The NEXT’s development: the three other Co-PIs involved in Phase 1; Washington State University Vancouver; Electronic Literature Organization and its Board of Directors; my lab (Electronic Literature Lab) and…

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    Getting Ready for the Next Pathfinders Traversal

    July 27, 2013

    Live Stream Traversal of Richard Holeton’s Figurski at Findhorn on Acid

    February 16, 2019

    Donation of Educational Media

    June 28, 2018
  • Updates

    Congrats to The NEXT Production Team

    April 25, 2021 /

    The 39 students from the spring 2021 graduating class working on Phase 3 of The NEXT were represented by three members of their team at Washington State University Vancouver’s Research Showcase. Competing in the Podium division, Kathleen Zoller, the Project Manager; Barysh Agaliyev, Social Media Specialist; and Megan Bina, Videographer, won 2nd Place at the event.  Judges remarked that the team was team “very well prepared” and their presentation, “clear.” Their “[e]nthusiasm really helped to engage the audience.” The project itself was  “well thought out” and that the students answers questions “thoroughly.” It was particularly heartening to hear that the judges thought that  “the group presentation style worked well (given a…

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    Literary Mobile Apps as the Next Frontier of Digital Preservation

    November 10, 2019

    Special Live Stream Traversal of Mark Bernstein’s Those Trojan Girls

    March 13, 2019

    Chapter 1 of Rebooting Electronic Literature is Released

    January 28, 2018
  • Updates

    Ruffle Implementation Report #5

    April 12, 2021 /

    The team has completed implementing ruffle.js to all of the 231 Flash works in the anthologies and online journals held in the Electronic Literature Organization’s repository. The last journal, The Iowa Review Web (TIRW), was completed over the weekend by Andrew and Arlo. 8 of 33 works from the journal could be preserved, amounting to a 28% success rate. This number is in keeping with our efforts with the other publications we have tried to preserve with this approach. We have not yet tackled the two Showcases, Turbulence and The Museum of the Essential and Beyond That or the many works in the Individual Artists and Scholars collections. We need to turn our attention…

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    Happy Hour Featuring Alan Bigelow

    May 17, 2020

    Michael Joyce’s Traversal of Twilight, a Symphony

    January 20, 2021

    Rhizome’s Linked Open Data/Wikibase Summit

    September 23, 2018
  • Updates

    Ruffle Preservation Report #4

    April 6, 2021 /

    We are making progress with the Ruffle implementation. Thus far, the Undergraduate Researchers who are undertaking the project have applied ruffle.js and the accompanying note to the Flash works found in the Electronic Literature Collections 1, 2, and 3; Cauldron & Net, frAme, Poems That Go, Riding the Meridian, Word Circuits, and BeeHive. Left to do of the seven online journals is The Iowa Review Web, which they plan to complete by next weekend. All total, the team has been able to preserve 58 of the 198 Flash works published in six of the seven online journals. Below are screenshots of the spreadsheet containing the works we have managed to save. You…

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    Celebrating Our Literary Heritage

    June 17, 2020

    2020-2021 Traversal Schedule

    August 12, 2020

    Congrats to Nicholas Schiller

    July 30, 2018
  • Electronic Literature,  History,  Updates

    Woman E-Lit Event & Initiatives

    March 30, 2021 /

      Welcome to Woman E-Lit, a very special symposium that took place on March 30, 2021 during Women’s History Month celebrating women who have contributed to the field of electronic literature. It also celebrated the 10th anniversary of the founding of the Electronic Literature Lab (ELL). The two events intersect in that it was important to the ELL Team to celebrate the lab’s anniversary in a way that speaks to it mission––that is, to curate, document, preserve, and produce born digital literary works and other media. Hosting a symposium where women could come together to amplify achievements, provide a space of free and welcomed expression, and celebrate you, us, all of…

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    MIX 2023

    June 3, 2023

    Data Collection, Week 4

    May 31, 2019

    Live Stream Traversal of Mary-Kim Arnold’s “Lust”

    May 8, 2018
  • History,  Updates

    Celebrating 10 Years of the Electronic Literature Lab, Part 1

    March 13, 2021 /

    As I mention in the History section of this website, the idea for the Electronic Literature Lab was born out of the successful “Early Authors of Electronic Literature: The Eastgate School, Voyager Artists, and Independent Productions—Special Collection on loan from N. Katherine Hayles,” exhibition that I curated at ELO’s Visionary Landscapes conference held at WSUV in the summer 2008. Using legacy computers that I had collected and those lent to me by a former student in my program, Jeff Grisso, I was able to provide conference participants with the opportunity to experience, first-hand, hypertext literature and other forms of e-lit published on floppy disks on computers for which they had…

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    Ruffle Preservation Report #3

    February 20, 2021

    Traversal of Carolyn Guyer’s Quibbling

    November 7, 2020

    Researching E-Lit and Its Printed Materials

    March 14, 2018
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People

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

Associate Director: Dr. Richard Snyder, Blackburn Fellow, The Creative Media & Digital Culture Program

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

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

Post-Bacc Researchers: Kathleen Zoller, Joel Clapp, Ruth Woodcock, Andrew Thompson, Arlo Ptolemy, Ariel Wallace, Sierra O'Neal, Ahria Nicholas, Stratton Slater, Danny Blanchard

PhD & 2022 PostDoc Fellow: Madison McCartha, UC Santa Cruz

2022 ELO Fellow: Alexandra Martin, QUAM (Canada)

Research Affiliates: Mariusz Pisarski, PhD (Poland); Erika Fulop, Phd, Lancaster University (UK; Agnieszka Przybyszewska, PhD, University of Łódź (Poland)

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. It is managed by Dene Grigar

Copyright © 2018