Love Letters: A Showcase of Ephemera of the Electronic Literature Organization Archivist's Statement by Dene Grigar, PhD, Managing Director & Curator, The NEXT

Introduction: My Thought Process

When one holds physical archives numbering into the thousands and can showcase only miniscule portion of them, it is—as you can imagine—a challenge. For someone like me trained as a digital storyteller, I want to present a cohesive narrative with the materials selected. But what story? And with what materials?

Looking at the schedule for this media festival where two exhibits are already featuring the art of electronic literature, I made the decision to focus on the materials that document the existence of the art—what is commonly referred to as ephemera—rather than a selection from the 3000 works of electronic literature we are holding at The NEXT. Ironically, ephemera, which comes to us from in Greek meaning “for a day”, had been regarded as items not intended to endure: posters, announcement cards, notebooks, photographs. But considering the brevity of the lifespan of digitally produced art—that is, our electronic literature—ephemera are sometimes all that is left of a work once its technology has become outmoded, the domain name of the server hosting it was not renewed, or its server space completely lost due to nonpayment, and all of the other phenomena that affect its accessibility.

Why a Showcase of “Stuff”?

Ephemera are interesting stuff to collect. Not many people appreciate collecting ephemera nor understand their worth. So, let me explain my passion for doing so. It may help with understanding this showcase of it at this festival.

In the early days of electronic literature, ephemera came in the form of paper. Lots and lots of paper. Disks often came packaged in paper—that is, cardboard paper—and many times contained paper in the form of registration cards, announcements for more electronic literature to buy, or a note thanking the buyer for purchasing the work. Folios were interesting because they were akin to book covers or record albums in that they were designed to catch our eye: An image of the author smiling at us (re: Michael Joyce's afternoon: a story), a provocative character from the work (re: Shelley Jackson's Patchwork Girl). Breadcrumbs from the print world to the electronic, making us feel comfortable with this strange new phenomenon. Electronic literature readings sometimes generated posters that were plastered on walls of university hallways and office doors announcing an artist would be on campus talking about their work. There were also announcement cards mailed or passed out listing a new work of art or scholarly book about electronic literature. Interestingly, ephemera is not limited to paper. Some artists created t-shirts emblazoned with the name of their work of electronic literature (re: Lorenzo Miglioli's Ra-Dio). Some artists performed in costume (re: Rob Wittig) or used props during their readings (re: Richard Holeton). Cups, screen cleaners, tote bags, writing pens, mouse pads—all were produced to promote a work or an event celebrating a work. In those early days, especially, when computers were still a new mode of communication for most people, artists developed ephemeral objects for teaching the public about electronic art: a shower curtain to demonstrate hypertextual links (re: Deena Larsen), a pinwheel etched with lines of a poem to show what interactive poetry can be (re: again Deena Larsen).

All of these objects, individually, are important artifacts in that they are proof that the art, an artist, and a scholar once existed. Together, however, they tell a lot of stories: about the rise of computers for the purpose of human expression that occurred in the 1980s onward; the laborious effort some artists undertook to maintain their art as technologies became outmoded and the artist's art became inaccessible; the busy schedules artists and scholars kept to promote their work and the work of others at performances and readings; the growth of professional organizations that formed around the art and the demise of those organizations; the rise and fall of online journals devoted to the art form; the methods artists used when planning their work, such as sketching, doodling, mapping; and the efforts to draft version after version of a work until the artist felt they finally had gotten it right.

The Method to My Madness

At this point, I return to my original two questions: What story do I tell at this showcase? And what materials will produce a cohesive narrative?

Among the 110 boxes of archival material for The NEXT that accompany the 3000+ works collected at this virtual museum and library, I have chosen to relay the story of the development of the Electronic Literature Organization as it has risen to become the hub of activity for electronic art, artists, and scholars. I have chosen this story because I care deeply about the organization, doggedly so, that I have dedicated my career and personal practice to it.

For my story I am using close to 100 different artifacts drawn from The Marjorie C. Luesebrink Collection and the ELO Archives at The NEXT, as well as material from my own personal collection not yet included at The NEXT.

A word about the collection method and the state of those collections: Margie was, and I am, very diligent about what we collect, which is just about everything related to ELO and electronic literature. Years before Margie died, she had sent me the digital files of her art so that we could hold them in The Marjorie C. Luesebrink Collection at The NEXT. She also shipped me boxes of physical artifacts that she put together from everything she had held on to and neatly organized in steel cabinets in her garage. Having served on the ELO's Board of Directors early on until her death in 2023, presided over the organization as the ELO's second President, and was the catalyst (with Kate Hayles) for moving ELO from Chicago to UCLA and, thus, providing much needed support for ELO at a time when the U.S. economy literally tanked, Margie had acquired an awe-inspiring collection of material. After she died, her sons gave me access to her entire server space and invited me to her home to go through the rest of the archives she was holding. So, I can tell you with all honesty that Margie was sitting on a wealth of history, which we now hold at The NEXT—and I am sharing a very, very small portion of it with you at this showcase.

As for myself, I have already sketched out my collection history a bit. I will add that what differs between Margie's and my own practice is my fascination for non-paper archives—that is, the cups and pinwheels and beach balls and Spam cans and brooches. They charm me, and I own a lot of them.

ELO's collection habit was spotty for a good reason—the office moved around a lot, going to the location where the President was located (Nick at MIT) or where someone who valued electronic literature pledged support for it (Matt at MITH). From Chicago to Los Angeles to Baltimore to Cambridge to Vancouver, WA, which is where I am located. The ELO office and its archives were not housed anywhere longer than three to six years at the other locations until I moved it to Washington State University Vancouver a few years after I was elected ELO President. With the financial support of my, then, Chancellor, Mel Netzhammer, and other donations, I have been able to maintain the ELO archives for close to 10 years now. That stability has made it possible for me not only to hold on to the ELO archives, but also to organize, catalog, exhibit, and continue building them. For this showcase, for example, I chased down ephemera related to the ELC4 (thank you, Rui!) and all our conferences (thank you, Philippe!). I can now say we have archives related to both important activities of ELO. The obvious lesson in all of this is that disruption is the enemy of archives.

Frankly, we need to maintain our archives because it represents our history. It tells the story of who we are and what we made. A showcase of ephemera like this one, additionally, tells the story of how we positioned ourselves and our art, how we valued it to the extent that we killed a lot of trees to do it. Ephemera, like the art it reflects, are a form of human expression and, so, valuable in and of itself. And frankly, some of it is just dang pretty.

Final Argument (which I hope I do not have to make but am making anyway)

I think about Shakespeare's will. It is a legal document, and like other wills could have been tossed long after the goods mentioned in it were assigned to the recipients. It's just stuff, right? But it states that Shakespeare's “second best bed,” would be left to his wife Anne. An inside joke between husband and wife? Literary scholars continue to ponder this possibility. Certainly, Will's will wasn't forgotten and destroyed and, instead, remains today an example of ephemera of great mystery and value. Who is not to say that the book, State of the Arts: Proceedings of the Electronic Literature Organization's 2002 Symposium, with the accompanying CD-ROM from the 2001 Electronic Literature Awards we are holding in The Marjorie C. Luesebrink Collection will not be of interest to a future audience interested in the hybrid practice of packaging physical media within a print book? Already my students do not know what floppy disks are.

My job as an archivist, as I see it, is to hold on to as much of what I can collect of electronic literature as humanly possible so that a future audience can have access to the information it needs to make sense of the field as it has been growing and developing over these past decades. ELO, as the international organization of electronic literature that promotes the form, the artists, and the scholars, offers the ideal starting point of such a study. I hope you enjoy this showcase that celebrates the organization's amazing story.