Our Summer eReading series continues with a selection from Alan Sondheim’s collected works “The Internet Text” published by West Virginia University under the title Writing Under. Chris Funkhouser says of the collection: “Writing Under offers up generous statements of process, from a self- and other- aware master who is codework’s godcyborg, a limner of psychedelic landscapes in Second Life, and an inveterate graphophile. This volume radiates foresight, stabilizing, if only for a moment, the fragility of ‘tenuously tethered bits and bytes’ that exist in a vast field.” While Sondheim’s total work of over 25,000 pages of writing would take a lifetime to peruse, this collection offers a summer-sized sampling. The volume was published in the Computing Literature series, edited by ELO Vice President Sandy Baldwin and Board Member Philippe Bootz.
From the publisher:
Alan Sondheim’s Writing Under explores and examines what happens to writing as it takes place on and through the networked computer. Sondheim began experimenting with artistic and philosophical writing using computers in the early 1970s. Since 1994, he has explored the possibilities of writing on the Internet, whether using blogs, web pages, e–mails, virtual worlds, or other tools. The sum total of Sondheim’s writing online is entitled “The Internet Text.†Writing Under selects from this work to provide insight into how writing takes place today and into the unique practices of a writer. The selections range from philosophical musings, to technical explorations of writing practice, to poetic meditations on the writer online. This work expands our understanding of writing today and charts a path for writing’s future.
The Summer eReading series will continue each week delivering creative and critical texts of and on electronic literature created by ELO members.