Electronic Literature Organization

ELO’s Visionary Landscapes 2008 Conference by the Numbers

Mark Marino — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 05:41:30 +0000

The ELO Visionary Landscapes 2008 conference at Washington State University Vancouver was one of the largest in the history of the organization and certainly one of the largest (if not THE largest) international conferences to focus on electronic literature.

The conference also marks a watershed expansion in ELO since all attendees were either current or new members. As this organization continues to grow internationally, the conference drew attendees from 17 countries and 5 continents. The works and presentations continued to demonstrate the diversity of forms that call themselves electronic literature.

Here are some more numerical output from the conference in the first part of a series of post-conference posts.

149	artistic works submitted
80	papers submitted
36	artists featured in the galleries
16	panels, plenaries, and workshops
74	presenters
120	attendees
10	bursaries awarded
16	classic elit works on display
10	bursaries awarded
2	exhausted conference organizers

Bursary winners included:

Ian Hatcher, USA
Deena Larsen, USA
Marjorie Luesebrink, USA
Judd Morrissey, USA
Stefan Muler Arisona, Switzerland
Kate Pullinger, UK
Stephanie Strickland, USA
Donna Leishman, UK
Ethan Miller, USA
Steve Gibson, Canada

Links to their bios and works can be found online here. Post-conference news will follow on the ELO blog and can also be found here on the post-conference page.

Electronic Literature Collection, Vol. 2 — Call for Work

Mark Marino — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 06:09:06 +0000

The Electronic Literature Organization seeks submissions for the Electronic Literature Collection, volume 2. We invite the submission of literary works that take advantage of the capabilities and contexts provided by the computer. Works will be accepted from June 1 to September 30, 2008. Up to three works per author will be considered; previously published works will be considered.

The Electronic Literature Collection is a biannual publication of current and older electronic literature in a form suitable for individual, public library, and classroom use. Volume 1, presently available both online (http://collection.eliterature.org) and as a packaged, cross-platform CD-ROM, has been used in dozens of courses at universities in the United States and internationally, and has been widely reviewed in the United States and Europe. It is also available as a CD-ROM insert with N. Katherine Hayles’ full-length study, Electronic Literature: New Horizons for the Literary (University of Notre Dame Press, 2008).

Volume 2, comprising approximately 50 works, will likewise be available online, and as a cross-platform DVD in a case appropriate for library processing, marking, and distribution. The contents of the Collection are offered under a Creative Commons license so that libraries and educational institutions will be allowed to duplicate and install works and individuals will be free to share the disc with others.

The editorial collective for the second volume of the Electronic Literature Collection, to be published in 2009, is Laura Borràs Castanyer, Talan Memmott, Rita Raley and Brian Kim Stefans. This collective will review the submitted work and select pieces for the Collection.

Literary quality will be the chief criterion for selection of works. Other aspects considered will include innovative use of electronic techniques, quality and navigability of interface, and adequate representation of the diverse forms of electronic literature in the collection as a whole. For volume 2, we are considering works of electronic literature in video.

Works submitted should function on both Macintosh OS X (10.5) and Windows Vista. Works should function without requiring users to purchase or install additional software. Submissions may require software that is typically pre-installed on contemporary computers, such as a web browser, and are allowed to use the current versions of the most common plugins.

To have a work considered, all the authors of the work must agree that if their work is published in the Collection, they will license it under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License, which will permit others to copy and freely redistribute the work, provided the work is attributed to its authors, that it is redistributed non-commercially, and that it is not used in the creation of derivative works. No other limitation is made regarding the author’s use of any work submitted or accepted.

To submit a work, prepare a plain text file with the following information:

The title of the work.

The names and email addresses of all authors and contributors of the work.

The URL where you are going to make your .zip file available for us to download. The editorial collective will not publish the address of this file.

A short description of the work — less than 200 words in length.

Any instructions required to operate the work.

The date the work was first distributed or published, or “unpublished” if it has not yet been made available to the public.

Prepare a .zip archive including the work in its entirety. Include the text file at the top level of this archive, and name it “submisson.txt”.

Upload the .zip file to a web server so that it is available at the specified location. Place all of the text in the “submisson.txt” file in the body of an email and send it to elc2.elo@gmail.com with the name of the piece being submitted included in the subject line.

The Electronic Literature Collection is supported by institutional partners including: Blekinge Institute of Technology; Brown University, Literary Arts Program; Center for Program in Contemporary Writing at the University of Pennsylvania; Duke University, Program in Literature; Hermeneia at the Open University of Catalonia; Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities; Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies; nt2; Pomona College, Media Studies Program; UCSB, Department of English; University of Bergen, Department of Literary, Linguistic, and Aesthetic Studies, Program in Digital Culture; University of Dundee, School of Humanities.

Institutional sponsorship opportunities are still available. If your organization or academic department is interested in more information, please contact helen DeVinney, Managing Director of the ELO, at hdevinney [at] gmail [dot]com.

SoftWhere: Software Studies Worksop 2008 (5/21-5/22)

Mark Marino — Wed, 21 May 2008 23:37:36 +0000

Software Studies Gets Underway at UC San Diego!

Wednesday, May 21st, from 12:30-5:00pm, ELO board member Noah Wardrip-Fruin and the Software Studies Initiative at UC San Diego invite you to attend a public event:

SoftWhere: Software Studies Workshop 2008
Time: Wed. May 21 - Thu. May 22
Place: Calit2, University of California, San Diego
Format: Open public session (Wed May 21, short presentations of research in “Pecha Kucha” format)
Closed workshop session (Thu May 22)
URL: http://workshop.softwarestudies.com/

Software studies is a research field that examines software and cyberinfrastructure using approaches from humanities, cultural criticism, and social sciences. Following on the first Software Studies Workshop organized by Matthew Fuller (Rotterdam, 2006 http://pzwart.wdka.hro.nl/mdr/Seminars2/softstudworkshop), the SoftWhere @ University of California, San Diego is a foundational event bringing together key figures in this emerging area to inaugurate the field. The event aims to coalesce a high-level conversation about what it means to study software cultures, and the direction and goals of Software Studies as an emerging movement. It will take place at Calit2, a pre-eminant research center for future computing and telecommunication (http://www.calit2.net/), where the Software Studies Initiative @ UCSD is located and currently collaborating with researchers on several exciting projects. SoftWhere has has also been timed to precede (and co-ordinate with) the the HASTAC II conference (http://www.hastac.org/) which will begin in nearby U. California Irvine on Thursday evening.

The session on Wed May 21 12:30-5:00pm will be open to the public. The session will feature a rapid series of short presentations by workshop participants (see list below). The format is 5-10 minute speed-talks, modeled on the popular “Pecha Kucha” format, in which each presenter is allowed a slideshow of 20 images, each shown for 20 seconds. Attendees can expect a collage of diverse perspectives on what it means to live in software society and how to study it.

The workshop is sponsored by Calit2, CRCA, HASTAC, UCDARNet, and the UCSD Visual Arts Department.

Off-Campus Participants:

Ian Bogost (Georgia Institute of Technology)
Geoff Bowker (Santa Clara University)
Benjamin Bratton (UCLA / SCI-Arc)
Matthew Fuller (Goldsmiths College, University of London)
N. Katherine Hayles (UCLA)
Matthew Kirschenbaum (University of Maryland)
Peter Lunenfeld (Art Center College of Design)
Mark C. Marino (USC)
Michael (Mateas (UCSC)
Nick Montfort (MIT)
Rita Raley (UCSB)
Casey Reas (UCLA)
Warren Sack (UCSC)
Phoebe Sengers (Cornell)
Doug Sery (MIT Press)
Chandler McWilliams (UCLA)

UCSD Campus Participants:

Lev Manovich (UCSD)
Noah Wardrip-Fruin (UCSD)
Jeremy Douglass (UCSD)
Amy Alexander (UCSD)
Barry Brown (UCSD)
Jordan Crandall (UCSD)
Kelly Gates (UCSD)
Brian Goldfarb (UCSD)
Jim Hollan (UCSD)
Stefan Tanaka (UCSD)
Geoff Voelker (UCSD)

Call for Papers and Works: Seminar on Electronic Literature in Europe: University of Bergen September 11-13

Scott Rettberg — Mon, 12 May 2008 11:29:39 +0000

Call for Papers and Works: Seminar on Electronic Literature in Europe

September 11-13th, 2008 at the University of Bergen in Bergen, Norway.

The Fall 2008 Bergen Seminar on Electronic Literature in Europe will build upon the work of the e-poetry seminar held in Paris in February 2008 at the University Paris 8, the 2007 e-poetry conference in Paris, the 2007 Remediating Literature Conference in Utrecht, and other recent activity in the field of electronic literature in Europe. The goals of this gathering are:

1) To provide an opportunity for European researchers to share and discuss their current research on electronic literature, e-poetry, and digital narrative forms.

2) To provide a forum for European authors of electronic literature to share, demonstrate, read, or perform their work.

3) To discuss and explore the foundation of a European research network focused on electronic literature, funding opportunities for such a network, and network activities.

The seminar will last three days and will include about 20-30 participants. The day-long meetings during the first two days will consist of short presentations of papers in panel format. Additionally, there will be performances, readings, and demonstrations of electronic literature in the evenings. The third day of the conference will be dedicated to proposing and discussing the formal establishment of a research network on electronic literature in Europe. Paper presentations should be in English. Presentation and performances of works can be made in English or in the native language of the presenter.

Registration for the seminar is free. There may be a fee for a conference dinner only. There will be no simultaneous sessions, so the number of presentation slots available will be limited, but researchers not selected to present are also free to attend. Both electronic literature authors and researchers are encouraged to submit proposals.

CALL FOR PAPERS

Any paper topic related to the seminar theme is welcome. Some subjects might include:

- Close readings of specific works of electronic literature.
- Ontologies and definitions of e-lit forms.
- National or language-group histories (or pre-histories) of e-lit.
- Procedural literacy and electronic literature.
- Relations between e-lit and other literary and artistic forms and movements.
- Issues involved in translating electronic literature.
- Issues involved in recording, archiving, and preserving e-lit.
- Electronic literature in cultural contexts.
- Pedagogy and approaches to teaching e-lit.
- Proposals for research network activities (e.g. archiving projects, publications, establishing a journal, pedagogical resources, etc.).

Presentations of papers should last no longer than 20 minutes.

Researchers should send an abstract of approximately 500 words before June 20th to elit.in.europe@gmail.com

CALL FOR WORKS

Authors wishing to present works of electronic literature should submit the following before June 20th:

1) A 500 word abstract describing the work, how the author intends to present it, and any technical requirements and how long it will take to present your work (max 30 minutes). The title of the work and all authors should be clearly identified. The abstract should be sent to elit.in.europe@gmail.com

2) If the work is published online, the URL at which it is located should be included in the abstract.

3) If the work is a non-web application, is published in other media than the web, or is performance-dependent, three copies of a CD-ROM or DVD including the work or video documentation of the work should be sent before June 20th to:

Scott Rettberg, Associate Professor
Literary, Linguistic, and Aesthetic Studies (LLE)
The University of Bergen
Postbox 7805
5020 Bergen
Norway

What is Electronic Literature?

The term refers to works with important literary aspects that take advantage of the capabilities and contexts provided by the stand-alone or networked computer. Within the broad category of electronic literature are several forms and threads of practice, some of which are:

* Hypertext fiction and poetry, on and off the Web
* Kinetic poetry presented in Flash and using other platforms
* Computer art installations that have literary aspects
* Interactive fiction
* Novels that take the form of emails, SMS messages, or blogs
* Poems and stories that are generated by computers
* Computer-enabled combinatory literary forms
* Collaborative writing projects that allow readers to contribute to the text of a work
* Literary performances that use the computer or network to develop new ways of writing

CALENDAR

The deadline for abstracts and works is June 20th. A response will be given by July 25th. Final papers must be submitted by September 1st for online proceedings that will be published after the seminar. A website with further information will be published later this summer.

REVIEW COMMITTEE

Scott Rettberg, University of Bergen
Jill Walker Rettberg, University of Bergen
Phillippe Bootz, Paris 8 University
Maria Engberg, Blekinge Institute of Technology
Talan Memmott, Blekinge Institute of Techonology
Raine Koskimaa, University of Jyväskylä
Susana Tosca, IT University of Copenhagen

CONTACT INFO

Submission of abstracts and proposals should go to: elit.in.europe@gmail.com. Questions about the seminar should be directed to Scott Rettberg: scott(at)retts.net.

Open Mic/Open Mouse at USC (4/25/2008)

Mark Marino — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 06:55:56 +0000

Calling all Southern California Elit Authors:

Elit Under the Stars

Elit Open Mic/Open Mouse

April 25,2008, 7:30pm
USC, Institute for Multimedia Literacy

Calling All creators (and fans) of Electronic Literature: authors, designers, and programmers. Sign up now to present your new or favorite work of elit in our Open Mic/Open Mouse.

Venue: Outdoors under the stars at the Institute for Multimedia Literacy, 746 West Adams Blvd., LA, CA 90089 at the University of Southern California.

Potential Genres:

Electronic Poetry
Hypertext
Interactive Fiction
Interactive Drama
Conversational Agents
Video Mashups
Serious Games
Flash Works
Codeworks

Any work that could be labeled “Electronic Literature” is welcome or you may read an excerpt of one of your favorite Elit works.
Performance Spots Length: 7 Minutes Max
The performance will be Free and Open to the public.
To sign up, contact Jeremy Douglass [jeremydouglass [at] gmail]

Organized by Mark Marino, Jeremy Douglass, and Jessica Pressman with support from Holly Willis of the Institute for Multimedia Literacy and from the Electronic Literature Organization.
For more information go here.

MITH

Administrator — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 15:37:56 +0000

Made possible by a major Challenge Grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities (MITH) is a collaboration among the University of Maryland’s College of Arts and Humanities, Libraries, and Office of Information Technology. Since its founding in 1999, MITH has become internationally recognized as one of the leading centers of its kind, distinguished by the cultural diversity so central to its identity. Located in McKeldin Library at the heart of the campus, MITH is the University’s primary intellectual hub for scholars and practitioners of digital humanities, electronic literature, and cyberculture, as well as the home of the Electronic Literature Organization.

Library of Congress

Administrator — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 16:39:07 +0000

During the trial year 2008, the Electronic Literature Organization is collaborating with the Library of Congress in the selection, archiving, and preservation of several hundred web addresses featuring works of electronic literature (www.archive-it.org). The project, under the direction of ELO President Joseph Tabbi, is at once historical and developmental: each address is to be preserved ‘in perpetuity’ through periodic updates. At the same time, the descriptions, tags, and robust sample of works gathered by the ELO should provide, over time, a profile of the e-lit field.

Turbulence

Administrator — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 16:37:23 +0000

Founded in 1996, Turbulence (http://turbulence.org) has commissioned over 150 networked art projects and, since 2004, has chronicled emerging network practice via its Networked Performance blog (http://turbulence.org/blog). Turbulence co-presented “Re-Writing” with the ELO at the Boston Cyberarts Festival (2005), and supports the ELO community by sponsoring readings, commissioning e-lit, and blogging new projects and current events.

Litnet

Administrator — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 16:36:18 +0000

“Literature on the net/Net Literature” (Litnet) is a subproject of the Cultural Studies Research Centre “Media Upheavals” at the University of Siegen, Germany. The Research Centre examines the prerequisites and structures of the media upheavals at the beginning of the 20th century and in the crossover to the 21st century. Litnet aims at analyzing the ongoing changes of literary communication and aesthetics in programmable and networked media, particularly on the Internet. Under a grant from the Alexander von Humboldt-Foundation, Professor Peter Gendolla and his team provide a database of digital/net literature and research literature (academic books, anthologies and articles) at http://www.litnet.uni-siegen.de/. Litnet archived several thousand sites of e-lit criticism that will be incorporated into the ELO Directory during the year 2008.

Electronic Book Review

Administrator — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 16:35:19 +0000

Combining elements of graphic design, database programming, and scholarly editing, ebr (www.electronicbookreview.com) has been in continuous publication since 1994. A journal of critical writing produced and published by writers for writers, ebr tracks literature’s becoming electronic. In the Spring of 2008, the ELO awarded ebr a commission to review, tag, and describe incoming selections for the Electronic Literature Directory (http://directory.eliterature.org/).