The ELO Directory returns 010110

January 1, 2010 in E-Lit Criticism, ELO, New E-Lit

ELO welcomes 010110 (decimal 22) with a special announcement:

The framework for the Electronic Literature Directory version 2.0 is now online:
http://eld.eliterature.org/

Think of this as an open house in a model home for e-lit.

The Directory has always been key to helping outsiders discover electronic literature. With the new version, it will be even easier to add and find works of electronic literature AND criticism.

But there’s more: The ELD will feature venues or “collections,” aggregators of e-lit and criticism.

When you take a glance at our demo works, you will notice some exciting features:

In addition to basic information about author, date, url, and language, entries list software platforms as well as annotations by ELO members. However, registered users will be able to extend the discussion in the comment section or by writing a review.

The ELO Directory team has worked hard to make these works more accessible, developing search tools, categories, and tags, the subject of much discussion on Joseph Tabbi’s recent online meditation (On Reading 300 Works of Electronic Literature).

The works you see are but a small sample of the ones already vetted, but this is a special invitation to see the structure of this exciting re-imagined resource.

Start by creating an account and submitting creative or critical works or collection sites. Those submissions will be delivered to our Directory team for evaluation and review.We’re looking forward to the re-launch of this flagsite enterprise of ELO.

Watch for full announcements to follow including thanks to the team who have been working so hard to make this a possibility.

At the start of the new decade, it is impossible to predict what new forms of literature will emerge, but you at least know where you can find them: the Electronic Literature Directory.

[Also, reminder, ELO AI deadline: January 15, 2010 or 011501]

Searching for a New(er) Digital Literature

January 15, 2009 in ELO, New E-Lit

Announcing a new(er) presentation of Electronic Literature Organization:
Searching for a New(er) Digital Literature.

“Searching for a New(er) Digital Literature” is an exhibition of twelve multimedia works that offer readers representative examples of new digital poetry and fiction on the web. Curated by Alan Bigelow, it includes work by Jim Andrews, Marvin Bell & Ernesto Lavandera, Sommer Browning & Mark Lomond & Johanne Ste-Marie, Andy Campbell, J.R. Carpenter, Chris Joseph & Kate Pullinger, Tammy McGovern, Stuart Moulthrop, Alexander Mouton, Jason Nelson, Victoria Welby, and Jody Zellen.

The exhibit is both online and offline. The offline exhibit launched on January 15th at Austin Peay State University in Tennessee, USA. The online exhibit is available at

http://www.terminalapsu.org/exhibitions/digitalliterature/index.html

ELO’s Visionary Landscapes 2008 Conference by the Numbers

June 10, 2008 in ELO, Events, Other News

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:

  1. Ian Hatcher, USA
  2. Deena Larsen, USA
  3. Marjorie Luesebrink, USA
  4. Judd Morrissey, USA
  5. Stefan Muler Arisona, Switzerland
  6. Kate Pullinger, UK
  7. Stephanie Strickland, USA
  8. Donna Leishman, UK
  9. Ethan Miller, USA
  10. 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

June 5, 2008 in Calls, ELO, Other News

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.

Read the rest of this entry →

Institutional Partnership Opportunities — Sponsorship of the Electronic Literature Collection, Volume 2

February 18, 2008 in ELO

The ELO’s Electronic Literature Collection, Volume 1 has been a great success for the electronic literature community. Over the past year, it has been widely distributed, read, and reviewed, and has been utilized in classrooms all over the Americas and Europe. It is the only collection of its kind — a free and freely distributed, Creative Commons-licensed, edited selection of sixty diverse exemplary works of electronic literature.

We are pleased to announce sponsorship opportunities for the second volume of the Collection, to be produced over the course of the next year. The publication of the first volume of the Electronic Literature Collection was made possible by the support of institutional sponsors, academic programs and organizations, who each contributed about $1,000.

The Electronic Literature Collection, Volume 2 will be a web and DVD publication of approximately fifty works of electronic literature including hypertext fiction and poetry, interactive fiction, digital poetry, and other forms that use the capabilities of the computer to provide compelling literary experiences. Works are selected from an open international call for works and by invitation from the editorial board, with a goal to collect, preserve, and make widely available exemplary works of e-lit from the past and present. The project is also distinguished by the fact that the works published in the Collection are distributed under a Creative Commons license, which enables students, library patrons, and other individual users to recopy and distribute the works. The scholarly outcome of the project is the publication of 3,000 copies of the DVD and web publication of the same content. The DVD will be widely distributed, particularly to students at institutions where new media is studied. Three leading writers in the field of literary new media, Talan Memmott, Brian Kim Stefans, and Rita Raley, will serve as the editorial board of the second volume of the Collection. The call for works for the ELC2 will be announced at the ELO’s upcoming Visionary Landscapes Conference this May.

Benefits for Institutional Partners: If you choose to participate, your institution’s name will be listed as a project partner on the published DVD package, and your institution’s name and logo will be displayed on the project web site. The project will thus serve to enhance your institution’s reputation as an active stakeholder in the development of the field of electronic literature. More importantly, your students and curriculum will benefit. Each institutional partner will receive 50 copies of the DVD for your institution and students’ use. The Collection can serve as a curriculum base for a course in contemporary electronic literature. As a project partner, you will also have the opportunity to host a launch event for the Collection that the ELO would help you to plan and organize, including readings of works of electronic literature and free distribution of the DVD. We can also make internship opportunities available to your undergraduates in the ELO, as well as writing opportunities for graduate students interested in contributing to our presentation of works on the ELO Directory and Showcase.

Contributions will be used for the material costs involved in the design, publication, and distribution of the Collection.

To make sponsorship arrangements and to process a contribution, please contact our Managing Director at MITH, helen DeVinney (hdevinney@gmail.com). You can also contact Joseph Tabbi (jtabbi@gmail.com) or Scott Rettberg (scott@retts.net) with any questions about this opportunity or other ELO programs.

Individual donations in support of the publication of the ELC2 are also welcome. To support this program, make a donation via Network for Good or Paypal.

ELO Welcomes 3 New Board Members

December 14, 2007 in E-Lit Criticism, ELO, Other News

The Electronic Literature Organization is happy to announce the addition of three new board members, Stuart Moulthrop, John Cayley, and Mark Marino.

Full bios follow:

Read the rest of this entry →

ELO Meetup and E-Lit Conference Guide for the 2007 MLA Conference

December 11, 2007 in ELO, Other News

ELO Meetup at the MLA

As we have for the past several years, we are planning an informal meet-up for people affiliated with or interested in the Electronic Literature Organization at this year’s MLA conference. This year, we are planning on meeting at the “Big Bar” at the conference hotel, the Hyatt Regency, after the “Electronic Literature: Reading, Writing, Navigating” panel, from 5-6 PM on Friday, December 28th. We plan to converge on the bar and have a drink or two. Afterwards, for those who would like to continue the conversation and take advantage of the world’s best deep-dish pizza, we’re reserving some tables at a nearby restaurant. If you’re only planning on joining us for a drink, just show up at the Big Bar at 5PM. If you want in on the pizza, please send an email to Stefanie Boese (sboese2 at uic dot edu), indicating how many people plan to attend and your preference for sausage, spinach, or mixed vegetarian pizza. We’ll put the order in ahead, so we won’t have to wait long in the restaurant to eat. We will “go dutch,” splitting the bill evenly and paying in cash.

Electronic Literature & Related Panels at the MLA 2007

This year’s convention features several panels (“New Reading Interfaces,” “Electronic Literature: Reading, Writing, and Navigating,” and “Electronic Literature: After Afternoon”) that are explicitly focused on electronic literature, and several that are more tangentially related to the subject. Below is a mini conference guide focused on e-lit. Read the rest of this entry →

Extension: CFP: Visionary Landscapes (12/16, 5/29-6/1)

December 3, 2007 in Calls, ELO, Other News

The deadline for Visionary Landscapes: Electronic Literature Organization 2008 Conference has been extended to December 16, 2007.

The conference takes place from May 29-June 1, 2008 at Washington State University Vancouver in lovely Vancouver, WA. It is sponsored by both the Electronic Literature Organization and WSUV. Speakers include Mark Amerika, Sue Thomas, and John Cayley. A Media Arts Show will be held in conjunction with the conference and will feature art such as digital sculpture, net art, multimedia installations and performances, electronic music, and the like. Workshops in audio production and reading elit are also scheduled.

According to conference co-chair, Dene Grigar,

It should prove to be an interesting weekend for anyone involved in digital media projection, scholarship, and teaching.

CFP for Visionary Landscapes: Electronic Literature Organization 2008 Conference

July 8, 2007 in Calls, ELO, Events, Other News

Visionary Landscapes: Electronic Literature Organization 2008 Conference

Thursday, May 29-Sunday, June 1, 2008
Vancouver, Washington

Sponsored by Washington State University Vancouver & the Electronic Literature Organization

Dene Grigar & John Barber, Co-Chairs

http://www.vancouver.wsu.edu/programs/dtc/elo08.html
Producing a work of electronic literature entails not only practice in the literary arts but sometimes also the visual, sonic, and the performative arts; knowledge of computing devices and software programs; and experience in collaboration, interdisciplinarity, and hybridity. In short, electronic literature requires its artists to see beyond traditional approaches and sensibilities into what best can be described as visionary landscapes where, as Mark Amerika puts it, artists “celebrate an interdisciplinary practice from a literary and writerly perspective that allows for other kinds of practice-based art-research and knowledge sharing.”

To forward the thinking about new approaches and sensibilities in the media arts, The Electronic Literature Organization and Washington State University Vancouver’s Digital Technology and Culture program are inviting submissions to the Electronic Literature Organization 2008 Conference to be held from May 29 to June 1, 2008 in Vancouver, Washington.

“Visionary Landscapes: Electronic Literature Organization 2008 Conference” is interested in papers that explore forms of digital media that utilize images, sound, movement, and user interaction as well as––or in lieu of––words and that explore how we read, curate, and critique such works. Topics may include:

• New, non-screen, environments for presenting multimedia writing and/or electronic literature
• Research labs and new media projects
• Strategies for reading electronic literary works
• Curating digital art
• Innovative approaches to critiquing electronic literature
• Emerging technologies for the production of multimedia writing and/or electronic literature
• Building audience for new media literary works and writing
• Digital, literary performances
• Publishing for print or electronic media connecting literature and the arts through common archiving and metatag strategies
• Artistic methods of composition used in intermedia storytelling(improvisation, collaboration, sample and remix, postproduction art, codework, hactivism, etc.

In conjunction with the three-day conference, there will be a juried Media Arts Show. Along with prizes for the most notable work, selected artists will be awarded bursaries to attend the conference featured at the show. Submission guidelines will be posted beginning August 15, 2007 on the conference website.

The keynote speaker is internationally renowned new media artist and writer, Mark Amerika, named a “Time Magazine 100 Innovator.” His artwork has been exhibited at the Whitney Biennial, the ICA in London, the Walker Art Center, and the Denver Art Museum and has been the topic of four retrospectives. Amerika is also the author of many books, including his recently published collection of artist writings entitled META/DATA: A Digital Poetics (The MIT Press), founder of the Alt-X Network, and publisher of the electronic book review. He currently holds the position of Professor of Art and Art History at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Deadline for Submissions for Presentations: November, 30, 2007
Notification of Acceptance: December 30, 2007

Vancouver, Washington, located in the Pacific Northwest just across the Columbia River from Portland, OR, is about a six hour drive south of Vancouver, Canada and three hours south of Seattle, Washington. The conference day events will take place at Washington State University Vancouver, a Tier One research Institution built in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains with views of Mt. Hood and Mt. Saint Helens. The official conference hotel is the Hilton Vancouver located in downtown Vancouver, Washington with easy access to restaurants, bars, and evening conference events. Special rates have been negotiated for conference attendees. A conference shuttle will take attendees to and from the campus daily. The recommended airport is PDX at Portland, which is about a seven minute drive to downtown Vancouver, WA.

The cost of the conference is $150; graduate students and non-affiliated artists pay only $100. Conference registration covers access to all events, the reception, some meals, and shuttle transportation.

For more information, contact Dene Grigar at Grigar@vancouver.wsu.edu.

The Chronicle of Higher Education Covers ELO Open Mic & Mouse

May 29, 2007 in ELO, Events, Other News, Press

The Chronicle of Higher Education has devoted three pieces to the ELO/MITH Open Mic & Mouse event that was held as a kick-off to the Electronic Literature Symposium that was held at the University of Maryland in early May.

Click here for an article covering the event. Below the lead picture, you’ll find a link to the video story. And, on the right-hand side of the screen, under “Related Material,” you’ll see a link for an audio interview with N. Katherine Hayles.