Guest editors Sue Thomas and Dene Grigar invite submissions of essays, interviews, reports, bibliographies, course syllabi and artworks themed around “Wild Nature and Digital Life” for a special issue of Leonardo Electronic Almanac. The issue will explore such questions as how humans are reinventing “the wild” digitally; how the advent of digital technology has changed the relationship between humans and wild nature; and how the notion of wild nature can be extended to the digital world. Read the full call; send inquiries to Sue Thomas and Dene Grigar at digitalwild@astn.net. The deadline for initial expressions of interest is July 8, 2005; the final submission deadline for chosen contributors will be September 2, 2005.
“Why Rock?” on Turbulence.org
New on Turbulence, “Why Rock?” by Annie Abrahams and Clement Charmet brings together 13 digital sound art pieces by artists with rock-and-roll affinities, including a composition by ELO board member Talan Memmott. “Why Rock?” invites the audience to email the creators with responses to a series of questions about the role of rock music in net art.
Horse Less Review #2: Put Out Lights
Horseless Review #2: Put Out Lights includes three new flash pieces by poet Brian Kim Stefans which present the text of poems one letter at a time. Also in this issue, a poem by ELO board member Nick Montfort, entitled “Tichborne’s Lexicon,” which is, according to Montfort, “the outcome of a computational procedure applied to a text.”
Blue Company
Blue Company is an email novel that was performed in 2001 and 2002, with the current news affecting how messages were sent. A “new economy” worker who is sent back in time to the early renaissance tells the story of his corporate team, Blue Company, and their curious work as he writes e-mails on an illicit laptop to his inamorata. See the Directory entry for more information about this piece and its author.
“Ciutat de Vinaros” Digital Literature Prize
Hermeneia, a research group focusing on literary studies and digital technology at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC), has teamed up with the town of Vinaros, Catalonia, Spain, to offer a new award for digital literature, the Ciutat de Vinaros Digital Literature Prize. Two awards of 2,500 euros will be given in the categories of narrative and poetry. The deadline for submission is September 8, 2005. Only previously unpublished works are eligible.
The Ballad of Sand and Harry Soot
In its print edition, “The Ballad of Sand and Harry Soot” won Boston Review’s Second Annual Poetry Contest; the online edition won About.com’s Best of the Net Poetry Award. The ballad relates the tensions between and impulses of the carbon-based and the silicon-based. The hypertext edition is illustrated and allows the reader access to any part of the poem at any point. See the Directory entry for more information about this piece and its author.
Sue Thomas’ New Project: “Writing and the Digital Life”
Following her departure from trAce, Sue Thomas has launched a new online community project called “Writing and the Digital Life” . Sue’s first initiative for the project is a listserv with moderated monthly conversations that aim to explore “the impact of digital technologies upon writing and lived experience.” The first topic, ongoing during May, is “Technophobia”. Visit Writing and the Digital Life to join the list and read the archived postings.
‘I Know a Man,’ One Letter at a Time
“‘I Know a Man,’ One Letter at a Time” is a tribute to Robert Creeley (1926-2005). It places his poem in an austere, yet funny, “letterist” framework. This non-interactive piece takes Young-Hae Chang’s “phrase at a time” and “word at a time” approach to animated poems to its logical conclusion.
Reagan Library
“Reagan Library” was published on the 1999 Gravitational Intrigue CD and is also available online. The piece presents four shifting worlds of text and 3D images, treating the theme of memory and allowing the reader to resolve the scattered and randomized statements into something stable. “Reagan Library” uses HTML and Quicktime VR. See the Directory entry for more information about this piece.
Robert Coover in Seoul, Beijing, and Tokyo
As part of the 2nd Seoul International Forum for Literature, Robert Coover lectures on “Literary Hypermedia and the Cave” May 26, 2005 at the Convention Center and Conference Hall of the Sejong Center for the Performing Arts in Seoul, South Korea. The Forum is organized by the Daesan Foundation and the Korean Culture and Arts Foundation. Other stops on Coover’s Asian lecture tour include Tsinghua University in Beijing on May 20, the Tokyo section of the American Literature Society’s meeting on May 28, and several other Tokyo universities.