Year: 2014

This year’s MLA conference will feature an exhibit entitled “Pathfinders: Documenting the Experience of Early Digital Literature” organized by ELO President Dene Grigar and board member Stuart Moulthrop on the past and present of electronic literature.  Sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the exhibit continues the tradition of curated works featured at MLA, one Grigar has been actively pursuing for several years. Below is the full press release.

Pathfinders:  25 years of Experimental Literary Art continues the work of Pathfinders:  Documenting the Experience of Early Digital Literature is a hands-on exhibit, curated by Dene Grigar and Stuart Moulthrop, taking place at the Modern Language Association 2014 convention in Chicago, IL, from January 9-11 in the Sheraton II, Ballroom, Level 4.

The exhibit generates from Grigar and Moulthrop’s research, “Pathfinders:  Documenting the Experience of Early Digital Literature,” sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities, and features work of pioneering experimental literary artists of the late 1980s and early 1990s, as well as highlights innovative contemporary artists experimenting today with computing technologies for literary production.

The first section of the exhibit, “Paths to Electronic Literature,”
 presents the early works of digital literature that comprise the current preservation efforts by Grigar and Moulthrop for the Pathfinders project.  These works will be made available at the exhibit on computers on which the works were originally experienced by readers at the time of their publication––an Apple IIe, Mac Classic, Mac LC575 and Mac 580, all from Grigar’s Electronic Literature Lab, the site where the Pathfinders research is taking place.  Also highlighted at this station will be raw documentation videos of the artists’ traversals produced for the Pathfinders project.

The second section of the exhibit, “Current Directions,”
features contemporary electronic literature artists who have produced narratives, poetry, drama, and essays via physical computing technologies, augmented reality, social media, mobile media and other innovative approaches.  Seven computer stations showcase the work of Samantha Gorman & Danny Cannizzo; Amaranth Borsuk, Kate Durbin, and Ian Hatcher; Andreas Muller; Christine Wilks and Andy Campbell; Jay Bushman and Mike Daisey; Jacob Garbe; Josh Tanenbaum and Karen Tanenbaum; Erik Loyer; and Jason Nelson.

For more information, contact Dene Grigar, dgrigar@mac.com.