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2025 ELO Awards

ELO is excited to announce the winners of the 2025 Electronic Literature Awards.  These awards were coordinated by. Alinta Krauth and Jason Nelson.  ELO gives 4 juried awards that come with a cash prize and the esteem of the international e-lit community.

The Marjorie C. Luesebrink Career Achievement Award

Judges:  Stephanie Strickland,  Lai-Tze Fan,  Maria Engberg
Winner:  Bertrand Gervais

Bertrand Gervais is a Professor in the Literary Studies Department at the University of Québec in Montréal (UQAM). He is the Director of Figura, the Research Center on Textuality and the Imaginary, and of NT2, the Research Laboratory on Hypermedia Art and Literature. From 2015 to 2024 he served as the Canada Research Chair in Digital Arts and Literatures. During his career he participated in and supported The CELL Project for the Electronic Literature Organization. He also organized a brilliant ELO conference in Montreal.

Bertrand’s career, spanning more than 40 years of contributions to scholarship in digital artforms, has been foundational in the field of digital literary arts, semiotics of the web, and digital aesthetics. As cofounder of the NT2 laboratory, Bertrand not only established key research and documentation methodologies but cemented the bridge between Francophone research in the field and world-wide initiatives. Under his direction, the partnership Littérature Québécoise Mobile revolutionized the Web presence of the literary community of Francophone Canada for the benefit of creators and the linguistic minority publishing industry.

Bertand’s contributions and efforts toward international, interuniversity, and interdisciplinary collaboration have proved essential for several generations of researchers, artists, and digital creators. As co-founder of the 1P1 Laboratory, which specializes in extended realities, Bertrand’s work continues to have an impact on current and future research, revolutionizing the spheres of scientific engagement with the arts, technologies, and research-design.

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The N. Katherine Hayles Award for Criticism of Electronic Literature

Judges: Dene Grigar, Mariusz Pisarski,  Monique Tschofen

Winner:
The Culture of Neural Networks: Synthetic Literature and Art in (not only) the Czech and Slovak Context, by Karel  Piorecký and Zuzana Husárová

A fascinating and timely perspective on art, neural networks, and AI, offered by scholars from regions where the ideas of the Golem, the robot, and alchemical enhancement of the human spirit have long been created, practiced, and discussed—even around family dinner tables. This Czech and Slovak lineage lends the work a unique historical and philosophical angle. Piorecký and Husárová  temper the current wave of enthusiasm and uncritical faith in AI in a productive manner, offering a balanced view on creativity and AI. The body of knowledge and artistic practice that serves as context breathes fresh air into the global conversation on synthetic creativity. By highlighting voices and examples from continental and Central European art and science, the authors enrich the field of electronic literature, introducing underexplored contexts, names, and traditions that should benefit researchers and creators worldwide.

Runner Up
The New Legibility, by Theo Ellin Ballew

Beautifully designed, this highly witty, playful and meta-referential essay manages to both show and tell; an example of how interactive forms of scholarship can do things that printed pages cannot. With an interface that effectively uses hypertextual links, crossouts, and bubbles, Ballew deeply theorizes what legibility means in the context of the history of elite, disability, design, and the materiality of reading. This playful and insightful academic essay on the nature of text on the screen pays homage to the vernacular web of old and cult classics such as Grammatron. The meta-commentary is ironic and provocative, defining and enacting “static” text as “less legible,” while rendering mobile text as an expression of stability. As readers digest these turns of phrase and meaning, the text invites them to doodle on the screen, leaving their own mark on the background of micro-lexias before proceeding to the next chunk of argumentation. User-friendly, with a backlink mechanism for visited lexias and a reset button, this small hypertext evokes alternative expressions of academic discourse.

Honorable Mention
Lillian-Yvonne Bertram and Nick Montfort’s Output: Anthology of Computer-Generated Text, 1953-2023

Lillian-Yvonne Bertram and Nick Montfort’s Output: Anthology of Computer-Generated Text, 1953-2023 is an excellent resource and a milestone of scholarly research. Organized into 17 thematic sections, from conversations to literary forms to Tweets, along with detailed back matter (e.g., glossary, timeline), the book covers much ground necessary for understanding 200 different explorations with English-language “outputs” over the last 70 years. It is a monumental reference for students and scholars alike.

The Robert Coover Award for a Work of Electronic Literature

Judges:  Kwabena Opoku-Agyemang,  Florence Walker, Lyle Skains

WINNER: Espejo de Carne, by benjamin escalonilla godayol

The judges found Espejo de Carne delightfully visceral and weird, full of flavour and thoughtfulness. The narrative resonates intensely, and the music is used in a multiplicative effect to both heighten the text and encourage the reader to linger on particular passages. On its own, the text is compelling, well-written, a science-fiction-oriented dive into the reader/player’s “birth” as a cloned human, experiencing the rawness and newness of life, the universe, and everything. The presentation is curated, technically flawless, easing the reader/player into the interactivity even as they become engrossed in this story of themselves as duplicate, guided by interactions with their OG human. Techies may find the “electronic” in this work of electronic literature slow to develop, but we found the confluence of a strong narrative, an original voice, the seeding and layering of multiple modes and carefully considered interactivity to work beautifully to convey a story that manages to put the reader/player deeply, immersively into a character’s life without resorting to overt gameplay or gimmicks. Espejo de Carne‘s subtle use of choice, linkage, and multimedia place the reader/player firmly within an interesting and enjoyable interactive narrative.

RUNNER UP:

Happenings: A tragic-lyrical philosophical essay, by Monique Tschofen

This work is well-conceived, brilliantly executed, and quietly devastating, leaving the judges with a tangible heaviness, a precision-targeted burst of emotion. In a world that is all-too-often dismissive of sexual assault, Happenings constitutes a thoughtful and striking intervention. The judges were especially impressed by its commitment to keeping the reader/player uneasy – an impulse that never tipped over into gratuitous misery. Artistically, the work uses LLMs well, though such tools bring with them their own implications within a work positioned as a feminist text.  The use of Scalar for creative purposes is also to be commended, as the platform has primarily been deployed for pathways through scholarship; in this context it is an extremely apt foundation for a philosophical essay. Overall, the work is well-constructed and artfully conveyed.

Honourable Mention

BabyHex, by David Ciccoricco, Mez Breeze, and Marina Cone

BabyHex plays with the creative anthropomorphisation of gen-AI/LLMs using gen-AI, while simultaneously playing with the reader through the illusion of agency. The interface is polished and effective, conveying the contrary and possibly cursed nature of these interactions in a highly meaningful way.

Honourable Mention

Hunting and Gathering in Cyberspace, by Judy Malloy

The lyrical nature of “narrabase” fiction is on full display in this work, scrambling together the short lyrical pieces of text into an ever-shifting poetic narrative. There is also a nostalgic effect, a clunky inconvenience to the hyperlinked elements that reflects the experience of the nascent World Wide Web of the time. A work worth exploring, then and now.

The Maverick Award

Judge:  Rob Wittig and Christine Wilks

Winner: Jason Nelson

Jason Nelson is a prolific, bright, mischievous, and thought-provoking creator. The contact button on many of his interactive online works reveals two statements that capture the spirit of his decades of work.

“I make odd games / artworks / digital poems

You hate / love / are confused by what I make”

The confusion Jason’s work sparks is a generous, friendly confusion, hilarious and serious at the same time. Throughout decades of award winning work — work appearing on screens, in quirky physical objects, and stunning visuals projected onto huge architectural spaces — Jason has accurately assessed the norms and expectations of current digital culture. Then he has set about systematically breaking those norms and frustrating those expectations. The result is insight. And laughter. Jason’s work always shows you something you hadn’t witnessed before in digital culture, and inside yourself.

One of Jason’s superpowers is actually to see interfaces and platforms. These frameworks, once introduced, quickly become invisible. Their creators often wish them and design them to become invisible in order to hide the degree to which they extract our money and attention. Jason makes mischief with frameworks. His scribbly marks and simplified forms call into question slick, orderly, high-design. His games don’t follow the rules. He makes familiar keystrokes do unfamiliar things, and users rediscover the joy of curious clicking. The topics of the work are important, dealing with how humans relate to themselves, each other, and the earth.

He is a wonderful line-by-line writer. Just to quote a few project titles:

“Birds Still Warm from Flying,”
“Holiday Disaster Generator,”
“alarmingly these are not lovesick zombies,”
and “With Love from a Failed Planet.”

  1. Jason’s upbringing amid the farms and ranches of Oklahoma reminds us of the roots of the term maverick, which in the American west meant an unbranded calf, cow, or steer who wanders away from the herd. Jason Nelson’s innovative wanderings are a great gift, and he richly deserves this award.
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Jean-Pierre Balpe Conference program now online

The full program of the conference titled “Jean-Pierre Balpe, (Meta-)Author: The Infinite Writing” is now online on the conference website, along with practical information: https://balpe2025.sciencesconf.org/resource/page/id/1 

The conference will take place near Paris, on the Condorcet Campus of the University of Paris 8, on 12-13 June 2025. It is open to all and free to attend, just send an email to erika.fulop@univ-tlse2.fr.

The event will be accompanied by an exhibition of Balpe’s works in The NEXT, to be launched at the conference. It will remain online as the Jean-Pierre Balpe Collection in The NEXT.

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Call for Nominations: 2025 ELO Awards

The Electronic Literature Organization is proud to offer the following four prestigious awards:

  • The Robert Coover Award for a Work of Electronic Literature,
  • The N. Katherine Hayles Award for Criticism of Electronic Literature
  • The Marjorie C. Luesebrink Career Achievement Award
  • The Maverick Award

2025 nominations are now open. Submit today. Nominations close on April 21, 2025 extended to May 9.

Winners will be announced at ELO 2025 during our in-person conference.

The Robert Coover Award for a Work of Electronic Literature is an award given for the best work of electronic literature of any length or genre. Bestowed by the Electronic Literature Organization and funded through a generous donation from supporters and members of the ELO, this annual prize aims to recognize creative excellence. The Prize for 1st Place comes with a $1000 award, with a plaque showing the name of the winner and an acknowledgement of the achievement, and a one-year membership in the Electronic Literature Organization at the Associate Level. One prize for Honorable Mention is awarded and consists of a certificate showing the name of the winner and an acknowledgement of the achievement, and a one-year membership in the Electronic Literature Organization at the Associate Level.

The N. Katherine Hayles Award for Criticism of Electronic Literature is an award given for the best work of criticism, of any length, on the topic of electronic literature. Bestowed by the Electronic Literature Organization and funded through a generous donation from N. Katherine Hayles and others, this annual prize recognizes excellence in the field. The Prize for 1st Place comes with a $1000 award, with a plaque showing the name of the winner and an acknowledgement of the achievement, and a one-year membership in the Electronic Literature Organization at the Associate Level. One prize for Honorable Mention is awarded and consists of a certificate showing the name of the winner and an acknowledgement of the achievement, and a one-year membership in the Electronic Literature Organization at the Associate Level.

The Marjorie C. Luesebrink Career Achievement Award honors a visionary artist and/or scholar who has brought excellence to the field of electronic literature and has inspired others to help create and build the field. Bestowed by the Electronic Literature Organization and funded through a generous donation, it comes with a $1000 award that can go directly to the awardee or to a young scholar who would use the funds in support of developing content for online sources about the awardee’s achievements; a plaque showing the name of the winner and an acknowledgement of the achievement; and a one-year membership in the Electronic Literature Organization at the Associate Level. (No self-nominations for this award.)

The Maverick Award honors an independent spirit: a writer, artist, researcher, programmer, designer, performer, or hybrid creator who does not adhere to a conventional path but creates their own and in so doing makes a singular contribution to the field of electronic literature. (No self-nominations for this award.)

For more information about the Awards, contact Holly Slocum, at holly at eliterature.org.

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Conference Celebrating Jean-Pierre Balpe

Jean-Pierre Balpe, (Meta-)Author: The Infinite Writing
International Conference
12-13 June 2025
University of Paris 8, Campus Condorcet

Jean-Pierre Balpe, one of the first authors and theorists in France to take an interest in the creative literary potential of computers but still little known to the general public, has been working for almost half a century on the automatic generation of texts as a mode of literary creation that questions our assumptions about language, writing and literature. Over the years, he has closely followed the evolution of digital tools and environments, developing increasingly powerful generators on the one hand, and investing in digital social networks on the other, not only to publish some of the automatically generated poetic and narrative texts, but also to attribute them to fictional beings, pseudo- or heteronymous ‘profiles’. The latest version of his text-generation software, a symbolic artificial intelligence, which to our knowledge remains unique worldwide in terms of its scope and refinement, is based on a theory of meaning, language, and their relationship to the world, developed by Balpe from the questions raised in his attempts to model generative literary writing (Balpe 2000, 2021). It includes millions of pieces of linguistic data accumulated since the 1990s, as well as a grammar defined manually and perfected as the experiments progressed.

First a poet and literature teacher, author of teaching manuals and theoretical works on the teaching of poetry (Balpe 1974, 1980) as well as collections of poetry (Balpe 1975, 1985, 1990), Jean-Pierre Balpe discovered computers at the end of the 1970s at the school where he taught and immediately became interested in their linguistic and poetic potential. He became an adviser to the Ministry of Culture on the digital transition, proposed a ‘clandestine’ seminar at INALCO on the automatic text generation, and took part in the Alamo group (Atelier de Littérature Assistée par la Mathématique et les Ordinateurs) of the Oulipo movement from its inception in 1981. However, he soon left the group because he found its approach to text generation limited. In 1987, he published Roman [Novel], a story generator for use in the classroom, accompanied by a manual entitled Initiation à la génération de textes en langue naturelle: exemples de programmes en Basic (Balpe 1986, Centre national de documentation pédagogique 1987). In 1985, he was in charge of the ‘Labyrinthe du langage’ area of the Centre Pompidou exhibition Les Immatériaux, curated by Jean-Philippe Lyotard and Thierry Chaput, which left its mark on the history of new media art with its reflections on the entanglement between art, technology, science and society. He then joined the university, becoming director of the Hypermedia Department at Paris 8 and then co-director of CIREN (Centre Interdisciplinaire de Recherches en Esthétiques Numériques) and CITU (Créations Interactives Transdisciplinaires Universitaires). While pursuing his theoretical and pedagogical work, he continued to develop his software and worked on numerous collaborative projects, notably with composer Jacopo Baboni-Schilingi and poets Joseph Guglielmi and Henri Deluy (Trois mythologies et un poète aveugle, 1997) and artists such as Michel Jaffrennou (Barbe-bleue, 1998), Grégory Chatonsky (Capture, 2009), Miguel Chevalier (Herbarius 2059, 2009), and Orlan (ORLAN & ORLANoïde, 2018). At the end of the 1990s, her work also inspired a documentary by Hervé Nisic (Personne, 2000).

With the arrival of the Internet, Balpe quickly moved into cyberspace, creating hypertext fictions (Trajectoires, La Disparition du Général Proust) and a labyrinth of blogs where he mixed ‘human’ writing with generated texts. He also ventured into writing detective fiction – with automatically generated passages – questioning the society of the future under the effect of digital networks (La Toile, 1999). His website (now unavailable on the web and currently being rebuilt) has also developed as a constantly evolving space, with ‘mazes’ that allow pages of a novel and other potentially infinite series to be generated, right up to his ‘Posthumous Poems’. Finally, since the birth of social networks, he has been exploring the new spaces for communication and creation offered by Facebook and YouTube, extending his universe now called ‘Un Monde incertain’ [An Uncertain World] and continuing to write under the hijacked names of Proustian figures (Antoine Elstir, Maurice Roman…, and above all, Rachel Charlus). After experimenting with phototext, Balpe now explores video editing with ‘natural’, archival and synthetic images and voices, and even into musical composition with non-professional tools. The generations respond to each other and clash in this ‘work’ (a concept that should also be questioned), in the form of ‘battles’ [Combats] between ChatGPT and Balpe’s generator. Finally, despite his observation that ‘The book is the whole problem…’ (Balpe 2001), we also discover a fascination for the book object and its history in the blog Ma bibliothèque XVI, XVII et XVIIIe siècle.

On the whole, the automatic generation of texts and personal writing, the fictional and the autobiographical, the poetic and the theoretical, the codex and the digital continue to coexist and enrich one another in the Balpean universe. Jean-Pierre Balpe’s work and thinking raise a number of highly topical issues, not only in the field of literature but more generally in the relationship between creativity, reception, machines and audiences.

This conference, organized as part of a project funded by the Maison des Sciences de l’Homme Paris Nord, with the support of the CEMTI, PLH, CELLAM, and Paragraphe laboratories, and in partnership with the Electronic Literature Lab and the Electronic Literature Organization, aims to encourage and bring together for the first time research and reflection on and around this innovative work and thought, with its elusive perimeters and its constant questioning of writing in all its forms.