Announcing an important national grant that will help scholars explore and archive early electronic literature:
The U.S. National Endowment for the Humanities has awarded the Electronic Literature Organization a Digital Humanities Start-Up Grant amounting to $52,003 for an innovative historical effort involving the first generation of modern digital writing.
The Pathfinders project, proposed by ELO President-elect Dene Grigar of Washington State University Vancouver, and Board Member Stuart Moulthrop of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, will build an archive of readings in which the authors and volunteer readers explore the textual possibilities of early digital texts. Readings will be carried out on the early computer systems for which the works were originally intended.
Recorded sessions will be made available through the Electronic Literature Database, and will also form the basis for multimedia presentations developed by the investigators and other colleagues. Using innovative software such as Scalar, these publications will explore strategies for representing and preserving computer-mediated writing.
Among the works chosen for the project are Judy Malloy’s Uncle Roger: The Blue Notebook (1986), John McDaid’s Uncle Buddy’s Phantom Funhouse (1994), and Shelley Jackson’s Patchwork Girl (1995). Plans are underway to expand to other key titles from the 1980s and 90s.
Sponsored by the Electronic Literature Organization, the research will take place in the E-Lit Laboratory of Washington State University, Vancouver. The project begins in the spring of 2013 and will conclude in late 2015.
Members should remember that ELO can be used as a sponsoring organization on many different kinds of grants. Contact us for more information.
ELO is pleased to announce the election of new officers. Dene Grigar has been elected as the next ELO President; Sandy Baldwin, Vice President; and Davin Heckman Secretary.
Drs. Heckman and Baldwin will take their new posts immediately, and Dr. Grigar will take the Presidency at the 2013 ELO Conference in Paris. We are fortunate to have such accomplished board members take these positions. They have already distinguished themselves in their service to the organization.
As incoming President, Dr. Grigar moves from her position as Vice President. During her time in ELO, she has coordinated a major conference (2010 Visionary Landscapes); several major exhibitions, including recent events at MLA 2012 and 2013 and the Library of Congress, and has worked toward networking ELO with other organizations. She has played a pivotal role in the organization and has been actively involved in ELO’s recent events. Her work has greatly raised the profile of the organization and electronic literature more broadly.
We relay our gratitude to President Nick Montfort, who has served his post with excellence for the past three years. During his tenure, Dr. Montfort has overseen the release of the Electronic Literature Collection, Volume 2, the ELO Conference at Morgantown (2012), the development of the Electronic Literature Directory, and many other key projects, along with managing the day-to-day operations of ELO. Dr. Montfort will continue as Faculty Advisor, as our headquarters remains at MIT, where he is on faculty.
Mark Marino has stepped down as Secretary, but he will continue as the Director of Communication. Vice President Talan Memmott will also continue to serve.
Some information about our new officers can be found below.
Sandy Baldwin (PhD, NYU) is Associate Professor of English and Director of the Center for Literary Computing at West Virginia University. In this capacity, he directs numerous projects on new media and digital humanities, as well as teaching courses on multimedia writing. He has been a Fulbright Scholar of new media studies in Austria and Visiting Professor of hypermedia at the University of Paris 8 (St. Denis). Baldwin is a scholar of code, bodies, and creativity in new media, with numerous essays on this topic. He is Managing Editor of electronic book review and the creator and publisher of Computing Literature, the only academic book series devoted to scholarship on electronic literature. His codework poetry is collected in several books and he creates glitched/interventionist computer game performances. For over a decade, he has collaborated with Alan Sondheim on an exploration of performance and embodiment in virtual worlds. Baldwin formerly served as ELO Treasurer. He has also been involved in planning the annual ELO conference and in managing the database interoperability between the ELOs CELL partners.
Grigar has curated 10 exhibits since 2005, including those for the Planetary Colleguim, the ELO 2008 and ELO 2012, the MLA 2012 and MLA 2013, and the Library of Congress.  Upcoming exhibits she will curate include a showcase at the 2013 Digital Humanities Summer Institute at the University of Victoria and an exhibit at Illuminations, the gallery for the School of English, Media, and Theatre Studies at the National University of Ireland Maynooth, in March 2014. Grigar is the Founding Director of Nouspace Gallery & Media Lounge, the gallery located in downtown Vancouver associated with the CMDC Program.
Davin Heckman (Associate Professor, English, Siena Heights University) is the Supervising Editor of the Electronic Literature Directory. His book, A Small World: Smart Houses and the Dream of the Perfect Day (Duke University Press, 2008), addresses the intersection of technology and everyday life. In 2011-12, Heckman was a Fulbright Scholar in Digital Culture at the University of Bergen. His articles on “digital poetics” can be found in Culture Machine, Dichtung Digital, electronic book review, and Leonardo Electronic Almanac. He is the “electropoetics†thread editor for the electronic book review and serves on the Editorial Advisory Boards for the journals Rhizomes, Hyperrhiz, and Reconstruction.
Following up their back-to-back exhibits at the Modern Language Association, ELO Vice President Dene Grigar and Kathi Inman Berens are bringing electronic literature to another hallowed venue that was formerly the primary proving grounds of print matter: the U.S. Library of Congress.
Running April 3-5, the exhibit, “Electronic Literature & Its Emerging Forms,†part of the “Electronic Literature Showcase,” features 27 works of electronic literature––dating from 1982 – 2013––by American authors, relevant printed works from the Library of Congress collections, readings by select authors featured in the exhibit and hands-on workshops for visitors.
Along with the exhibit, the Library of Congress’s “Electronic Literature Showcase†includes an exhibit of rare books; a keynote address by ELO board member Stuart Moulthrop, panel discussion about electronic literature’s connection to major areas of knowledge and creativity featuring Berens; Grigar; Matthew Kirschenbaum, associate director of the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities; and Nick Montfort, current President of the Electronic Literature Organization. As a sign of her dedication to training future e-lit scholars, Grigar has also continued to draw and train student docents from her home institution, Washington State University-Vancouver (WSUV). All events are free and open to the public.
From the WSUV announcement:
Generally defined as a “digital born†literary work, electronic literature is a “first-generation digital object created on a computer and (usually) meant to be read on a computer.†In a world dominated today by smart phones and tablets, the term computer has come to include any computing device. The electronic literature featured in the exhibit has been produced by major American artists and influential pioneers working in any language, and reflects a broad spectrum of genres and approaches, e.g. kinetic poetry, hypertext fiction, animated graphic novels and augmented reality environments. These works will be displayed on iMacs, iPads, vintage Macintosh computers, and vintage Atari game systems.
This exhibit of electronic literature is the Library of Congress’s first. It was made possible by digital humanist Susan Garfinkel, research specialist with the Digital Reference Section, CALM Division, at the Library of Congress, as well as colleagues in her department and at the Library.
For more information about the exhibit, contact Grigar, dgrigar at vancouver.wsu.edu, or visit the exhibit website at http://dtc-wsuv.org/elit/elit-loc/. For information about the Electronic Literature Showcase, contact Susan Garfinkel, elit at loc.gov, or visit the website at http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/elit-showcase.html.
Follow the event on Twitter @eLitatLOC and hashtag #elitloc, as WSUV student Evan Flanagan directs the social media for the event.
Electronic Literature at the Kitchen Where: The Kitchen,512 West 19th Street, New York, NY 10011 (212) 255-5793. When: 7pm, 3/25/13
Co-Sponsored by The Electronic Literature Organization
You are invited to an evening of born-digital writing showcasing a range of artistic practices.
Featuring: Mark Amerika, Ian Hatch, Yael Kanarek, Paul La Farge, & Illya Szilak
Mark Amerika’s latest projects are Museum of Glitch Aesthetics (glitchmuseum.com), Micro-Cinematic Essays on the Life and Work of Marcel Duchamp dba Conceptual Parts, Ink (markamerika.bandcamp.com), and remixthebook (remixthebook.com).
Ian Hatcher is a poet, programmer, and performance artist living in NYC. Prosthesis, an ongoing project, is an expanding suite of code/text/vocal works exploring feedback loops between human cognition and digital systems.
Yael Kanarek is a media artist. In her practice she looks at globalization through interaction of languages and the collective experience of standard time. Selected scenes from Object of Desire, an online story inspired by motifs and themes born in the Middle East and Mediterranean, will be performed.worldofawe.net/objectofdesire
Paul La Farge is the author of four novels, most recently Luminous Airplanes, which is also a web-based hypertext. His short stories have
appeared in The New Yorker, Harper’s, McSweeney’s, Conjunctions, Fence and elsewhere.
Illya Szilak uses circulating media and collaborations forged via the Internet to create multimedia novels. She will perform from her latest Queerskins www.queerskins.com.
Alice van der Klei invites students to try their hand at translating electronic literature with an opportunity to have your translation published in bleuOrange and to be featured in a presentation at the ELO 2013 conference in Paris.
The special issue will include works by ELO President Nick Monfort and Board members Stuart Moulthrop, Scott Rettberg, and Mark Marino along with notable artists including JR Carpenter, Roderick Coover, Rodrigo De Toledo, Tal Halpern, Alexander Mouton, and Mark Marino.
All of the works will be translated into French for this special issue, but the contest offers a unique opportunity for students to show off their way with words. The full announcement follows.
Figura Concordia digital work translation contest
bleuOrange 07 - TRANSLATION ISSUE
Date of publication : September 22, 2013 – Presentation at ELO 2013, Paris, France, September 24-27, 2013
Each year, Figura, the research centre on the text and the imaginary (Concordia University, Montreal) and the Department of French Studies at Concordia University, in collaboration with bleuOrange (www.revuebleuorange.org) open a contest for the publication of a new digital work by a student in the next bleuOrange issue.
For the year 2012-2013, the contest will award a translation of a digital work.
The works published in French in bleuOrange include image, text and sound. They are made for a screen interface and are characterized by hyperlinks and interactivity. The works must have literary content (text) and must adress one of the three disciplines studied at the Department of French Studies at Concordia University (literature, translation, language / linguistics).
Here is the list of works the bleuOrange editorial board has selected to be translated into French and published in the bleuOrange 07 - SPECIAL TRANSLATION ISSUE. Sept. 2013.
Everyone can submit a translation, however, translations made by students will enter a translation contest giving them a possibility to publish their translation, collaborate with an #elit artist and to present the work at ELO 2013.
Eligibility:
This contest is open to students enrolled in a college or university in Quebec or elsewhere in a Francophone institute (full or part time), all members of a group must also meet these criteria.
You must send your intention to participate, a short CV and your choice of work for translation by 30 March 2013.
ELO is pleased to announce several changes to the Board of Directors, including one new member.
Lori Emerson will be joining the board, Jessica Pressman will be assuming the role of Treasurer, and Noah Wardrip-Fruin will be stepping down from the board after serving as a director since 2003.
Dr. Emerson and Dr. Pressman are renown scholars in the field of electronic literature. Their continued work in the field has helped to establish its place in the academy and beyond.
We relay our gratitude to Dr. Wardrip-Fruin for his years of service, since he joined the board in 2003. He has served as a vice president, attended ELO conferences, and had work in both volumes of the Collection. He worked on PAD project, co-writing Acid-Free Bits and worked as a co-author of the Born-Again Bits report. He also helped to convert the ELO site to the current eliterature.org. Thank you for all your years of service.
Some information about our new member of the board of directors and our new treasurer follows:
This month, we’re featuring posts on e-lit journals that have published issues recently. Up first: Hyperrhiz & bleuOrange
The latest issues Hyperrhiz: New Media Cultures and bleuOrange are now online, featuring works and criticism on digitally born literature.  Both are exemplary, long-running journals of contemporary art.
The Hanseatic Semiotic Traders League (or Fiskekaker) is the name for the collaboration of Brendan Howell, Amrita Kaur, Mark C. Marino, Eduardo Navas, Margaux Pezier,Scott Rettberg, Morten Sorreime, Martin Swartling, Patricia Tomaszek, Rob Wittig.  Their work, “The Colonization of Memory,” combines a locative narrative and an exquisite corpse (a Locative Corpse) in an instantiation of the procedural art form, exquitie_code.
Issue 6 of BleuOrange, features work by Valerie Cordy, Booris Dumesnil-Poulin and Marie-Pier April, Maxime Galand, Myriam Lambert, Sebastien Cliche, Â Line Dezainde.
bleuOrange is a project supported by the Laboratoire NT2: New technologies, new and textualities and Figura, the Centre for Research on the text and imagination, both of the University of Quebec in Montreal.  The editor-in-chief is Alice van der Klei.Â
Consider these venues for your latest works of electronic literature!
CFP: New Works on Electronic Literature and Cyberculture CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 16.5 Deadline:March 1, 2013 Email to: mzalbidea [at] lasallecampus.es
This CFP is aimed at participants in the 2012 ELVA conference on Electronic Literature & other scholars of electronic literature. Participants can submit their conference papers, but all relevant critical works will be considered. The selected papers will be published on New Works on Electronic Literature and Cyberculture of CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 16.5 (2014): (Purdue University Press ISSN 1481-4374). <http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb>
Guest edited by Maya Zalbidea Paniagua (Universidad La Salle, Madrid), Asunción López Varela (Universidad Complutense, Madrid) and Mark C. Marino (University of Southern California), the theme of the special issue, in the context of digital humanities, is the critical, social, philosophical, gendered, and pedagogical aspects of electronic literature, digital art, and cyberculture.
Please send papers in 6000-7000 words to Maya Zalbidea at by March 1st 2013. Of particular interest are papers on cybertext/hypertext theory and application; hypertext fiction (flash fiction, e-poetry, digital storytelling, online graphic novels, etc.); game studies, net and video art; and gender, identity, race, and sexuality in cyberspace. For the style of the journal consult http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/clcweblibrary/clcwebstyleguide.
Articles published in the journal are double-blind peer reviewed and indexed, among others, in the Thomson Reuters ISI Arts and Humanities Citation Index and Social Sciences Citation Index.
For more information contact Maya Zalbidea Paniagua, Universidad La Salle, Madrid
The “chercher le texte” event deals with literary issues and text-oriented multimedia practices on digital devices: digital books, texts generated or animated through programming, fiction hypertexts, “manipulableâ€, playable works, or on the contrary works whose very program embraces literariness. The considered devices range from computers to mobile devices, including social networks. They can be used in various contexts: installations, performances, personal devices designed for digital reading. These contexts range from solo reading to collaborative or participative reading.
This event will represent an opportunity to showcase young artists and bring together two worlds, which otherwise barely come into contact with one another: that of the experimental digital literature forms deriving from the second half of the 20th century avant-garde movements and that of the digital writings, as used by authors coming from the book world and who have taken over the digital technologies, namely blogs and e-books.
-Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â An online virtual gallery on the DDDL network website.
-         Four events consisting of performances and projections of works, from September 23 to 26, 2013, in the small room of the Centre Pompidou, the big auditorium of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France and the Cube amphitheater.
-         A six-week exhibition on “digital literatures from the past and future†in the BNF lab room of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, which will be launched on September 24, 2013. This exhibition will feature the virtual gallery and a selection of digital literary works with emphasis on the works designed for touch-pads and e-readers. No installation is possible.
Artists, especially young ones, are invited to propose one or several work(s) for one or more of these devices.
Please send your proposals to work@chercherletexte.org before February 18.If you wish to propose several works, please do it in a single document and make sure you detail the nature of each proposal on at least one distinct page (gallery, performance, exhibition). Please write it in English or French in pdf format and include a short biography stating the age of the artist and the following information about each device: Read more ELO 2013 Paris: Call for Artistic Proposals (2/18, 2/23-26/13)
Proposals are welcome on topics within electronic literature, including but not limited to:
Digital culture
Code and software studies
Digital art
Remediation
Translation of electronic literature
E-literature and the body
Digital poetics
Digital storytelling
Mobile/locative media
Preservation and digital cultural heritage
The conference title is “Chercher le Texte: Locating the Text in Electronic Literature.†Electronic literature is explicitly defined as literature. Yet there is great confusion about the concept of text at work in it. What defines the textuality of games, visual works, and works without any evident language? The ELO 2013 conference in Paris will confront such issues: to seek out the text and attempt to define the literariness of electronic literature.
Over the past two decades, while numerous creative and critical movements have taken hold within and without academia, creators have been newly conceiving, and scholars resituating, literary works in new media. Early warnings that we might all get “lost in hyperspace†were overcome fairly easily – perhaps too easily when one considers that our first, most challenging conceptions of electronic writing have never quite been realized. Is there a way to mark the multiplicity of new writing in new media? Can commonalities and distinctions among emerging literary practices be noted? Are there new possibilities for language-based forms in programmable media? Can scholarly discussions surrounding works be carried on over time and among various groups, in the media where the works are generated?
ELO 2013 seeks to open the discussion beyond the remediation of literary writing from print to screens, by looking at ways that literary works, and “literariness†generally, circulates through a world system that has itself altered dramatically in the years since the first works of e-lit were produced. New media, from this perspective, are just the most visible instance of emerging economic, social systems, remediations, and subjectivities that impact literary production (as they impact our lives) from every side. New media are now being described, and re-imagined, in terms of new materialisms; discourse networks find new and different alignments within and without institutions, and both human agency and authorial presence have taken on new and sometimes strange forms.
