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mediartZ event in Vancouver, Wa (10/2-31)

Electronic literature (re)takes the Pacific northwest!

See “mediartZ: Art as Experiential, Art as Participatory, Art as Electronic” an enticing collection of works on display October 2-31 at the North Bank Artists Gallery in Vancouver.

“mediart” will feature Second Life performance, video and sound installations, animation, interactive art, and a Halloween-morning cartoon fest. See e-lit and electronic arts rock stars: Mark Amerika, Brian Evans, Jim Bizzochi, Doug Jarvis, Will Luers, Doug Gast, and Reza Safavi. Dene has also brought in works from local artists,
Hoolinganship and Jeannette Altman, are also featured.  The exhibit is free and open to all.

A kick-off party will be held on Friday, October 2 featuring the Willamette Radio Project. The kick-off will also celebrate the launch of a special issue of Hyperrhiz. Hyperrhiz remains one of the premier outlets for electronic literature. The special issue features papers and art from the fabulous 2008 ELO conference Visionary Landscapes.

For info, go to the exhibit web site, or contact curator and ELO Board-Member Dene Grigar grigar [at] vancouver.wsu.edu.  Dene is Director of the Digital Technology and Culture Program at WSU Vancouver.

Let us know about events in your area. Also tune into our new Twitter tag: #elo_events.  And follow us on Twitter.

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&Now Festival Calls for eliterature (6/15/09, 10/14-17/09)

Among the innovative writing featured at the past three &Now festivals has been a strong showing of electronic literature. Steve Tomasula sends us word that he hopes to see more at The 4th Biennial &Now Festival of Innovative Writing & the Literary Arts to be held in Buffalo, NY from October 14-17, 2009.

From the Call:

PLEASE SUBMIT….
Critical papers, criti-fictional presentations, fiction readings, performance pieces (digital, sound, and otherwise), electronic and multimedia projects, and cross genre work of all kinds. Pieces that address linguistic transgressions, the limits of genre, or works that promote interdisciplinary explorations are particularly encouraged. Proposals can be for individual readings, critical panels, creative panels, and/or roundtable discussions. (See the full call here)

In a note to ELO, Steve speaks of his desire from the start to include electronic literature as a literary genre, as opposed to a specialty or an oddity. Past &Nows have featured the electronic works of Stephanie Strickland, Rob Wittig, Scott Rettberg, and MD Coverley.

As another sign of the ELO-link, this year’s festival features Robert Coover.

This should be an excellent showcase for ELO works. Please submit or join us there.

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DAC 2009 Calls for Papers and Works! (May 1/Dec. 12-15, 2009)

Digital Arts and Culture (better known as DAC) 2009 has announced several calls to entice authors and critics of electronic literature. The conference will be held at UC Irvine December 12-15 and takes for its topic: “after media, embodiment and context.”

First and foremost a night of readings: Electronic Literary Arts Performances, curated by Jessica Pressman and Mark C. Marino.

From the call:

Each performance is limited to 5-7 minutes and should take the form of interactive engagement with the audience and dramatic presentations of creative digital-born works.

Second, two tracks in particular may appeal to ELO folks:

  • Software/ platform studies, hosted by Jeremy Douglass and Noah Wardrip-Fruin
  • Cognition and creativity, hosted by Fox Harrell
  • A Space-Time of Ubiquity and Embeddedness — hosted by Ulrik Ekman and Mark Hansen.

Please see the official call for all the details.

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UK Major Grant Award for e-lit: ‘Poetry Beyond Text’

British Arts and Humanities Research Council has awarded a major grant (£440,000 over 2 years) to ‘Poetry Beyond Text,’ which will include investigations into “digital poetry, books of poetry and photography, artists’ books and concrete and pattern poetry.”

This grant marks another sign of international interest and national arts investment in the exploration of electronic literature.

Below is news from their announcement:

Researchers at the Universities of Dundee and Kent have just been awarded a major grant from the Arts and Humanities Research Council, to study poetry ‘beyond text’.

The project, entitled Poetry Beyond Text: Vision, Text and Cognition involves researchers in English, Comparative Literature, Psychology and Fine Art in a 2-year partnership between the two universities. The team will be led by Dr Andrew Michael Roberts of the Dundee School of Humanities English Programme.
Read more UK Major Grant Award for e-lit: ‘Poetry Beyond Text’

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Searching for a New(er) Digital Literature

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

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New Collection; Stephanie Strickland’s Zero: Zero

Announcing Stephanie Strickland’s new book of poems, ZONE : ZERO, which includes a CD with two sequences from the book as interactive digital poems.

Here you will find sample poems, reviews, and recorded readings, along with endorsements from Marjorie Perloff, Rachel Loden, and Brian Kim Stefans,

Stephanie has contributed immeasurably to the production and promotion of electronic literature through her work as a poet, as a critic and theorist, and most recently as a co-editor of the Electronic Literature Collection, Vol. I.

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ELO’s Visionary Landscapes 2008 Conference by the Numbers

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.

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Electronic Literature Collection, Vol. 2 – Call for Work

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 more Electronic Literature Collection, Vol. 2 – Call for Work

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Visionary Lanscapes Gallery of New Electronic Literature

The Visionary Landscapes Conference features a gallery of exciting works of electronic literature in three venues. See the site for more information about these works.

North Bank Artists Gallery—Electronic Literature Exhibits

Mark Amerika
Alan Bigelow
Serge Bouchardon
Jay Bushman
Roderick Coover
Brian Evans
Rob Kendall
Deena Larsen
Marjorie Luesebrink
Judy Malloy
Mark Marino
Talan Memmott
Kate Pullinger and Chris Joseph
Stephanie Strickland
Joel Weishaus
Gail Scott White

Clark College—Fireside Room—Net Art and Video Screenings
Jamie Allen
Jim Bizzocchi
J. R. Carpenter
Blake Carrington
Mark Cooley
Martha Cruz Gabriel
Ian Hatcher
David Kasdorf
Donna Leishman
Erik Loyer
Will Luers
Ethan Miller
Judd Morrissey
Alexander Mouton
Kenneth Sherwood
Sam Smiley
Victoria Welby
Nanette Wylde

Washington State University Vancouver—Firstenberg Student Commons—Early Authors of Electronic Literature: The Eastgate School, Voyager Artists, and Independent Productions—Special Collection on loan from N. Katherine Hayles
M.D. Coverley
J. Yellowlees Douglas
Edward Falco
William Gillespie, Frank Marquardt, Scott Rettberg, and Dirk Stratton
Richard Holeton
Shelley Jackson
Michael Joyce
Rob Kendall
David Kolb
George Landow
Deena Larsen
Judy Malloy
Maze, Inc.
John McDaid
Monica Moran
Stuart Moulthrop
James Petrillo
Jim Rosenberg

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SoftWhere: Software Studies Worksop 2008 (5/21-5/22)

Software Studies Gets Underway at UC San Diego!

Wednesday, May 21st, from 12:30-5:00pm, ELO board member Noah Wardrip-Fruin and the Software Studies Initiative at UC San Diego invite you to attend a public event:

SoftWhere: Software Studies Workshop 2008
Time: Wed. May 21 – Thu. May 22
Place: Calit2, University of California, San Diego
Format: Open public session (Wed May 21, short presentations of research in “Pecha Kucha” format)
Closed workshop session (Thu May 22)
URL: http://workshop.softwarestudies.com/

Software studies is a research field that examines software and cyberinfrastructure using approaches from humanities, cultural criticism, and social sciences. Following on the first Software Studies Workshop organized by Matthew Fuller (Rotterdam, 2006 http://pzwart.wdka.hro.nl/mdr/Seminars2/softstudworkshop), the SoftWhere @ University of California, San Diego is a foundational event bringing together key figures in this emerging area to inaugurate the field. The event aims to coalesce a high-level conversation about what it means to study software cultures, and the direction and goals of Software Studies as an emerging movement. It will take place at Calit2, a pre-eminant research center for future computing and telecommunication (http://www.calit2.net/), where the Software Studies Initiative @ UCSD is located and currently collaborating with researchers on several exciting projects. SoftWhere has has also been timed to precede (and co-ordinate with) the the HASTAC II conference (http://www.hastac.org/) which will begin in nearby U. California Irvine on Thursday evening.
Read more SoftWhere: Software Studies Worksop 2008 (5/21-5/22)