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Announcing the Winners of the 2018 ELO Prize

Announcing International Awards in Electronic Literature: The 2018 ELO Prize
— Montreal

2018 Conference Logo

Literature is changing right in front of our eyes, and this year’s awards from the Electronic Literature Organization celebrate artists and scholars who are at the vanguard.

At the annual conference of the Electronic Literature Organization (ELO), held this year in Montreal, Quebec, President Dene Grigar announced the 2018 ELO Prize winners: Will Luers, Hazel Smith, and Roger Dean for Novelling, Joseph Tabbi and contributors for the Bloomsbury Handbook of Electronic Literature, and N. Katherine Hayles. Honorable Mention winners are María Mencía and Otso Huopaniemi. The shortlisted authors include JR Carpenter, Judy Malloy, IP Yuk-Yiu, Stephanie Boluk and Patrick LeMieux, and Stuart Moulthrop and Dene Grigar.

For more details, see below:

The Robert Coover Award for a Work of Electronic Literature honors the year’s best work of electronic literature, of any form or genre. The prize for 1st place comes with a $1,000 award.

Three works were shortlisted works for the Coover Award:

  • R. Carpenter, This is a Picture of Wind
  • Judy Malloy, Arriving Simultaneously on Multiple Far-Flung Systems
  • IP Yuk-Yiu, BOOK OF A HUNDRED GHOSTS 百鬼书

Honorable mention for the Coover Award goes to María Mencía for “The Winnipeg: The Poem that Crossed the Atlantic”

Winnipeg

“The Winnipeg” combines family history, collective memory, archival research, and digital poetics to commemorate the rescue of thousands of Spanish Civil War exiles from French concentration camps in 1939. One juror described “The Winnipeg” as “a compelling trilingual project that merges kinetic poetry and narrative.”

 

The first place winner of the Robert Coover Award is Novelling by Will Luers, Hazel Smith, and Roger Dean.

Novelling screenshot

Novelling is a recombinant digital novel about fiction itself, and how we read and how we write it. Though Novelling unfolds through the perspective of four characters—a familiar narrative technique—by procedurally remixing audio, video, and text, Novelling ultimately challenges our expectations of fiction, not to mention authorship itself.

The N. Katherine Hayles Award for Criticism of Electronic Literature honors the best work of criticism of electronic literature of any length. Endowed 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 $1,000 award.

Two works were shortlisted for the Hayles Award:

  • Stephanie Boluk and Patrick LeMieux, Metagaming: Playing, Competing, Spectating, Cheating, Trading, Making, and Breaking Videogames (University of Minnesota Press)
  • Stuart Moulthrop and Dene Grigar, Traversals: The Use of Preservation for Early Digital Writing (MIT Press)

Honorable mention for the Hayles Award goes to Otso Huopaniemi, “Algorithmic Adaptations | Algoritmiset adaptaatiot”

Screenshot of AlgorithmicAdaptations

“Algorithmic Adaptations” is born-digital scholarship, a beautifully designed piece of bilingual, multi-modal web-work. As one of the Hayle jurors put it, “Huopaniemi continues to open our field to practices and engagements less integrated than those that have established it academically, like theater, live performance, and translation.”

The first place winner of N. Katherine Hayles Award is The Bloomsbury Handbook of Electronic Literature, edited by Joseph Tabbi and published by Bloomsbury Academic Press.

Bloomsbury cover

Over 20 authors, reflecting several continents and disciplines contributed to The Bloomsbury Handbook of Electronic Literature, debating and analyzing electronic literature with both specific case studies and more general birds-eye perspectives. One of the Hayles jurors called this work a “monumental handbook for electronic literature.” In this nearly 500-page volume the authors, as one juror puts it, “realize their deep affection for generative intellectual work and aesthetic agonism.”

The Marjorie C. Luesebrink Career Achievement Award honors a visionary artist 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 $1,000 award that can go directly to the awardee or to a young scholar who would use the funds in support of developing online material about the awardee’s achievements.

The Artist or Scholar selected for this award should demonstrate excellence in four or more of the following categories:

  • Creation of opportunities for younger scholars
  • Publication of influential academic studies of electronic literature
  • Practice-based artistic research in the field, with significant presentations and exhibitions of creative work
  • Curatorial activities, particularly including editing and the organization of exhibitions, conferences, workshops, roundtables and research groups
  • Preservationist work, whether individual or institutional
  • Active participation in conferences and exhibitions, both national and international
  • Contribution to ELO as an organization, whether as a member of the Board of Directors or Literary Art Board or as informal advisor

We are delighted to announce this year’s winner of the Marjorie C. Luesebrink Career Achievement Award, N. Katherine Hayles.

N. Katherine hayles

One of Hayles’ nominators highlighted the many ways Hayles’ has shaped the field of electronic literature: “her books in particular have guided the research of a generation of electronic literature scholars and brought attention and recognition to the field. She has been a visible presence and advocate for researchers and artists both within the community and in related organizations, including the Modern Language Association and the Association for Computers in the Humanities. A decade later, her book Electronic Literature: New Horizons for the Literary continues to be referenced and relied upon. Her work as one of the editors of the first Electronic Literature Collection helped build the initial canon for our discipline, and remains crucial as an archival project and entrypoint into historical discussions of electronic literature.” Or, as one of the jurors put it: Hayles’ “contributions have been so massive for so long.”

ELO awards these prizes at its annual conference. The next conference will be held in Cork, Ireland. The call for next year’s awards will be issued months before via the ELO’s site and social media channels.

The Electronic Literature Organization, or ELO, is A 501(c)(3) non­profit organization composed of an international community that includes writers, artists, teachers, scholars, and developers. The Organization’s focus is new literary forms that are made to be read on digital systems, including smartphones, Web browsers, and networked computers. ELO is an international organization of artists and scholars, currently based at Washington State University, Vancouver.

For more information about the ELO Prizes, contact Nicholas Schiller, ELO Coordinator at eliterature.org at gmail.com, or Mark Marino at markcmarino at gmail.com.

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4Humanities “Shout Out for the Humanities” Contest

4Humanities
“Shout Out for the Humanities” Contest

info:http://4humanities.org/contest/

Your submission to this contest should answer such questions as: Why is studying the humanities–e.g., history, literature, languages, philosophy, art history, media history, and culture–important to you? To society? How would you convince your parents, an employer, a politician, or others that there is value in learning the humanities?

Who: Enter if you are an undergraduate or graduate student, an individual or team, from any nation.

What: Your submission will be judged by an international panel of distinguished judges for message, quality, and impact no matter your medium or format. Possible submissions include: essay (less than 2,000 words), video, digital work, poster, cartoon, song, art, short story, interview. See our Contest Kit for ideas, resources, and tools.

*Special note for digital artists: the contest encourages submissions in any format or medium, including digital or online ones.

Instructors and Educational Leaders: Want to organize a “creativity workshop” to incubate submissions by your students? See Workshops and Contest Kit for ideas. 4Humanities.org will create an online showcase specifically for your students’ work.

When: Submissions by March 1, 2016.

Prizes: Winners will receive the following awards, and will be published on the 4Humanities.org site:

  • Undergraduate Students: 1st US$1,000 — 2nd US$700 — 3rd US$300
  • Graduate Students: 1st US$1,000 — 2nd US$700 — 3rd US$300

– See more at: http://4humanities.org/contest/#sthash.IYRpaaid.dpuf

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Call for Submission: 2016 ELO Prize (Feb 1-28, 2016)

elo_logo

Call for the 2016 ELO Prize
(Feb 1-28, 2016 Submission Period)

See Full Details Here

The Electronic Literature Organization is proud to offer the following two prestigious awards, “The Robert Coover Award for a Work of Electronic Literature” and “The N. Katherine Hayles Award for Criticism of Electronic Literature.”

“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 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 “Honorary Mention” is awarded and consists of 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.

“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 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 “Honorary Mention” is awarded and consists of 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

Deadlines

Nomination Submissions Period:  February 1-February 28, 2016
Jury Deliberations:  February 29-April 15, 2016
Award Announcement:  ELO Conference Banquet, Victoria, B.C., June 11, 2016

For more information about the Coover Award, contact Maria Mencia, Co-Chair, The Electronic Literature Organization 2016 International Prize, mariamencia2@gmail.com; for more information about the Hayles Award, contact Rob Wittig, Co-Chair, The Electronic Literature Organization 2016 International Prize, wit@robwit.net.

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Hayles and Coover Prizes Announced at ELO 2015

At the close of the international conference in Bergen, Norway, the Electronic Literature Organization is happy to announce the winners of the 2015 ELO Prizes.  The Robert Coover Prize goes to Samantha Gorman and Danny Cannizzaro for their interactive app novella Pry.  The N. Katherine Hayles Award goes to Sandy Baldwin: The Internet Unconscious: On the Subject of Electronic Literature.

Instituted in 2014, these two awards are the top honors the organization awards, and these two winning works stand a top a field of extraordinary contributions from the past year.

Sandy Baldwin’s monograph epitomizes the pinnacle of scholarship in the field. The site for Baldwin’s book, explains,

There is electronic literature that consists of works, and the authors and communities and practices around such works. This is not a book about that electronic literature. It is not a book that charts histories or genres of this emerging field, not a book setting out methods of reading and understanding. The Internet Unconscious is a book on the poetics of net writing, or more precisely on the subject of writing the net. By ‘writing the net’, Sandy Baldwin proposes three ways of analysis: 1) an understanding of the net as a loosely linked collocation of inscriptions, of writing practices and materials ranging from fundamental TCP/IP protocols to CAPTCHA and Facebook; 2) as a discursive field that codifies and organizes these practices and materials into text (and into textual practices of reading, archiving, etc.), and into an aesthetic institution of ‘electronic literature’; and 3) as a project engaged by a subject, a commitment of the writers’ body to the work of the net.

The Internet Unconscious describes the poetics of the net’s “becoming-literary,” by employing concepts that are both technically-specific and poetically-charged, providing a coherent and persuasive theory. The incorporation and projection of sites and technical protocols produces an uncanny displacement of the writer’s body onto diverse part objects, and in turn to an intense and real inhabitation of the net through writing. The fundamental poetic situation of net writing is the phenomenology of “as-if.” Net writing involves construal of the world through the imaginary.

The story app Pry transforms the narrative experience of reading by bringing in stunning visuals and captivating touch-based interaction. The Website for the innovative interactive novella Pry reads,

Six years ago, James – a demolition expert – returned from the Gulf War. Explore James’ mind as his vision fails and his past collides with his present. PRY is a book without borders: a hybrid of cinema, gaming, and text. At any point, pinch James’ eyes open to witness his external world or pry apart the text of his thoughts to dive deeper into his subconscious. Through these and other unique reading interactions, unravel the fabric of memory and discover a story shaped by the lies we tell ourselves: lies revealed when you pull apart the narrative and read between the lines.

Honorable Mention for the Coover Prize went to Daniel Howe and John Cayley’s “The Readers Project / How It Is in Common Tongues.” Also, shortlisted were:  K. Reed Petty’s “Belated,” Caitlin Fisher’s “Everyone at this party is Dead/Cardamom of the Dead,” and  Patrick Jagoda’s “The Portal | The Sandbox.”

Honorable Mention for the Hayles Prize went to Lori Emerson for Reading Writing Interfaces (Minnesota). Also, shortlisted were Jessica Pressman’s Digital Modernism (Oxford), Anastasia Salter and John Murray’s Flash: Building the Interactive Web (MIT), and Brian Kim Stefans’ “Against Desire” (electronic book review).

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 $1000 annual prize aims to recognize creative excellence. The prize comes 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. The Coover Prize was judged by Jim Andrews, Brian Kim Stefans, and Jason Lewis.

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 $1000 annual prize aims to recognize excellence in the field. The prize comes 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. The Hayles Prize was judged by Manuel Portela, Will Luers, and Maria Mencia.

Literary Advisory Board member Rob Wittig coordinated the judging process on both prizes this year.  Judges for the Coover Award included Jim Andrews, Brian Kim Stefans, and Jason Lewis. Judges for the Hayles Award included Manuel Portela, Will Luers, and Maria Mencia.

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Announcing winners of 1st Coover & Hayles Awards!

ELO is proud to announce the first winners of the “The N. Katherine Hayles Award for Criticism of Electronic Literature” and “The Robert Coover Award for a Work of Electronic Literature,” two new annual awards in the field.  Designed to draw attention to the rising tide in this area, these awards awards mark a significant new initiative in ELO’s support of scholarship and art in the world of digital literature.

The winner of the Coover award is Jason Edward Lewis for his work, “Vital to the General Public Welfare” (The PoEMM Cycle), and the winner of the Hayles Award is Johannes Heldén & Håkan Jonson for their work, Evolution. Honorary Mention for the Coover Award goes to Aaron Reed for “18 Cadence.”  Honorary Mention for the Hayles Award goes Calum Rodger for “Reading the Drones: Working Towards a Critical Tradition of Interactive Poetry Generation.”  Below is the official announcement of the awards.

“The Robert Coover Award for a Work of Electronic Literature”

“The Robert Coover Award for a Work of Electronic Literature” saw 18 submissions from Spain, the US, Australia, Peru, the UK, Sweden, Italy, and Brazil. The Criteria Workgroup that developed the Submission Guidelines for the Award included Judy Malloy, Jennifer Ley, Laura Zaylea, and Brian Kim Stefans. The Jury consisted of Bobby Arellano, Christine Wilks, Patrick LeMieux, and Luciana Gattass.

The winner of this award is Jason Edward Lewis for his work, “Vital to the General Public Welfare” (The PoEMM Cycle).

This work is, according to one Jurist, “[i]n its entirety . . . very impressive and most enjoyable to read. There’s a marvellous range of different modalities combined with touch interaction, used to great poetic, narrative and thematic effect. . . . These works are at the cutting edge of electronic literature and stand out in the way they thoroughly embrace interactive reading in the multi-touch, multi-screen present and future.” Another wrote, “This is serious poetry and beautifully designed in an ambitious project cycle.”

Honorary Mention goes to Aaron Reed for “18 Cadence.”

One Jurist remarked that “’18 Cadence” “combines interactive fiction with a memetic, cut-and-paste interface that allows reader and player to become the maker of their own microstories. ‘18 Cadence’ is a beautifully designed, complex reading experience not only of a hundred years of one house, but of those fictions produced by other readers.”  Another wrote, “Engaging story, intentionally minimalist, encouraged discovery as well as play in a multi-modal synchronous interface.”

“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 $1000 annual prize aims to recognize creative excellence. The prize comes 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.

 

“The N. Katherine Hayles Award for Criticism of Electronic Literature”

 

“The N. Katherine Hayles Award for Criticism of Electronic Literature” saw 9 submissions, consisting of four books and five articles by scholars from the UK, Canada, Sweden, Germany, Portugal, and Scotland.  The Criteria Workgroup that created the Submission Guidelines for the award included Matt Kirschenbaum, Chris Funkhouser, and Rita Raley.  The Jury consisted of Jill Walker, Anastasia Salter, Pat Jagoda, and Stephanie Boluk.

The Winner of this award is Johannes Heldén & Håkan Jonson for their work, Evolution.

“Evolution” by Johannes Heldén & Håkan Jonson, wrote one Jurist, “an interesting critical-creative experiment. . . . [that] captures the boundary crossing spirit of the ELO.” Another wrote that “Evolution” “is both a work of literature and multi-voiced, multi-modal criticism.” Another wrote that “this collection of seven short critical responses to the generative poem Evolution by Johannes Heldén and Håkan Jonson plays with the genre of criticism by enclosing the essays within over 200 pages of code. . . .  Each of the essays in this collection is poetic and thought-provoking in its own way. . . .  The rest of the book is left to the code itself, and to logs of its output. Perhaps the book was written, compiled, designed by Evolution itself. Even the table of contents looks like computer code, laid out the way that a piece of software might prefer.  I’m ranking this book first on my list because of its challenges to the form of criticism – there is a creativity and unexpectedness in the way that these responses to the text are presented that is very engaging and that contributes to the work and to the field in general.”

Honorary Mention goes to Calum Rodger for “Reading the Drones: Working Towards a Critical Tradition of Interactive Poetry Generation.”

One Jurist wrote that “this essay offers an extremely clear and useful intervention into why we should study Interactive Poetry Generation in literary criticism.” Another said that it “combines a wide-ranging knowledge of conceptual poetry with computation” and “offers many lucid insights in an under-examined field of literary and media practice.”

“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 $1000 annual prize aims to recognize excellence in the field. The prize comes 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.

Read more Announcing winners of 1st Coover & Hayles Awards!