ELO/MITH Panel on International Electronic Literature

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International Electronic Literature Wiki

In this wiki we offer the beginnings of a resource for electronic literature from beyond the current realms of ELO.

Note to contributors: The lists beneath our names should feature the artists/critics/works we want to bring to the attention of the panel. We will plan to mention the first few at the panel. Below we can gradually build a list organized by geographic location. Please feel to extend the wiki as you see fit. (Give country of origin, language, and year of publication when available. Also, we should eventually provide links back to the original works or the home pages of the critics or artists.)

1 Panelist References
2 Organizations
3 The Globe
- 3.1 Eastern Hemisphere
- 3.2 Western Hemisphere
4 Babel
5 Format Guide

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Panelist References

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Sandy Baldwin

Here's what I'm thinking at the moment.

I struggle over reproducing a first world / third world story of electronic literature, yet most of what is visible (gathered, directoried, etc.) is clearly within that distinction. There are probably multiple worlds that need to be identified. I would say that the opening problem is: How regional or hemispheric are the set of possible statements about electronic literature (e-lit is formalized around specific statements or conditions of possibility; certain works "appear" and others do not)? To what degree is what we talk about as electronic literature solely out of US/Western Europe? To what degree is it a function of the academic practices of these geographic regions? Sure, we immediately find counter-examples - as Christopher Funkhouser's important book on digital poetry since 1959 shows, at the level of *practice* the work has been international for over half a century - but does this simply underline the question, since they're counter-examples precisely by being recognizable by the discourse on e-lit? Works of e-lit do not simply occur but are recognized within a culture, with implications of aesthetics (relations between form and content, etc.), distributions of materials and resources, incorporated training (on the part of the reader and writer), and so on. I would also add that this has to do with the contingencies of exchange (friendships, chance meetings, attending conferences, etc.). There are language issues as well. I'm interested in codework, where the text may not have the technological "frontend" of "e-lit." It may be the residue of different processes and interesting precisely for that reason - but this also makes it challenging to deal with codework across langauges, where much of the interest is tied to semantics rather than to intermedial issues (there's a bunch of complex issues here but you see where I'm going). There there are codework e-lit practices that emerge across linguistic boundaries, for example "mojibake," those incorrect character mappings we see as rows of boxes when software attempts to render Japanese script. There are interesting example of creative mojibake, so the codework results from the non-intersection of linguistic character mappings. Finally, it strikes me that the two large ways I think of addressing this initial problem are possibly at odds with each other. "Internationalizing electronic Literature" as a drive to find a shared set of discourses and aesthetics is at odds with "internationalizing electronic literature" as the possibility of dispersed and international yet possibly unrecognizable literatures.

OK, we can think of many international examples. In France for example, there is Balpe, Bootz, Bruno, Burgaud, etc. In Germany, Florian Cramer (now in Rotterdam). Many working in the UK, in Australia, in the Netherlands, and so on (and what about Canada?). There's considerable discussion and knowledge already on/around these artists - I suggest looking at the EPC and at Funkhouser's book, which deals with the diversity of digital poetry over the last 50 years - and I'll instead focus below on some other places and other modes of the becoming-literary of the electronic.

Austria: Jorg Piringer

Brazil: Wilton Azevedo, Giselle Beiguelman, Philadelpho Mendes
(Here, its a good place to consider enabling factors for the active and important electronic literature scene, specifically, I think: the concrete poetry tradition, within which artists/ideas/etc. were looped and fedback between others concretists around the world; the academic tradition of an open-ended semiotic approach to art, under the influence of Flusser and others, that worked into artistic practice.)

Hong Kong: All the artists in the Writing Machine Collective <http://www.writingmachine-collective.net>

Japan: Kenji Siratori

Korea: Young-Hae Chang, Ah-Uk

Mexico: Juan José Díaz Infante

Nigeria: Obododimma Oha

Norway: Bjørn Magnhildøen / noemata
(Bjørn is a case where the work is getting more distribution now, but for a long time - I believe - was largely distributed through listserv's such as wryting-l. Venues like this - among the oldest on the web! - are probably one way to find the more dispersed and emerging e-lit artists internationally.)

Reflecting on the listing above, I notice I've listed no non-Web based works. This bears directly on issues of resources and circulation, where an electronic literary work in areas without extensive cyberinfrastructure may not appear and circulate (they are not googlable, etc.). It is hard not to tie the question to infrastructure - most (not all) of the artists we list here (above and below) are recent and creating work that can be found on the web. I suspect there are electronic literary works in diverse locales not visible on the web. Secondly and conversely, I've tried to list instance that add to or push the discussion some. (Obododimma Oha or Ah Uk, for example, who I see largely as codework artists).

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Laura Borràs Castanyer

Besides the woks and artists in Spanish cited by Juan and Mark, I would like to introduce some Catalan authors to the English speaking-world of Electronic Literature.

Digital literary creation on the web in Spain: milestones on a journey. (PLEASE NOTE THAT THS IS ONLY E-LIT ON THE WEB!)

Xiomara Acosta (et. al.) Un mar de historias
Julián Álvarez, Poema A A (2000)
Llorens Bonet, Sextinas/Haikús (on poems of 1998)
Poems by Lluís Calvo “L’escala de Richter” o “Nothing temps” appeared in Epímone
J. Calleja, “Caminant”
Juan José Diez "Don Juan en la frontera del espacio", a webnovel on the Spanish writer Juan Valera (september 2005)
Ainara Echaniz, Un relato de amor/desamor (Final Project on the subject: “non linear writing” at the Communication Faculty from the University of Navarra, in Spain 2000/2001)
Beatriz Echeverría, Ana (again U. Navarra 2000/2001)
Dora García, Heartbeat
Albert Ginestà, Projecte8
Deborah González, Sabine (again U. Navarra 2000/2001)
Pello Gutiérrez Peñalba, ¿Quién es Luis Durán? (U. Navarra 2001/2002)
Carles Hac Mor & Esther Xargay, “Poemes”
Susana Heredia & Cristina Saraldi, Navega en privado (U. Navarra 2001/2002)
Didal Lagarriga Ritexta, Iñaki de Lorenzo & Isabel Ara "Nada tiene sentido" (U. Navarra 2001/2002)
Virginia Martínez Sanz, La hora chunga (2001)
Libe Otegui & Andrés Salaberri, Puntos de vista (U. Navarra 2001/2002)
Daniel Ruiz, “Tetra”
Alberto Sánchez, El aprendiz de detective (U. Navarra 2000/2001)
Pedro Soler Apl, Isabel Suárez Castaño (et.al.) Navegación emocional (Project from the Postgraduate Course on Creation and Digital Communication of the University of La Coruña 2001)
The Wikinovela project from the Deusto Universiry appeared on December 2006.

But I really think that it is also important the role that the International Prize “Ciutat de Vinaròs” is accomplishing where have been presented works such as

Àgueda Torres: Una vida (2005)
Carolina Miret, Las galletas de la abuela (2005)
Félix Remírez: La Hermandad de los Escribanos (2005)
Miguel Fernández: Breviario invernal (2005), Homo sapiens (2005), La imagen de la palabra (2005), Mel podrida (2005), Moléculas (2005), Paraules amb atributs (2005), Nanodramas (2005), Escrito bajo la luna (2005)
Joaquim Pujol, Imatges, paraules, miratges (2006)
Raquel Actis and Françoise Lacroix: Chocolate belga (2006)
Félix Ramírez: Speeches and poemas (2006) or Jesús Mejuto & José Francisco Llinares: Boomba (2006).

And, of course, my favourites:

the winners "Bubblebath" Susanne Berkenheger (2005)
Several poems from Jason Nelson (2005)
"Ja tornaré" de Marc Lloán (2005) a very interesting narrative made in power point
"Palavrador", Chico Marinho et al. (2006)
"Retorn a la Comallega" (2006) from Ton Ferret
or "21 días" from Isaías Herreros (2006), which I'm going to talk about tomorrow.

In any case, if you consult the anthology of texts compiled by HERMENEIA, you will find all the works mentioned, arranged in alphabetical order.

AND AS FOR [edit]Critics Mark says that Jaime Alejandro suggested some of wich I invited last december to Barcelona to have a discussion on the subject, are colleagues such as Domingo Sanchez Mesa Martinez (Universidad Carlos III de Madrid), Teresa Vilariño (Universidad Santiago de Compostela) or Rui Torres (Universidad Fernando Pessoa) or himself but also:

Joan Elies Adell (Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, UOC and co-founder and member of the HERMENEIA research group)
Raine Koskimaa (Universiy of Jyväskylä, also member of HERMENEIA)
Markku Eskelinen (independent scholar)
Roberto Simanowski (Brown University)
Philippe Bootz (Université Paris VIII)
Jean Clément (Université Paris VIII)
Evelyne Broudoux (Université Paris VIII)
Alain Vuillemin (Université d'Artois and also member of HERMENEIA)
Xavier Malbreil (U. Toulouse)
Susana Pajares-Tosca (Denmark)
Alckmar Luiz dos Santos (Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Brazil)
Jorge Luiz Antonio (Faculdade Paulista de Artes, Brazil and also member of HERMENEIA)
María Goicoechea de Jorge (American University, Madrid an also member of HERMENEIA)
Giovanna di Rosario (Universiy of Jyväskylä, also member of HERMENEIA)

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Bertrand Gervais

Some interesting works in French (some of them have an english version. For a complete list, visit the NT2 website [1]):

Rencontre Service [2] by Karine Lebrun Previous version of the same work [3]

Rencontre Service plays on the confusion between a work of art and a dating service. On it’s homepage, Rencontre Service offers “a chance to meet people by following a specific method.” It says that: “The agency takes interest in encounters in a broad sense, without any pre-defined meaning.” The specific method consists in this. Users have a profile made of a pseudonym and six pictures (either uploaded by them or chosen from a databank offered on the Website), pictures which answer six questions (cf. “Picture Bank” section). Users can then consult other users’ profiles (“Catalogs”) and ask for a meeting. Meetings are arranged by Rencontre Service. Afterward, the users are asked to answer four questions by email, and these answers are published on the website (“Archives”). Pictures in the databank and dialogues heard on the Website are taken from movies (see the “Crédits” section). The “Corpus” section presents three objects. One of them is a text by art critic and professor Jean-Claude Moineau, «L’Art est une rencontre», about art being an encounter (“rencontre”, in French, could be translated either as “encounter” or “meeting”). The two others are objects of art that also play on the borders between art and what is not art. One is an offer of an on foot courrier service, the other proposes products that are “less” (a bottle of beer diluted with water, a half-empty soda bottle). Rencontre Service takes a reality that has boomed on the Internet, dating services, and turns it into a work of art who’s status is ambiguous. The piece is shown and presented in art shows (the XV Biennale de Paris, for example), but it does provide the occasion for “dating” or at least meeting others as well. This is the second version of the work. In the first one, all meetings had to occur at the Pompidou Center. Half an hour of the conversation was recorded and then edited to be published on the Website. The originality of this piece lies in the fact that an Internet reality, dating services, has been appropriated to create a work of art that reflects on that reality. Through it, stories are narrated, created and exposed. The website is also available in English, but most of the material (especially material relating to the encounters) remains in French.

Wikipen [4] The first french interactive novel using wiki.

Wikipen is a literary project based on the wiki technology, used for Wikipedia. Once registered, users can participate in many different ways. Either they provide a single entry, or a series of them. They can also participate in some collective projects already on the way, or start a new one. They can also modify any of the previous entries. Wikipen is an open work (unlike projects such as Wikinovela and A Million Penguins, which were limited in time) that keeps growing as users keep adding new material or modifying material that is already there. Unlike its English counterparts, Wikipen doesn’t propose a unified project. No novel or story is being written. Instead, Wikipen welcomes many different texts, which can be linked or not to one another. Wikipen plays on the concept of collaborative writing and collective authorship. Texts are not signed and are put under an attribution-sharealike creative commons licence, therefore allowing for transformation and distribution of the work as long at attribution is made to Wikinovel and permission is given to transform and distribute the work. Another aspect of Wikipen is that texts are unstable, since any users can modify and transform any text. Even though the transformation might be as simple as the addition of a link, it sill changes the text by providing a new context which adds to the signification of the text. Wikipen also exists in English. It is not a translation of the French website, but an adaptation of the concept. Therefore, writers and texts are not the same as in the French version of the site.

Instants RSS [5] by Nicolas Frespech

Latest feed on the web [6]

Instants RSS is a work published through web feeds. If many blogs offer web feeds and therefore notification as soon as new material is published, Instants RSS is not published at all on the web itself. Therefore, readers must use a feed reader or aggregator in order to access the work. Only 20 feeds are available at any given time and no archives are offered. The whole work, then, is only available to those readers who access it regularly on a daily basis. (Though, a wise user will notice that the feed’s URL ends with a number that increment by one for every new post, making it possible to retrieve older posts by changing that URL). Texts are published at irregular intervals, many times a day. They consist of brief fragments who’s object is the exact time of the day at which they are written. The ephemeral is often an accidental characteristic of literary works published on the web. Some works disappear, others are not accessible because the technology used to produce them is no longer available. Instants RSS makes this characteristic an inherent part of the work. Only fragments of the work is accessible at any given point in time. The ephemeral is also the thematic of the work, since most of the texts are about small, daily events. This work is not available in English.

Principes de gravité [7]

by Sébastien Cliche An english version is available.

Principes de gravité is a good illustration of what literature can be when multimedia elements are integrated in a work. Texts, sounds and images, both fix and moving, are combined to achieve a narrative. Interestingly, the Web piece starts with the reproduction of an actual book, opened by a hand. Then, some of its navigation devices reproduces the printed book (the table of contents, the chapters, the index). Different paths are allowed, and each one builds a different soundtrack as each nod is associated with a different sound, combining, at the end of a chapter, to form a kind of melody. Pages all have writen material, as well as images (either fix or moving) and sounds. When one goes to the index, one gets a map of the nods that have been consulted, and those that have not, permitting to visit those that have not yet been seen. The index also offers a profile of the visited paths, consisting of a body whose parts become all visible only when all the nods have been consulted. Interactivity in Principes de gravité is minimal (the viewer is offered different paths, but nothing else) and the work relies on simple multimedia elements. But the combination of it all makes it a very interesting piece, showing how multimedia and the Web have changed the way we produce literature, and how we might relate to it differently now that the printed page is not its sole medium.

Je suis une oeuvre d'art [8]

by Annie Abrahams

I Am an Artwork [9]

Je suis une oeuvre d’art (I am a work of art) consists of texts provided by viewers of the piece. They have to answer the question “Am I an artwork? Yes, no, maybe, why?” Those answers are then recorded into one of two columns (yes and no), first by order of entry, and then classified by countries. This piece relies solely on contributions made by viewers of the work. It also plays on the unspecified reference of the “I” pronoun. It remains unclear if the pronoun refers to the work in front of us or to us. Some of the answers provided reflect that confusion or play on it. The work is also available in English and is quite different since it all depends on the viewers’ contributions.

Le peuple manque [10]

by Jean-Pierre Balpe and Gregory Chatonsky

Study for the work: Ceux qui vont mourir [11]

Le peuple manque is a combination of a text generator and a random choice of pictures from Flickr. The particularity of this work is that its many narratives are completely generated and random. The lenght of the work is indefinite, since the text generator can go on, technically, forever and the databank of pictures will exist as long as Flickr does. The piece explores a reality that has been created by the Internet: the fact that now anybody can put its own personal files, pictures, memories, texts on the Web, therefore creating a kind of archive that was not available previously, if only to family and friends. The work relies on what we could call involuntary interactivity. The Flickr databank is hacked. Any picture published on Flickr can end up in Le peuple manque. (The piece might not be available at the time of the conference...) Ceux qui vont mourir — Those that will die — was a study made in preparation for Le peuple manque. It makes no use of the text generator, but relies on material taken from YouTube, Flickr and ExperienceProject (a network website) and combines this material into narratives.

Mouchette [12] Other work by the artist: David Still [13]

Mouchette offers the viewer a multilinear exploration of a fictive character, Mouchette, through often subversive themes. There is no narrative per se, even though the organisation of the website is typical of hypertexts. Each segment of the website allows for the discovery of different aspects of the character, and proposes an exploration of heavy subject matters such as child sexuality, suicide, murder, etc. The work is based on Robert Bresson’s movie, itself based on the Georges Bernanos’ novel. The story is that of a young girl, Mouchette, who is poor, beaten by her father, disliked by every villager, raped, etc. and who finds solace only in suicide. The web adaptation offers a structure through which viewers have to act (think, answer Mouchette, exchange emails with her, be her), therefore bringing them closer to unseasy realities such as suicide and murder. Instead of the movie and the book, and because of its interactivity, the website questions the borders between reality and fiction and allows for an identification with the character that can go as far as being her. Mouchette comes with no artist signature. The website appears as if it would be made by Mouchette herself. It is an important aspect of the work, since it provides no mediation between the viewer and the character. In fact, one can also go further and be Mouchette. This last aspect was further explored by the artist in another piece, David Still, in which viewers are asked to become the character. For example, viewers can decide to send emails as if they would be David, or can decide to answer emails that have been sent to him.

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Juan B. Gutierrez

Some of my favorites (for there are many, many more) outside the English-speaking world (in Spanish and Portuguese):

Chico Marinho (Director). A fascinating piece of electronic art and language (Brazil.)

Palavrador

Jaime Alejandro Rodriguez. A "super-production" of electronic literature (Colombia.)

Golpe de Gracia

Juan José Diez. Rich and clean incursion in the 'electronic historic novel' genre (Spain.)

Don Juan en la Frontera del Espíritu

Belen Gache. Legends brought to life with poetic multimedia power (Argentina.)

Word Toys

Hernan Casciari. A "blogonovela", i.e. a blog that is a novel. Very successful as a blog and a best-seller in printed media (Argentina, Spain.)

Más Respeto que Soy tu Madre

Carmen Gil Vrolijk. Interesting use of multimedia formats (Mexico, Colombia).

El Alebrije

Doménico Chiappe. The long evolution of a complex and interesting piece of narrative (Perú, Venezuela.)

Tierra de Extracción

Xiomara Acosta et al. This piece shows a very effective use of electronic media to narrate old Gallician legends (Spain).

Un Mar de Historias

Juan B. Gutierrez. Sorry; it is not lack of modesty, but I have to include myself in the list (Colombia, USA.)

Condiciones Extremas (Extreme Conditions, also available in English)

El Primer Vuelo de los Hermanos Wright

Interestingly, the electronic literature “super-productions” are NOT happening in English. Three examples are: Golpe de Gracia, Palavrador, and Rodriguez’s Narratopedia (in progress).

A discussion in the Spanish language about digital narrative with a high level of sophistication can be found at the III Congreso del Observatorio Para la Cibersociedad. Some of the analysis is new to the English-speaking world, for instance Chiappe's Herramientas para no perderse en el laberinto. Some mathematical modeling of narrative spaces was shown first in English at the Joint Meeting of the Mathematical Association of America (AMS), San Antonio, TX, January 2006 (see the PPT presentation) and in The Bridges Conference 2006: Mathematical Connections in Art, Music, and Science, London, UK, August 2006. However, it was proposed first in Spanish in 2002, 2004 and 2006 in the congresses of the Observatory for the Cybersociety (referenced above.)

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Mark Marino

The following works and artists work primarily in Spanish.

Jaime Alejandro Rodriguez Ruiz (Colombia)

Gabriella Infinita a series of versions of metafictional narrative about a missing author, a searching lover, and some trapped characters.

Golpe de Gracia a multimodal Flash narrative, instigated by a death-bed encounter.

[[14]] Interview with Jaime Alejandro here.

Belén Gache (Argentina)

Wordtoys

Niño burbuja (2004) 100 posts over 100 days of a fictional blog, following a narrative structure that floats like the bubbles around a Bubble Boy. [[15]]

Doménico Chiappe (Venezuela)

Tierra de Extracción

Juan José Díez (España)

Don Juan en la frontera del espíritu [[16]]

Flash text that references a "different" set of hypertext progenitors

Blas Valdez (Mexico)

Dolor y viceversa (2002)

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Critics

Note: Jaime Alejandro suggested many in this list.

Domingo Sanchez Mesa Martinez (Universidad Carlos III de Madrid)

Rocío Rueda (Universidad Central de Colombia)

Henry Gonzalez (Universidad Pedagógica Nacional - Colombia)

Teresa Vilariño (Universidad Santiago de Compostela)

Rui Torres (Universidad Fernando Pessoa)

Raúl Urbina (Universidad de Burgos)

Carmen Morán Rodríguez (Universidad de Vallalodid)

Patricia Fernández, Santiago Pérez (Universidad de Deusto)

Francisco Chico Rico (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid)

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Jill Walker

The ELINOR network (Electronic Literature in the Nordic Countries) recently published a catalogue of electronic literature in Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland: elinor.nu. Other great sources for electronic literature in the Nordic countries are afsnitP (Danish) and nokturno.org (Finnish).

Here are a few examples of Nordic electronic literature. Many more can be found at elinor.nu and at afsnitP.

Tor Åge Bringsværd: Faen. Nå har de senket takhøyden igjen. Må huske å kjøpe nye knebeskyttere.

This short story is in dictionary format, and was published in a loose leaf collection distributed in an envelope in 1971 (Sesam 71) Was "translated" into HTML by a fan in the mid-nineties. Bringsværd is one of Norway's most popular science fiction authors. Although the work is clearly similar to work by the OuLiPo, Marc Saporta and others, Bringsværd claims not to have been aware of their work at the time.

Morten Skogly: Bokstavlek (Poetikon.no - pull down menu, under Flash)

This is an early piece of Norwegian electronic literature, which exemplifies the playful approach to the medium and to language that has been common among the

Marte Aas, Marte Huke, Marta Magnus, Rune Lain Knudsen: Hva sier trærne?

This is a collaboration between a visual artist, a poet and other creators that combines site-specific art with generative poetry. The title means "What do the trees say?" and is an interpretation of the sounds made by a tree in the Botanical Gardens in Oslo where generative poetry is influenced by sounds recorded at the site of the tree.

Johannes Heldén: Primärdirektivet/The Prime Directive

Simultaneously published in 2006 in Swedish and in English translation. Visual poetics with embedded phrases, fragments leading to a poem.

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Organizations

This section would be a place for listing other electronic literary organizations, perhaps with a brief description of their membership, major meetings, etc.

Reorganizing slightly by region or language--Mark

China

Writing Machine Collective in Hong Kong, as mentioned above.

Spain and Latin America

III Congreso Online del Observatorio de la Cibersociedad

France

Alire/Mots-Voire/Paragraphe/Transitoire Observable (all related) in France.

Germany

p0es1s and the Readme/Runme group in Germany.

Brazil

FILE

There are a number of Brazilian groups that I'm not thinking of at the moment.

Thailand

Thailand New Media Arts Festival

Sandy: The E-Poetry Festivals are international, with major events in USA, France, UK; smaller events in Brazil, Cuba, elsewhere; and so on. Society for Literature, Science, and Arts now has an international version, frequently with several e-lit panels. An underlying problem here is the not yet worked out distinction between e-lit and net.art, since moving to consider the latter would bring in many other international organizations (and the Thailand New Media Arts Festival is probably classifiable as net.art, yet I want to include it here...).

International

Digital Arts and Culture (though not entirely elit often has strong elit representation)

[edit]

The Globe

Let's build the resource list geographically to the extent that those lines makes sense for these electronically networked creations, artists, and critics.

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