ELOping (updated)
Published by Mark Marino June 18th, 2005 in Text Art.(This update takes Noah’s corrections below into account)
The Electronic Literature Organization (ELO) has expanded from the caverns of UCLA to the haunted halls of IOWA. Noah Wardrip-Fruin notes that this is the first of several new nodes sprouting as ELO expands world-widely.
The move also marks a regime change from MD Coverly with the aid of Jessica Pressman to Thom Swiss with the aid of Nick Montfort, Noah Wardrip-fruin, Scott Rettberg and Rob Swigart, sealing the GTxA acquisition of ELO. UCLA’s Carol Wald is still ably administering affairs of state.
With additional meat space, comes a new cyberface, as Nick Montfort puts our friend WordPress to full service. The new design of the blog seems to renew the energy of the organization, promoting events article style ala GTxA and WRT, rather than the tiny tags of the former interface.
According to legend, related to me over beers in South Bend, IN, ELO began when Robert Coover wrapped his mighty paws around Scott Retberg and others and said, “We’ve got to do something, form some kind of org.” The rest is history.
The ELO has been a vital proponet of hypertext, even as hypertext reaches it’s awkward middle school years.
Glad you like the new website!
It’s true that the new site marks a transition to Iowa, but not a transition away from UCLA (oddly enough). There’s still an ELO office at UCLA, and now Carol Wald shoulders the responsibilities once hefted by Jessica Pressman. And at the moment there’s talk that a couple more universities would like to establish ELO “nodes.”
And that’s the great thing about software like WordPress. It’s just as easy to have a site collaboratively authored by a group of people at different institutions, in different cities, in different time zones, as it is to do it any other way.
As for rumors of a GTxA takeover of the ELO, my talking points for the official denial are around here somewhere…
Ah, thanks for the clarification, Noah,
And also thanks to Carol Wald for her help promoting Elit events in So. Cal. and across the globe.
Does ELO have instructions on how to form our own node?
There aren’t instructions yet — the “node strategy” is still being developed — but ping me next month when I’m in So Cal and we’ll talk about it. I’m looking forward to seeing all the interesting elit and digital media folks down there.