What is Electronic Literature?
Constantly changing and creating new perspectives and realities for readers, electronic literature has largely shaped the way people live. A platform far too diverse to label under one specific genre, as its ability to have endless modifications and formulate people’s thoughts into the hands of millions, gives people endless ways to be creative, resulting in a multitude of genres. Even singular pieces of work are difficult to label, as genres tend to overlap and intertwine with one another. Genres even include the process in which readers must learn to navigate the text as new forms of electronic literature are shown to them, as described by Rettberg. The quote “Imagine the book as a network, always on, always connected, and always changing. Imagine what you could do as a reader. Imagine what you could do as a writer,” (Rettberg, Electronic Literature) puts into perspective one of the biggest goals that technology has achieved for us and how influential it is for todays society.
The intersection between digital media and traditional writing is growing rapidly, with some of the genres including work that uses the format of hypertext, kinetic poetry, computer art installations, chatterbots, interactive fiction, and more. An example of this is Alaln Bigelow’s interactive story “Escape,” where you are going through a story of robbing a bank. This storyline requires you to hit certain buttons to continue being apart of the story, as texts and google searches are typed on the screen from first person narrative about your plan to rob a bank to collect money for your retirement fund. The humorous game was very enjoyable to click through, as they would even pop up mindless games such as Temple Run on the screen while waiting for major events to happen such as getting caught for the crime. This simple form of electronic literature made me excited for what I could create in the future.
I found "Escape" to be a very entertaining and fun story to interact with! I really enjoyed all the different details and ways you can interact with the story. I thought it was a very creative way to tell a story through the bank robbers phone as he goes through the process of trying to rob the bank. I also found it very humorous getting to see all of the narrators texts and search history as you went through the interactive story. It was definitely an interesting way to see different ways digital literature can be enjoyed and created especially for someone like me who does not have much knowledge or experience in electronic literature before entering this class!
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed your post, especially the quote you included from the reading. The reference you chose for the second part of your post sounds extremely interesting! I definitely would like to check that out, you did a great job of explaining and summarizing it and you also did very well collecting the thoughts expressed within this week's reading.
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