DigitalLiterature

Chapter 6 discusses network writing. Rettberg describes it as   " electronic literature  created for and published on the  Internet . It may require readers to visit multiple sites" (Rettberg 152). This style of electronic literature is fairly common, and can be seen on the Internet, where material is composed for the purpose of online accessibility. Many digital websites today are composed of this style of writing, with links connecting to various other sites. In fact, it could be said that hypertext and combinatory poetics fall under this spectrum, as they both involve links and connections to new pages. Network writing is unique because it is a collaborative effort. It brings together various contributors since the Internet is an ever-expanding platform where multiple individuals can add content. Social media is another example, since it is a wide realm of interactive material that can be generated by just about anyone. While this aspect comes easier access to informat...

Chapter 6 of Electronic Literature explores the branch of network writing. While the concept is broad, generally network writing is defined to be e-lit that is both created and published on the internet. Networks serve as both technological and social structures, as well as platform and material. Examples of the genre include social media platforms, stories that require you to visit multiple websites for the narrative to unfold, and websites that use collaboration. Our “immersion in this type of contemporary literature has changed the nature of contemporary literacy. Reading and writing skills have not necessarily increased…The fragmented and distracted nature of network communication- continuous feeds and notifications from multiple windows, on multiple devices- has in some way degraded our experiences of reading and writing.” (Rettberg 153). Despite the negatives that come with network discourse, the medium has people reading and writing more often. For my bring it to the table, I ex...

Chapter 6 discusses how modern social networks allow for new and unique digital literature. It explains how social networks democratize the production and consumption of media, and also allows for a level of collaboration that traditional forms of media cannot imitate. I really liked Rettbergs description of network art as a sort of performance with the users as the audience. His example, I Work For The Web is really interesting to me because as he points out, the audience is being parodied because they are also "working for the web" and not being paid. It reminds me of fan fiction spaces online where people create and share alternate versions of stories they like.  The piece I have is called How To Rob A Bank by Robert Bigelow. It is a piece created in the spirit of netprov that tells the story of a bank robber all from the screen of his phone. It is a very funny commentary on how social media networks track our information, change how we communicate, and ultimately change h...

In chapter six of Scott Rettberg's Electronic Literatur e, the concept of network writing was introduced. Network writing is described by Scott Rettberg as, "... electronic literature created for and published on the Internet. It may require readers to visit multiple sites to experience the narrative, it may interrogate the nature and materiality of the network itself, it may use the Internet's potential for collaboration, or use the network as a site for performance" (Rettberg 152). Due to society's quickly-evolving dependency on the internet in their day-to-day lives, network writing is a genre of electronic literature that many readers may have encountered without ever processing it as such. The Internet, as Rettberg describes it, "... is a fully multimodal medium", which ties itself into being extremely customizable for each user's personal preferences. A component of electronic literature that I had never been exposed to prior to this reading w...

 I was really pleased that we were looking at the Unknown this week because I had sifted through it on my own and wanted to hear the opinions of others on it. Alternative realities is a favorite of mine because not only is the reader asked to reconsider how history may play out, but differing lore also arises which explains why this history is different and how by changing one aspect, another one occurs. Reminds me of " The Man in the High Castle". Try as I might, I could not find previous passages I had read, and sifting through the work made me realize just how large the work is - with the map and the links to other, seemingly real websites based in this reality.  Network writing reminded me of our "Medium is the message" blog post because this chapter emphasizes how the inherently interactive aspect of the internet affects the writing and content created on it. The internet is like a stage and "a number of electronic literature projects can be understood as ...

This week I really enjoyed learning about network writing and seeing how versatile it is in the electronic literature world. Networks can be seen as both platforms and material, as well as social and technological  foundations. I thought it was interesting to think about how much of our modern communication and social interaction is mediated on networks and shaped by networked interactions (Rettberg, 152). Network writing is heavily focused on rethinking the way humans interact with media and technology. I liked Rettberg's point on how network writing helps us to take a step back to analyze and better understand the networked society that we are accountable for and have created together.  This week, I am bringing TrackMeNot created by Daniel Howe and Helen Nissenbaum to the table. TrackMeNot is an internet plugin/browser extension that was designed to promote internet privacy for internet browsers that want to interrupt privacy violations. Users who install TMN send out inte...

 I really enjoyed chapter 6 of the textbook because of it's connection to social media platforms. Retteberg categorizes networks as "both technological and social structures" (152). Using different networks, an author can shift the meaning of their story.  I liked the example Retteberg gave of imagining if Martin Luther King's "Letter from Birmingham Jail" used typography of "colorful children's blocks" or if Hitler's Mein Kampf  was published in "a series of aphorisms on Hallmark Greeting Cards" (156). It makes me think differently about pieces of work and how the platform it's produced on, whether it be a book, video essay, twitter fiction, etcetera is a critical part of the work. Something really interesting about this chapter specifically was the precursor to internet based network writing: the postal system as a network. Thinking of the postal system as a network is something I've never really connected before. I wish...

 Network writing is lit created for, and on, the internet. It can used multiple sites and experiments with a sites capabilities. I found it interesting how the chapter mentioned that reading and writing skills have not improved, yet people spend more time writing and reading. I feel like it should be that people are improving because they spend more time with it. Though I guess that if you are not reading something of substance or at a high enough level that it would not have a positive impact. Still, as an English major it hurts me a little to know! I also liked how they mentioned that play is an important part of e-lit. Since we have been doing that all semester it was nice to see that. But, it makes sense that the only way to learn a new media or new mode of creating is to actually do it yourself and get hands on experience with it. I had never really thought that E-lit projects could be performances but it makes sense that a creation online can be performed, especially since th...

Chapter 6 Network Writing:      I was taken aback by the extensiveness of Rettberg’s The Unknown. It was almost overwhelming to sift through. It made me ponder over how much time it must’ve taken to construct something so complex. I also wish to know how many different pages there are. It seemed like there had to be thousands from perusing through. What is the expected time it would take to read everything that is written? I really enjoyed this long quote from the beginning of chapter 6, “For electronic literature, networks are both platform and material. As technology has led to rapid societal change, one of the most logical extensions of the project of electronic literature is to serve as a locus of reflexive critique of the position of the human within the technological apparatus” (Rettberg, 152). I think that it helped me to better understand Occupy MLA and its purpose as a platform for critique and performance. I found it interesting when the chapter says that people...

     Out of all the chapters in Scott Rettberg's book  Electronic Literature  chapter 6, Network Writing was the most interesting to me by far. Especially after working on our electronic literature analysis project, I feel like I learned a lot more about the project that I personally studied as well as my classmates. It was nice learning about the various examples of network writing visually this week through presentations, but as well as reading it in our textbook. Network writing can be found all over the Internet where it is published in various forms of electronic literature (Rettberg 152). Network writing encourages its readers and writers to collaborate with each other. It helps us analyze the way we function with networks and society (Rettberg 182). There are so many forms of network writing such as blogs, code work, email novels, twitter fiction, and collective narratives to name a few. As I read this chapter, I learned a lot more about the aut...

  Network Writing is Electronic Literature created and published on the internet. Networks are a condition of contemporary life and they have changed the nature of communication, our style of writing, and the way we structure our thoughts. The fragmented and distracting nature of networked communication however, has in some ways degraded our experiences of reading and writing through the use of memes, bots, and mindless scrolling it can almost feel like network writing is shifting the way we produce and enjoy electronic literature. Yet, for all of the negative aspects of network writing, a greater population of people spend more of their time reading and writing than ever before. Play is an essential part of electronic literature that allows readers and writers to play with new media environments in order to explore their potential for storytelling and poetics as well as playing well with others. Network writing as a whole encourages audiences to reconsider the situation of humans ...

Kinetic and interactive poetry explore the multimedia abilities of a computer to both compose and receive poems. Similar to how space and material properties can be used on a printed page, digital forms “reconfigure the text as a moving image in space and time,”. Therefore, digital forms focus more on “registers of signification more familiar to visual and performance art. Words and letters are not only carriers of meaning but material objects that themselves have variable properties,” (Rettberg 118). Kinetic poetry is based on time, text changes through animation, and the meaning the animation itself has. The interactive dimension of digital poetry is different then the kinetic dimension. Not all kinetic poetry is interactive, and not all interactive poetry is kinetic. However, interactivity can commonly be found in many digital poems. Digital text generally can be understood as a process. Our reception of it greatly depends on the computer's code and performance. Works of digita...

In chapter 5, kinetic and interactive poetry are described as a form of e-lit that is heavily concerned with the use of sounds, visuals, movement, music, and language. Scott Rettberg describes describe kenetic and interactive poetry as such, "Kinetic and interactive poetry explore the specific multimedia capacities of the contemporary computer as a poetic environment for both composition and reception." Like with other forms of e-lit, poets are able to create meaning with much more than just words on a page. One very important aspect of kinetic and interactive poetry is the use of time and movement. In addition to the meaning of the words on the page, their movement, and the movement of visuals, creates its own meaning. Time is also important. As Rhettberg puts it: "the poem is experienced as the performance of the code within a given configuration of a given platform rather than the code itself. Therefore, it is the running of the code that gives kinetic poetry a tempor...

     Chapter 5 describes and explains that digital kinetic poetry “…provides text as time-based moving image, often with a sound dimension, and is often interactive and responsive as well,” (Rettberg, 314) and all of the other ways in which poetry can be shared. I loved when Rettberg listed about all the ways that words can be presented shortly after that quote, giving the reader a better understanding of how limitless the visual aspect of this poetry can be. This chapter was broken up nicely as well, I found it to be easier to understand than some pervious chapters. Having it divided between the different types of poetry made each section easier to comprehend and singe out, allowing for nothing to accidentally overlap in my mind when learning about so ma ny different types of poetry in such a condensed chapter.        I really enjoyed “ii in the white darkness” by Reiner Strasser & M.D. Coverly. I thought that this hypertext was very engaging for ...

In Chapter Five of Scott Rettberg's Electronic Literature , the genres of kinetic and interactive poetry were introduced. Similarly to the categories of electronic literature that have been elaborated upon in the previous chapters, kinetic poetry, in itself, is a large, primary genre that houses a conglomerate of other e-lit sub-genres. Scott Rettberg cites Chris Funkhouser's analysis of digital poetry, stating, "Chris Funkhouser describes digital poetry as 'not a singular 'form' but rather a conglomeration of forms that now constitutes a genre even though the creative activity itself - in terms of its media, methods, and expressive intent - contains heterogeneous components.' He asserts that a 'poem is a digital poem if computer programming or processes (software, etc.) are distinctively used in the composition, generation, or presentation of the text'" (Rettberg 118). One of the most interesting components of kinetic poetry is the usage of ti...

      This week's chapter was one of my favorites. I'm a big poetry fan and digital poetry is such an amazing genre of it's own. It seemed fitting that Chris Funkhouser describes it as a conglomeration of forms. It truly is impressive how diverse and malleable this sector of e-lit is, it can be used in so many different ways and portrayed in endless ways. I really enjoy the blending of music, poetry, sound, and animation in this genre of digital literature, and the way in which interactive and kinetic poetry are now translating over into virtual and augmented reality is really neat. The flexibility of this genre creates space for a vast span of  creations and the potential for poetry to grow more than ever before with the partnership with technology. The end of this chapter discussed the concept of letters as objects, in constant movement, connecting through the form of poetry. I really enjoyed the thought that kinetic and interacti...

  I wish we were still in the era of Flash because I really mourn the loss of all those pieces of digital art. It feels as devastating as losing entire libraries worth of knowledge, a modern Alexandria. The reading itself was fine and while I felt I cerebrally understood what the text meant, Lotus Blossom really made it clear to me how technology and the medium affected the quality and meaning of a text. The inclusion of sound, rhythm, multilinguist, and flashing light captured my attention in a way videos have never done so before. If I blinked or paused the video, or looked away, I would have missed a crucial part of the story. The text flashed in time with the music and repetitive phrases kept me on edge. I also found it very interesting that while Starswars one letter at a time and Lotus Blossom had similarities (white background, text in time with music), Lotus Blossom was easier to understand and read because of the animation she employs and the repetition she uses. The lack ...

     Kinetic and interactive poetry, because of its digital-born nature, is perhaps uniquely suited to the creation of metaphors. In Electronic Literature , Scott Rettberg quotes Chris Funkhouser, who argues that a poem is electronic “‘...if computer programming or processes (software, etc.) are distinctively used in the composition, generation, or presentation of the text’” (118). This of course opens up a wide range of possibilities for the medium of metaphor and how it may affect the meaning of the piece. Ingrid Ankerson and Megan Sapnar’s Cruising , for instance, utilizes animation to immerse the reader in the text, with the limited degree of user control and the passing of the text across the page encouraging comparisons to driving (Electronic Literature Collection). ii in the white darkness by Reiner Strasser and M.D. Coverley, while also making use of animation, is also notable for its use of sound. The muffled aural landscape, which appears and disappears with th...

Kinetic and Interactive poetry have many different genres that fall under them. This week’s chapter went over different kinds of poetry such as sound and film poetry. It was interesting to learn that both kinetic and interactive poetry use space and time as a tool. The two are very connected to the mixed media of the contemporary computer (Rettberg 133). Writers and artists are known to jump between the two digital poetry styles that has helped to show the impact of the many digital software’s that were used to create them. Rettberg describes kinetic and interactive poetry to be "these forms of digital poetry have rich relationships with antecedent movements, particularly those that are concerned with the materiality of the text as image, with the granularity of language, and with the relationship between poetry, sound, and music" (Rettberg 118). After learning about these examples of poetry and how they use digital tools to create their poems I am fascinated with by process ...

 This category of poetry explores how technology and computers effect poetry and its relationship to the reader. Kinetic poetry uses text that changes and moves through animation which impacts the meaning of the poetry. The movement of the words enhances the experience of the poem. The interaction with poems adds another dimension as well as the reader is able to participate in the text. The style, format, etc. can change the meaning or interpretation for each reader. Compared to concrete poetry, the addition of animation, movement, or interaction creates a whole new realm of reader experience. However, Rettberg does point out that the layout of a concrete poem can have a similar impact since the shape can have as much importance as the words themselves. It was interesting how moving text in early films are similar to more modern visual art. While technology has evolved, it is interesting that the ideas and foundation have been built for a long time. It's amazing how many different...

 I really liked this weeks chapter reading and how there are many categories under the umbrella of kinetic and interactive poetry. The chapter consists of a wide timeline, taking us from Facist Italy to modern day redemptions. When explaining kinetic poetry, space and time are important factors, as "spatial and temporal dimensions bridge notions that go radically beyond the print paradigm" (Alvaro Seica). Retteberg makes a key distinction between kinetic and interactive poetry as IP involves another dimension of performance: "the performance that is required of the user in order to operate the text machine" (120). I liked Hayles' usage of the term "feedback loop" to better explain interactive poetry: "the machine produces the text as an event; the reader interacts with that event in ways that significantly modify and even determine its progress; these readerly interventions feed back into the machine to change its behavior, which further inflects ...

  Kinetic and Interactive Poetry I really loved ii in the white darkness by Reiner Strasser and M.D. Coverly. I was confused at first, but once I realized that I needed to click on the white dots, I was in awe. The images and videos that were embedded in this piece were breathtakingly beautiful. I felt like I was experiencing the most magical moments of someone’s memory. I was very fond of the use of sound in Cruising by Ingrid Ankerson and Megan Sapnar. The background music mixes perfectly with the voice reading the story and the images rolling by at differing speeds. I have never seen works like this before and I felt extremely inspired.  I enjoyed the structure of this week’s chapter. It consisted of many shorter sections, making it much easier to take in. I was intrigued by the inclusion of time as an aspect of kinetic and interactive poetry. I had never thought about the involvement of time in art or in digital literature. I liked the description of the performance ...

Kinetic and interactive poetry are yet another example of the wide realm of e-lit. Kinetic poetry is based on time and changes with animation. This animation provides the meaning behind the poetry. According to Scott Rettberg, "the poem is better understood as a process rather than an object." Further, it is "experienced as the performance of the code within a given configuration of a given platform rather than as the code itself."  Kinetic poetry can be considered similar to kinetic energy. Just as kinetic energy involves a range of motion and isn't static, kinetic poetry is based upon text, movement, and sound. An example would be the work of Jenny Holzer, who creatively displayed her poems' text on a series of moving LED signs, which represented the idea of unconventional text in strange places. One element of kinetic poetry's history that intrigued me was the its development during Italian Fascism. The leader of the futurist movement, F.T. Marinetti,...

  Digital poetry can be defined as “not a singular form but rather a conglomeration of forms, that now constitutes a genre even though the creative activity itself contains heterogeneous components.” Kinetic and interactive poetry explores the multimedia capacities of the contemporary computer as a poetic environment for both composition and reception. The words and letters of kinetic poetry are not only carriers of meaning but also material objects that have variable properties. Its main distinguishing characteristic is that texts change through animation that portrays meaning. However, not all kinetic poetry is interactive, and not all interactive poetry is kinetic. Digital poetry can be further broken down into a couple of different categories. Concrete poetry is based on an awareness of and interest in the material nature of language, its shapes and forms, and the aesthetic and semantic effects made possible by manipulating language as a material. Visual poetry, or Vispo, has t...