DigitalLiterature

  This semester, I found myself to be very inspired by the google my maps projects that we created and looked at. Particularly, I really enjoyed looking at the La Flood Project (2011) created by Mark Martino. To create the project, USC students created many fictional stories of flood catastrophes, allowing for a collective narrative to be developed of a fictional Los Angeles disaster. In particular, I love how multidimensional this project is.The flood itself is illuminated by the two mediums that are incorporated. The stories on the map coexist with a twitter simulation. Ideas for my final project have largely been inspired by this project.  For my final project, I want to create a google my maps project. While I’m still figuring out precisely what I want my project to be, I’m thinking that I’m going to map out various animal species in a specific geographic location. I’m considering either including information about types of bugs or endangered species. In my project, I wo...

  For my final project, I would like to use Twine in combination with texts and images for students to build their own poems. The focus of the game is to establish the foundation of what the context of the poem will revolve around relationships and interpersonal connections. My working idea is to create a game with three lines of text for the poem, and then from there, the person can choose between two lines of poetry to finish the stanza. From there, they can continue the process of building the poem and collecting different messages. The poems will contain images related to specific stanzas of the poem, which I am hoping to capture myself on my camera. This idea for my final project was influenced by not only my interest in Robert Zubeck’s The Breakup Conversation, but also Adobe’s free online poem generator. Portraying relationships in a digital space is something that I want to take inspiration from through Zubeck’s work, but the idea behind the setup of the poem is inspired b...

  500 apocalypses Before Lexcavator, I wanted to focus on this for my project. I am very interested in both aliens and end of world scenarios. I find the methods of apocalypse to be very interesting, because it poses questions of inevitability and if there is a chance of a civilization or a people or a world to exist forever. All of these apocalypses take place on Alien worlds. A book, called the Encyclopedia Apocalyptia, has entries regularly updated in the book without a evidence of an author coming forward. Many of the stories in the book come from impossible sources - the worlds they come from have no survivors. I enjoy perusing through the Encyclopedia and seeing the different stories of people in dying worlds and those who interact with them. Some are due to Climate changes, some due to mass pollution, infertility, disease or warfare. 

 Christopher Bruchansky's "Not Found" uses a Google map of London annotated with words and images to create an interactive piece of fiction that explores the writer's mundane excursion in search of a poster for his bedroom wall. The reader moves through the Google map story through the streets of London exploring different areas until they end up in a small café to find a surprise tucked into the pages of the morning paper. This piece of electronic literature pokes at the paradoxical nature of life in the digital age, where unprecedented access and boredom often walk hand in hand, and gestures slyly towards the utopian potential tucked away in the everyday. This piece is similar to what I would like to create for my final project. Using Google Earth's "street view" and potentially Twine or Thinglink, I want to create a story exploring Italy based on my experience during my study abroad last summer. I want to use pictures and videos that I took throughout...

 For my final project, I want to use ThingLink to create a project rooted in textures and metaphor. The work of electronic literature that partially inspired me was  Cruising by Ingrid Ankerson. I really loved her use of metaphor in this piece ,  The concept of love and trying to find it  in a  fast-paced world, as someone in the backseat, the idea of a car you can't yet take to the world.  Anderson  presents a metaphor for being young and not quite knowing how to "drive," or interact romantically with one another. The way that the poem moves so fast on the screen once you open it forces the reader to try and learn how to slow it down, speed it up, make it larger or smaller. This experience as a novice is similar to the feeling of learning to drive, or figuring out how to be romantic and interact with partners. The different layers of this poetic  piece  of digital  literature inspired me to want to play with textures and layers in ...

  Clouds Over Sidra - YouTube Clouds Over Sidra was especially inspiring to me because of how powerful the 360 view was in setting the atmosphere of the piece. I felt that this piece was especially effective at eliciting sympathy from the audience as we are able to see Sidra's world firsthand. As I pointed out in my other post, I feel that documentaries can sometimes feel movie like and aren't always the best at helping the viewer understand and sympathize with the subject. I want to create a sort of narrative piece with this technology. One in which the viewer can interact with what they see, and it will bring them to another place. This will almost make it game like. You can only see so much with a regular camera, but to have it be a 360 image is just so cool and I really want to explore that. 

  Post Secret Ted Talk Post Secret Website Post Secret reminds me a little bit of the Yellow Arrow Project. It involves anonymity and sharing words with others. Thinking about this website and project warms my heart and simultaneously makes me feel like I could cry. It started with Frank Warren, a man who printed out 3,000 pre-addressed postcards in 2004 and randomly handed them out on the streets of Washington, D.C. He included instructions on one side and the other was blank. The instructions told the people who received the cards to “anonymously share an artful secret they’d never told anyone before.” Some people send in deep secrets and others send in funny ones. It is a beautiful form of digital literature as he posts them on the website so people can view new ones every Sunday. I’ve always wanted to send one in and I know that eventually, I will.

The Doll Games This semester what has inspired me the most has been learning about Dada and hypertext. One hypertext that really stuck with me was 'My Body- A Wunderkrammer' by Shelley Jackson. I decided to look more into Jackson and her work, which led me to discovering her "Doll Games", created by both her and her sister in 2001. The work is a hypertext project and the authors combine the types of narratives, characters and games they would give their dolls when playing with them as girls. The piece uses a lot of satire to poke fun of the expectations given to 'little girls' as well as gender and sexuality. The hypertext project invites readers to think about the type of games you played as a child and how their themes either represented society implications or pushed its boundaries.  I really like the idea of using images of physical art and building hypertext stories off that. I think thinglink is a great platform for combining Dada collage art and hyperte...

  After reviewing various electronic literature genres I’ve decided that one typically sticks out to me. The specific digital tool that I want to look at  uses photos and videos to create a story.  In order to incorporate all these different options for my final project in electronic literature, I would like to focus on the software known as ThingLink. I am familiar with this software which will allow me to focus on my writing skills for this assignment which I hope to strengthen.  I have come to the realization that I appreciate works that physically engage the reader and relay on them to navigate different modes. By using ThingkLink I will have my users navigating through my photo to view different options that are provided.  I want the readers of my work to leave either with knowledge on the creator or favoriting my writing story. For my final project I want to create a cooking section that links each spice on a shelf or ingredient to a recipe and the importa...

 Cardamom of the Dead by Caitlin Fisher:  Cardamom of the Dead (caitlinfisher.ca) After being inspired by Caitlin Fisher’s Mother/Home/Heaven , I decided to take a quick look at her other works. What I found was Cardamom of the Dead , a virtual reality lyric and literary narrative centered on a 21st birthday party in which all the guests are dead. The player is encouraged to explore the surrounding landscape, examining the different artifacts to read the three-part story. The first narrative is about illness and euthanasia, the second is about sex, murder, and coming-of-age, and the third is about collecting as a means of consolation after death. Interestingly, some of these elements I’d already considered using in my project – I’ve been really fascinated with the idea of exploring characters through objects and memories, and I was thinking of using a three-part narrative to do so. Now that I think about it, I’d say that Mother/Home/Heaven was a huge inspiration behind thes...

I have really enjoyed all of the hypertext fiction pieces we have looked a throughout the semester and found inspiration for my final through them. I enjoy the users ability to explore a story by clicking to different pages and finding out how different stories link together. It makes it feel more entwined than a novel. I also appreciate the non linear aspect. Since there is freedom to move around in the text, the reader may find things out in a non linear timeline, but in the end they have the full story. It feels a lot like a puzzle, pieces make sense as you go along. One project that stuck with me was "Disappearing Rain" by Deena Larsen ( http://www.deenalarsen.net/rain/index.html ). It is a hypertext fiction story that follows a missing girl and her family trying to find out what happened. There are so many ways to explore the 144 pages of the story. You can choose a character and go through all the sections they are included in, you can click certain words, or go through...

For my project, I chose GoogleEarth, as I thought it would be fun to experiment with interactive 3D geographical experiences. I was inspired by different e-lit projects. One was called Le Lac, by Nyasia Kadanara and was composed of videos shot around the world that could be experienced using VR technology. Le Lac used VR to engage in storytelling and immerse users in the culture and lifestyle of East Africa. It specifically focused on the lives of Nigerians, Cameroonians, and Chadians, and how the changing environment of Lake Chad and the Bono Haram insurgency affected their futures. According to a statement by the author " I was challenged with what was the best way to tell a story about a crisis that many had not heard about, with shocking statistics that sounded more like fiction than fact." The stunning landscape and quality videos were essential to feeling completely engaged with the VR experience. For my project, I'd like to use satellite images from GoogleEarth to ...

Acqua Alta by Adrien Mondot and Claire Bardainne  This is the augmented reality book I was trying to think of the other day. The artists say, "It was very exciting to be at the border between many disciplines--theater, dance, but also comic books and animation... We are questioning the language: what does this medium allow us to express? Can we use part of the cinematographic language? Can we use some of the symbolic tools of the theater?"  Apparently they created this with limited experience. GOALS! See the creation, a video, etc. at the website below.  See more at Colossal. 

Over the course of the Spring 2023 semester, we have been exposed to numerous works of electronic literature, and these works ranged in genres from hypertext to virtual reality (VR). While each work was significantly unique from one another, all of them accomplished the same artistic goal: each work had a story that could only be told to its full extent in a designated digital modality. I recently came across a VR 360° story titled Lightning while scouring YouTube for different VR experiences during this past week. Lightning  was created in 2019 by Jeremy Casper and the story has an original score by Andy Luiten. The story follows a young firefly named Lightning who has gone through an experience where he had his light scared out of him. The story takes place in a forest during the night. and in order to save himself and his friend from what lurks in the darkness, he must go through a transformation to find it in himself to turn his light back on. I wanted to bring back a quote I ...

  In his Ted Talk discussing the contributions VR can employ to society, Chris Milk makes the argument that one of the ways VR can alter society for the better is by instilling empathy in its users. He draws comparisons between VR and filmmaking, describing the film as a practice that has more or less similarly been made now than it was decades ago. The overall effect movies have on their views is the same as well, instilling a variety of emotions and curating a certain level of connectivity with its audience. VR holds a very similar ability to attract ownership, however, the major difference that sets movies and VR apart is that while you are simply watching a movie on a screen, you experience VR as if it were actually happening to you. One aspect of this TED Talk that I hadn’t previously considered is the use of VR to educate its users. Similarly to how movies can instill feelings or educate their viewers, VR can do the same, but with the added bonus of its users feeling like wh...

In his 2015 TED Talk, “How virtual reality can create the ultimate empathy machine,” Chris Milk suggests that VR can be used to greatly enhance empathy among its viewers. Using his own experience as a music video director, VR artist, and filmmaker, he notes how his development into VR creator coincided with greater involvement and emotion from his audience. He then uses Clouds Over Sidra , a VR experience centered on the everyday life of a young Syrian refugee, as an example – and after watching it myself I do agree that it is very emotional. The scene where Sidra is crying, for instance, was especially heartbreaking. However, I also feel like this isn’t exclusive to VR. Rather, it depends on a reader, listener, and/or viewer’s ability to insert themselves into a piece. For example, I’ve felt strong emotions when watching a film or reading a book, and I’m sure other people have as well. So rather than providing a definitive answer, I think that the argument for VR and empathy further c...

I went to comment on a post before class and realized my post never uploaded!       Chris Milk’s TED Talk “VR is the Ultimate Empathy Machine” talked about how much humility and empathy VR can give people by experiencing situations in a non-direct way that still impact them so heavily. Milk talked about the power behind the videos that they used for their VR experience with participants and how impactful the interactions were to them. He talks about future projects that he wishes to film that would be similar to this original piece, where he would use empathy to get people engaged, and then educate them on scenarios that they would otherwise never have access to. In this case, it was showing the viewers how you can make the world a better place when showing how poverty can look in other places in the world. This seemingly affective strategy of informing people could open the doors to a new way that we are able to gather information and make these pressing matters mor...

As we continue to immerse ourselves into the world of VR as a form of electronic literature, I felt the reading that caught my eye the most was Chris Milk's TedTalk presentation. Milk describes VR as a "very experiential medium. You feel your way inside of it. It's a machine, but inside of it, it feels like real life, it feels like truth. And you feel present in the world that you're inside and you feel present with the people that you're inside of it with," and this description I feel houses the overarching aspect of electronic literature being an immersive piece of text that can't be relayed in a physical format (Milk 1). I have always been a film-oriented person, and hearing how he was able to tie the concept of filmmaking and the artistic journey he has taken to the art he now creates is extremely fascinating. A quote that stood out to me was: "But then I started thinking about frames, and what do they represent? And a frame is just a window. I me...

  Chris Milk’s TED Talk “VR is the Ultimate Empathy Machine” was very intriguing to me. Prior to what we have explored in this class relating to VR, I really hadn’t given all the possibilities of VR too much thought. While I had known it could be used for video gaming purposes, I never realized how broad the horizon was of how the medium can be utilized. Particularly, how much of an art form, and how powerful it can be in terms of being used in an empathetic manner. I remember a few years ago hearing about Across the Line , a VR that allows the user to experience walking into a safe and legal abortion clinic with protesters tormenting you as you walk in. This concept really stuck with me ( https://www.acrossthelinevr.com/ ). I never looked too much further into other VR that has similar, empathetic content matter until watching this TED talk. For my bring it to the table, I looked further at the VR app The Ice Bound Compendium by Aaron Reed and Jacob Garbe.  The story follows ...

 What I really appreciated about Chris Milks Ted Talk was how he expanded upon the idea of film. he describes it as "the same now as it was then." But what Chris wanted to do was to use technology was to make stories that couldn't be made with current techniques. Each time he presents a new piece, people seem to have stronger and stronger emotional responses to it. I think this speaks to how powerful immersion is. The more immersive the piece is, the more invested the user becomes. I think this is what his goal was with the last project when he did clouds over Sidra. It was incredibly moving to see her entire environment. It was as real as it could be. He could have made a documentary on Sidra, but often times those can become movie-like. This project was the opposite of that. "You are sitting there with her... and because of that you feel her humanity in a deeper way." I think this piece captured that idea beautifully. It captures her world in such a way that e...

Out of all the readings for this week, I really enjoyed Chris Milk's Ted Talk. He gave me a new perspective on VR. I liked how he suggested the idea that film and VR allows us to feel empathy for characters that isn't mutual, forming parasocial relationships. However within VR, this empathy is heightened as the 'fourth wall' is broken and we can fully immersive ourselves into the character's world. I've always thought of VR as threatening and kind of scary for just how much power technology has to do harm. Milk gives a different perspective of how VR can be used for good and can immerse us into the worlds of not just characters, but real people.   Looking back at chapter 7, I decided to take a closer look at 34 North 118 West (2002)   by Jeremy Hight, Jeff Knowlton, and Naomi Spellman. It's a locative project based in LA where the player uses a GPS, a tablet, and headphones to follow along the story. The authors described their project to be one of the first...

 This week I really enjoyed diving deeper into virtual reality and how it can warp our perceptions of empathy and make us feel so many emotions. Chris Milk's Ted Talk was extremely eye opening. I loved hearing about his experiences with VR filmmaking, and his project about the young Syrian refugee. Using this technology to show others what it's like in other countries, with different lifestyles, is an amazing concept. "It connects humans to humans," Milk says. VR becoming a catalyst for human empathy creates a world where we can put ourselves into one another's shoes and feel a true understanding of the experiences they're going through, and as Milk says, it will bring us closer together. I love the idea of creating these films about people from all over the world and making them readily available for others in all countries to view. Today's world is so far from peace, but having a new way to try and empathize and understand others who live differently tha...

  I really enjoyed Chris Milk’s explanation of what virtual reality is like when he says “You feel your way inside of it. It’s a machine, but inside of it, it feels like real life, it feels like truth. And you feel present in the world that you’re inside and you feel present with the people that you’re inside of it with.” I’ve only ever tried VR once and it was just to play a scary video game. I liked that Milk has taken action to utilize the power of VR for a means other than to make money and get people addicted to playing a game. This piece of the talk was very important to me, “It’s not a video game peripheral. It connects humans to other humans in a profound way that I’ve never seen before in any other form of media. And it can change people’s perceptions of each other. And that’s how I think virtual reality has the potential to actually change the world.” His argument was extremely persuasive and I’m so glad to see him using this knowledge and technology to do something good ...

Virtual or augmented reality is a form of immersive technology that allows the interactor to feel like they are inside a video or game. These forms can be used to create pieces of interactive film, gaming, poetry, or interactive narratives that can merge digital literature, video, and live performance. VR and augmented reality is newer in the field of electronic literature but is already making massive advances in the last year. I liked how Rettberg described VR and augmented reality to be an experience that allows the interactor to feel like they are having an out-of-body experience of being removed from their body and transported into another body or world.  https://collection.eliterature.org/2/works/wardrip-fruin_screen.html Screen by Noah Waardrip-Fruin and other authors is a piece that is created in a CAVE environment which is a cave automatic virtual environment. As Screen begins, words appear and cover three screens and are spoken aloud. On each wall, a different text desc...

 I really appreciated the TED talk from Chris Milk about how VR creates empathy. I came into this with a very limited understanding of the capacity of VR. In my mind, it was for games and fun, but there was also uses like working with veterans who have PTSD. However, I did not realize the true scope of VR and how much it could accomplish. I thought his first project "The Wilderness Downtown" was shocking enough as it inserts where you grew up and takes you back to those roads and to your house. Having technology that can do that alone is mind boggling to me. However, "Clouds Over Sidra" went even farther and is able to place the viewer into someone else’s life, environment, and view. It is amazing to think of how much this could do, like in his example of being able to spread awareness to the people who are in control of the lives of many.  It is amazing considering I thought movies had gotten good at being able to suck you in and make you feel for the characters. B...

 As I watched Chris Milk compare film and VR, I realized I had never considered the possibilities of film in VR. I love video games, hence I own the latest VR system, and I love films, so I took a film theory class and regularly sought out good movies. I learned in my film class about the illusionary techniques used to make and tell a story through film. The techniques they use to trick audiences into believing their videos scripted of actors performing dialogue and action were really a window to another world. As an audience, we cerebrally know Iron Man is not real, the Hulk does not exist and a real Batman would be hunted and punished for his vigilante actions. But audiences spend billions of dollars believing the fantasy; it's a big ruse we're all in on.  I love the possibilities VR presents for the film. The knowledge that keeps me sane after watching a horror movie is knowing that it's just a film, and this knowledge is reassured when I stop looking at the screen. I ca...

Most of us know VR to be a technology that allows us to immerse ourselves in a video or game. This 3D affect has influenced many games and even movies today. VR can be used for more than just entertainment such as sports, healthcare, and training. Scott Rettberg states how VR has helped the literature community, "Virtual and augmented reality of narrative and poetic works of electronic approaches for the presentation of narrative and poetic works of electronic literature in immersive environments." (Rettberg 196). The VR allows for the person wearing the headset to have an outer body experience. There have been many VR experiments with literature in the last twenty years. I was really interested in the TED talk "How virtual reality can create the ultimate empathy machine" by Chris Milk. Chris talks about how VR can be a machine that shows individuals how to become more empathetic to others' lives. An example that is done in the video is when the crew went to Jor...

3D and 4D experiences may be common nowadays in theater--but they are only a fairly recent development in the concept of VR/AR. Virtual reality, a form of a divergent stream of electronic literature,  provides a user with an experience of "the strange sensation of being removed from one's body" (Rettberg 169). Wearing a type of 'googles', individuals can be transported into a different world where the landscape in front of them is completely different from their physical environment.  Early examples of VR include Google Daydream and Samsung Gear. Originating around the early 2000s, VR has since become much more widely commonplace. In recent years, it has been used for a variety of activities. For example, virtual reality has been incorporated into different classroom activities to help students to learn. Another instance of virtual reality are experiences created for to generate empathy. For instance, the Virtual Human Interactive Lab uses virtual reality to desig...

https://www.thinglink.com/video/1700614913942094628

 

 

The final chapter of Scott Rettbergs Electronic Literature focuses on several newer genres of e-lit ; locative narratives, interactive installations, expanded cinema, virtual reality, and augmented reasoning. Expansion on the core genres of e-lit (hypertext fiction, combinatory poetics, etc.) are referred to as divergent streams. Divergent streams “in some way builds upon those other genres while expanding them into other disciplines.” (Rettberg 184). Due to the constant growth of the field, ways to preserve/archive e-lit are continuously important. While e-lit is not kept in library catalogs, there are databases created to store e-lit. Despite the continuous growth of the field, previous works of e-lit don’t disappear. They are” absorbed into new genres and forms…they serve as building blocks for the other forms that follow them,” (Rettberg 201).  For my bring it to the table, I researched the locative narrative The La Flood Project (2011) by Mark Marino and the LAinundacion co...

 In chapter seven, Rhettberg discusses the ways in which artists use locative technology to create new and interesting work. Rhettberg emphasizes how "the possibilities of locative narrative are broad and varied. We could investigate the murder mystery by retracing the steps of the killer at the scene of the crime" (Rhettberg 184). In locative style literature, the location and geography are tied to the narrative. This is especially true in projects like audio walks, where the user must pay attention to the story being told in their ear and also pay attention to their surroundings. As Rhettberg explains, this type of media is also very adaptable. The LA flood project combines locative media with collaborative media by having people submit disaster stories which were then assigned a location and made into a broader disaster narrative in the city of Los Angeles.  Camille Utterback & Romy Achituv - Text Rain, 1999 - YouTube This piece is an interactive instillation that comb...

In Chapter 7 of Electronic Literature , Scott Rettberg describes a few alternative genres of digital literature as well as digital literature as a field. Locative narratives, the first of these subtypes, centers around the use of locative technologies such as GPS and Google Earth used to explore the relationship between location and literature. A good number of these pieces involve collaboration or reader participation, such as audio walk narratives and projects such as Christopher Allen, Brian House, and Jesse Shapins’ 2004 Yellow Arrow Project . Interactive installations are another subtype, one focused on emphasizing sensation by expanding electronic literature into art installations and performances. The third alternative genre – or rather a group of genres – Rettberg covers are expanded cinema, virtual reality, and augmented reality. Expanded cinema is defined as a cinematic experience which is created using techniques traditionally associated with electronic literature, such as a...

 I just realized I forgot to post my piece on Network Writing! So sorry about that... In Electronic Literature , author Scott Rettberg describes network writing as a kind of born-digital genre which can involve multiple sites, be collaborative or performance-based, and can even be used to explore the nature of the relevant network (152). Of particular concern is the way technology – social media in particular – has changed the average person’s everyday relationship to reading and writing. Though literacy has increased globally, Rettberg notes that critical reading skills have deteriorated (153). At the same time, he recognizes that the digital world presents unique opportunities for writers and artists of all kinds. I also found it interesting that network writing is related to modern creative movements centered around critiquing their mediums and materiality, as well as to the 1937-1945 Mass-Observation movement and mail art. I’ve never heard of the latter two, and so am very curi...

The hypertext that was by far my favorite this week was Bubble . The scary reality of pollution overtaking our bodies and the planet we live on is a pressing issue that is too important not to cover. This storyline being so prevalent made it more engaging to me, as I felt as though this was seeing into my own future. Seeing the bubble slowly start to be corroded with an unmanageable amount of pollutants and the world slowly begin to fill with grey clouds of toxins put how harmful global warming is into s very real perspective with these visuals. The artwork was very minimal and fun, and I enjoyed the simple color scheme that were all based off of blue hues. The interactiveness of the hypertext also being in the form of a game where you are capable of trying to save yourself from the impending doom of the planet being overturned from global warming made this so memorable. The announcement at the end was a great way to solidify the message they were sending with informing the readers a...

 I really enjoyed how this chapter was all about mobile phones and VR. The idea of using location to play into the interactive aspect of electronic literature is interesting but also feels a little creepy as it is definitely a breach of privacy. But I agree with Retteberg in the sense that "our desires for the convenience of location-aware technology have trumped fears of the abuse of that information by the entities we surrender it to" (184). Just as the internet is filtered depending on where you are in the world, electronic literature works use location to implement interaction. Considering locative technology specifically, Retteberg suggests it "opens up new dimensions to our experience of storytelling by blurring or modifying the diegetic ditinction between imagined setting and the physical world" (188). I think this context of electronic literature with locations and VR will be the most rapidly growing and changing form of ELIT.  I was really interested in how...

Rettberg's final chapter of "Digital Literature" perfectly summed up the five genres discussed and did the sub genres and niche categories of electronic literature justice. I enjoyed reading about these subcategories and little areas of e-lit that are not always talked about in depth. Reading about the origins of digital cinema and filming was super interesting, especially how Youngblood predicted the future of cinema and what are now 3D experiences/CGI. I also liked how Rettberg talked about the versatility of electronic literature, and that the major genres rarely act alone. There tends to always be a blend of genres when it comes to works of e-lit, which I think is one of the most important aspects of digital literature's impact. The endless combinations of genres and ideas within e-lit are what make it such a relevant and consistent category of literature that never fades.  I've has the best experience with Motto! It's such a fun concept for a work of e-li...

  As Rhettburg discussed in the chapter, the genres included in electronic literature continue to grow as technology grows and changes. Technology directly affects the way that art is produced, consumed, and viewed. This can especially be seen with the emerging sectors of VR and AR. VR and AR allow us to bridge the gap between imagination and reality and be immersed in a virtual, illusionary reality. This technology is rapidly improving and is already part of our daily lives, as we saw with the boom of pokemon go. Some critics even say that AR will outpace VR because it allows people to interact with the existing world and be aware of their surroundings at the same time because VR can sometimes trick the brain into doing dangerous things while emersed in the sensation, like falling or harming others. Another way AR is being implemented into our lives, the most prevalent way I would say, is through filters. Snapchat, Instagram, Youtube, Twitter, zoom, and any hosting site that allow...

In the seventh and final chapter of Scott Rettberg's Electronic Literature , Rettberg dove into additional branches within the electronic literature stratosphere. The previous five chapters of the book tackled 5 core genres of electronic literature, but this finale chapter went into the genres that Rettberg couldn't provide a sole chapter to. Rettberg says that, "In this concluding chapter I will briefly describe some other genres that deserve fuller treatment than the space of this volume will allow" (Rettberg 183). I was fascinated by the concept of locative narratives, which incorporate data from mobile devices and GPS signals to . Rettberg describes locative narratives, saying, "Electronic literature authors have begun to explore how locative technologies can enable us to layer narrative and poetic experiences on the world around us. In addition to GPS, technologies such as radio frequency identification (RFID) and QR codes have allowed us to tag stories on l...

 This chapter really made me appreciate just how electronic literature has gone into so many different spaces. While the textbook chapters before this have explored countless ways E-lit has broadened, this chapter opened me up to even more creative avenues. I loved the idea of the locative narratives, using locations and maps to tell a story sounds like an amazing adventure. It also adds stories to the locations, like we did in class on google earth. Exploring the relationship between the physical space and the literature space is something that is very hard to explore in a physical book. I think this is also nice since we as humans are already tracked so much with out technology, why not make something creative out of it! As the chapter points out, each new development in technology provides a new set of tools to work with.  I looked into "Wax, or the Discovery of Television Among the Bees" by David Blair (not the one from UNH:( ) The film was made in 1991 and was deemed utt...

  The final chapter of Electronic Literature by Scott Rettberg wraps up the discussion of the five main genres of electronic literature: combinatory poetics, hypertext fiction, interactive fiction, kinetic and interactive poetry, and network writing. Rettberg also provides the reader with information on the research infrastructure of the field and where to find work, and consider the present situation and potential future of electronic literature. The most significant change in the use of electronic literature was the development of the mobile phone. Electronic literature authors have begun to explore how locative technology can allow us to layer together narrative and poetic experiences about the world around us. Locative narrative projects share a common interest in the relationship between physical space and geographic location to literature's narrative and poetic dimensions. Interactive installations which can feature kinetic text, narrative storytelling, or network inputs, are...