Electronic Literature and Culture: 
The Work of Art in the Digital Age 

College of Liberal Arts Honors Seminar
University of Minnesota 
Fall 2000 
Rita Raley

 
     
       
 









What is the status of literature and of art work in the age of information and digital media?  In what ways is the “literary” relevant to the design paradigm of the Internet?  What is the function and status of the digital avant garde in the current moment, and what is the proper frame of reference through which to consider their work:  poetics, aesthetics, narrative, science, mathematics, aura, shock, meaninglessness, consumerism?  The ascendance of the image, of codes, and of the computer as dominant cultural icons and narratives has helped to displace the belief in the book as repository and transmitter of cultural value onto the chip, the database, the electronic mechanism, and the screen. Hypertext narratives, though, complicate this displacement—they are a site of literature’s adaptation to the digital condition that is perpetually “under construction.”  Thus, one premise of this course is that literature is by no means an antiquated cultural form relegated to the obsolescent spheres of print—it has instead virtually transformed itself in response to the new electronic culture, and we will investigate how it has done so. We will also discuss the relations between text and image, simulation and the simulacrum; the tropes and figures of electronic culture; surveillance and voyeurism; “making do” and hacking; the theoretical and cultural antecedents of hypertext; the relationship between the analog and the digital; the anamorphic text; graphic design; the stylistics of hypertextual narrative; and complexity.
 		  
     
     

 
William Gibson, Neuromancer

Jean Baudrillard, Simulations

The Eastgate Quarterly Review of Hypertext 1:2 (includes Arnold, “Lust” and Douglas, “I Have Said Nothing”; Macintosh or Windows format from Eastage Systems) 

Espen Aarseth, Cybertext:
Perspectives on Ergodic Literature

Other Reading
- HSem 3050 Reader is available at Paradigm; reader selections are marked (R) on the syllabus. 

- Online or electronic readings are marked (OL) on the syllabus and are reachable from our class webpage. Some of the electronic reading may need to be done on a relatively high-powered computer, and I recommend you visit one of the computer labs for this purpose.  When it comes time to browse an index or site, I will direct you to a few particular texts. 
 

 

1.  Précis: 10% 
2.  4-5 pp. Paper: 25%
3.  Final Paper or Project: 40%
4.  Class Participation & Presentation: 25% 
 

  1. One of the requirements for this course will be a précis, or critical summary, of a work of theory of your choosing.  There will be a separate handout with guidelines for the assignment.
  2. Topics for the short paper will be assigned.  Due date: October 26 
  3. At the end of the quarter, seminar participants will place their work, however temporarily, online. (I will hold a separate tutorial for anyone interested in learning the basics of HTML, WYSIWYG editors and FTP’ing.  Otherwise, there are a number of technicians on campus who can assist you.)  If the project is a standard seminar paper, then the approximate length should be 8 pages in print.  If the project is more explicitly hypertextual, however, then the guiding quantitative principle should be subsumed to conceptual scope; that is, the project should be equivalent to a seminar paper in argumentative range and ambition.  Hypertext fiction projects are also welcome, but they should be accompanied by a short (3 pg.) critical analysis of the composition.  Due date: December 12
  4. Another requirement for the course will be a short class presentation, usually opening up into a question for general discussion (5 minutes).  You should either speak with me over email or make arrangements to see me briefly the week before the class in which you are to present, so we can speak about your proposed topics or questions.  These presentations may be collaborative; that is, you may choose to present with someone else in the class.
Some of our class sessions will be in a campus computer lab.  The movie screenings will be Tuesday or Thursday evenings (exact times and locations TBA).  On those days we will not have class at the usual time.
     

     
     
                 
         
           
       

    “multiple fragments which are assembled under a new law”
    - Walter Benjamin
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     

    “there is no story for which the question as to how it continued would not be legitimate"”
    - Walter Benjamiun
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     

    “She quivered as she blew back the tissue paper from each engraving …those pictures of every corner of the world.” 
    - Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary


     



     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Selected works of digital or digitalized art

    Michael Noll, Gaussian Qadratic (1963);
    Lillian Schwartz, Mona/Leo
    Vera Molnar
    William Latham
    Chip Lord, Awakening from the Twentieth Century
    Jeff Wall, A Sudden Gust of Wind (after Hokusai)
    Otto Piene, Rauchbild
    Karl Sims, Galapagos
    Bill Seaman
     


     
     
     

    “I have erected a monument more durable than bronze/
    And loftier than the pyramids’ regal structure,/
    One that no voracious rain, nor violent north wind/
    Will destroy, nor the numberless sequence/
    Of years and the rush of time.” 
    - Horace, 1st Century B.C.

     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     

    Gaming Links

    Interactive Fiction Research Library;
    Interactive Fiction & Adventure Games;
    Open Directory: Interactive Fiction;
    CNET Gamecenter









     
    Fictions of New Media

    September 5:  Introduction

    September 7:  Bruce Sterling, “Unstable Networks” (R); John Nòto, “Bring the Noise” and “Camcorder” (R)
     

    For Thursday, and throughout the semester, browse and bookmark the Electronic Literature Directory; Beyond Interface Index (OL); Hyper-X (OL) (“an ongoing ‘network installation’…state-of-the-art narrative environments made-for-the-Web”); Salt Hill (Syracuse U); 101: One Zero One; Burning Press; Hypermarks.

    September 12:  William Gibson, Neuromancer (3-135) 

    Links: Postmodern Science Fiction and Cyberpunk; Study Guide with good contextual references

    September 14:  William Gibson, Neuromancer (137-271) 

    September 19: Networking
    William J. Mitchell, City of Bits: Space, Place, and the Infobahn (3-24; R)

    Media and Mass Culture
    September 21: Big Brother
    Michel Foucault, “Panopticism,” from Discipline and Punish (R) 
     
    Big Brother UK
    Big Brother US
    Webcams: Anacam; Jennicam; Universal Sleep Station

    September 26:  Tactics & Hacking
    Michel de Certeau, from The Practice of Everyday Life (R); 

    Links: “The Hacker Ethic” (MIT); Worldwide Piracy Initiative; hacked.net; AntiOnline (Computer Security-Hackers & Hacking); A way to find your path in the digital underground; Takedown (for just-released Kevin Mitnick); WebTracker

    September 28: The Conversation (1974; Francis Ford Coppola)
    Smith 100, 7-9 pm

    October 3: The 'New Law'
    Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” (R)

    October 5: Storytelling
    Walter Benjamin, “The Storyteller” 

    October 10: The Work Itself
    Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, "The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception" (R)

    October 12: Making Do
    Peter Burger, Avant-Garde (R); Surrealist games; samples of Dada and surrealist collage and l’ecriture automatique (OL); Ernst-Jan C. Wit, "The Role of Automatic Writing in the Surrealist Movement" (OL)

    October 17:  Digital Art
    Bill Viola, Nam June Paik, Michael Schell and his electronic arts ensemble with live video performances, 77Hz (OL); “Digital Art” in Michael Rush, New Media in Late 20th-Century Art; Timeline of computer graphics and animation
     

    Nam June Paik Reference Page;
    Nam June Paik in the 90's: the Electronic Superhighway; Guggenheim: Paik exhibition; 
    Bill Viola, "Video Spaces: Eight Installations" (MOMA 1995); SFMOMA Presents Bill Viola Online (1999); 
    Bill Viola website

    October 19: Text and Image (Hypermedia) 
    Mitchell Stephens, Preface, “Multiple Fragments,” and "Thinking ‘Above the Stream’” from The Rise of the Image and the Fall of the Word (R); 
     

    Hyperfiction, Electronic Book Review 7 (1998); Olia Lialina, “My Boyfriend Came Back From the War” (OL); Lisa Bloomfield, No Memory (1996; OL) and Random Readings (1995; OL); Browse the entropy site: <entropy8zuper.org>; continue browsing the Beyond Interface Index (OL).

    October 24:  Jean Baudrillard, Simulations (1-58)
    October 26:  Jean Baudrillard, Simulations (83, 92-115, 138-152)
        4-5 pp. paper due

    The Work of Art in 
    the Digital Age

    October 31:  Universal Machines
    Vannevar Bush, “As We May Think” (OL); Ted Nelson, from Literary Machines (R) ; John Tolva, “The Heresy of Hypertext: Fear and Anxiety in the Late Age of Print” (OL); Michael Heim, “Hypertext Heaven” from The Metaphysics of Virtual Reality (R). Browse Project Xanadu (OL).

    November 2:  Authoring
    Espen Aarseth, “The Cyborg Author,” from Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature; Permutations (OL), especially Raymond Queneau, “A Fairy Tale as You Like It” (OL) 
    Links:  RACTER FAQ (about the supposed text-generation program);  The Cut-up Technique (Burroughs) and The Cut-up Machine; Oulipo ("the Workshop of potential computer literature (Ouvroir de Littérature Informatique Potentiel) is my little way of grouping together a variety of projects that bring together notions of Oulipo and of computers"; Stéfan Sinclair); HyperPo (software for text exploration and analysis); 

    November 7:  Combinatorial Writing
    Mary-Kim Arnold, “Lust” (on disk from Eastgate); The Assoziations-Blaster (OL); Brion Gysin, Cut-Ups Self-Explained; Selections from Oulipo (especially Harry Matthews, “The Poet’s Eye”; also browse Oulipo) (R); Helen Thorington (with M.R. Petit & John Neilson), Solitaire (1998)  [the deck]

    November 9:  Mapping
    Matthew Miller, “Trip” (OL); Raine Koskimaa, “Visual Structuring of Hypertext Narratives” (OL); Jorge Luis Borges, “The Library of Babel” (R).
    Class exercise: on this day you will bring in a basic visual map of one hypertext piece.

    November 14: Patterns
    Jorge Luis Borges, “An Examination of the Work of Herbert Quain” (R); M.D. Coverley, Fibonacci’s Daughter (OL) 

    November 16: Browsing & Annotating
    Judy Malloy, l0ve 0ne (OL; for reference see her collected Internet works) 
    Class exercise:  on this day, you will bring in a short (no more than one page) journal-like account of your experience of browsing and reading a hypertext. Think of this as a page in a larger commonplace book. 

    November 21: Reading
    Espen Aarseth, “Introduction: Ergodic Literature” and “Chapter Four: No Sense of an Ending: Hypertext Aesthetics,” Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature

    November 28:  Interactivity & Digital Textuality
    Jim Rosenberg, Interactive Works; Diagram Poems; “The Interactive Diagram Sentence”; George Landow, “Hypertext and Intertextuality” (OL); Continue browsing text archives, indexes, anthologies, including Hypermarks

    November 30: Gaming
    Espen Aarseth, “Intrigue and Discourse in the Adventure Game”; Optional Film:  eXistenZ (1999; David Cronenberg) 
    Smith 100, 7-9 pm

    December 5:  Dying
    J. Yellowlees Douglas, "I Have Said Nothing" (on disk from Eastgate)

    December 7:  Linking
    Stuart Moulthrop, “Pushing Back: Living and Writing in Broken Space” Modern Fiction Studies 43:3 (1997) (OL); Geoff Ryman, 253 (OL)

    December 12:  Codes and a Coda: The Matrix (1999; The Wachowski Brothers). 
     

    Final Projects

    Stefan Andres, [no title yet]
    Elizabeth Andrews, "Classification and Hypertext"
    Shaun Blakeman, "Rules"
    Marjorie Brekke, "Confession"
    Andrea Copacek, "Hacker< >Reader< >Strategist"
    Amber Darling, "Why Computer Games can Never be Great Literature (Well…Almost Never)"
    Erin Donlin, "Infinitude/Finitude"
    Brian Duginske, "FDI"
    Nicole Garrison, [no title yet]
    Whitney Goodrich, "This is hypertext"
    Gerd Groenewold, "The Labyrinth and Hypertext"
    Lorien Gruchalla-Wagner, "A SimulaCraura in two parts"
    Takeshi Hamamura, "memex2000" [best when viewed with IE]
    Jim Lindborg, "Light Years"
    Elizabeth Pierce, "War Chronicles"
    Jason Weidemann, "A Day in the Life of ..."

     
         
         
    Last revised:  December 18, 2000
     
     
    the galoshes of remorse   Rita Raley [course taught at the
    University of Minnesota]
    raley@english.ucsb.edu
    "Today, how can we not speak of the university?"
    -- Jacques Derrida, "The Principle of Reason: The University in the Eyes of Its Pupils"