大象传媒

On May 2nd 2011,聽UiB's Electronic Literature Research Group聽organised two events at the new auditorium at the library, in collaboration with聽听补苍诲听.聽At an afternoon event we saw a presentation of works from the聽 by two of its editors, Rita Raley and Talan Memmott, followed by a discussion of the process of creating an anthology of electronic literature between Raley, Memmott and two editors of the first edition of the collection,聽Scott Rettberg (who is also head of the University of Bergen research group for electronic literature) and Stephanie Strickland.聽An evening event featured performances of works from both the first and second volume of the Electronic Literature Collections, followed by a question and answer session led by Vagant's Audun Lindholm.聽

We still read the texts of Ovid, Shakespeare and Ibsen, but will the fiction written for the web last as long?聽This question was one of the reasons why the Electronic Literature Collection series was established. Collecting work in a series of anthologies is a way to secure an archive of the ever-changing field of literature written for digital media. Indeed, the technology changes so fast that one of the works from ELC2 which was performed Monday night, , written by the American-born Swedish resident Talan Memmott in 2000, no longer works in modern browsers. Fortunately for us, Memmott was able to find a version of the poetical-theoretical work that worked for tonight's performance.聽

Stephanie Strickland read from the works and , which are examples of generative and kinetic poetry, coupling online experiences with paper publications.聽Strickland explained how the text of "Slipping Glimpse" is programmed to flow through the background videos of water, as a leaf or twig caught in the water follows its movements.聽William Gillespie read from his聽, a cycle of prose texts conceptualized as a cube where the text from each of the six sides can lead to any of four adjacent sides.聽Then Gillespie introduced his collaborator Scott Rettberg, director of the Electronic Literature Research Group and the host for today's event, and the two performed some of their award-winning hypertext novel The Unknown 1999.聽This novel is about a group of young writers, who have the same names as the actual authors, and as a great success with his hypertext novel "".聽They travel on a book tour that gets wilder and wilder, and end up making a Hollywood film of the novel, starting a cult, and dying in absurd and inventive ways.聽The audience was eager participants, yelling out links for Gillespie and Rettberg to follow, with much laughter and enjoyment.聽

After the performances there were questions from the audience, led by the editor of the literary journal , Audun Lindholm. For the last year and a half, Vagant has published a regular column on electronic literature, written by Scott Rettberg. Lindholm is also editor of the micro-publishing house Gasspedal, which under the title 聽publishes animated poetry.聽

The events marked the start of a new partnership between the Electronic Literature Research Group and Bergen Public Library.聽In addition to the use of the auditorium and technical assistance, the library has set up a separate computer among the bookshelves where readers can explore the anthology itself.聽The screen is also projected on the wall above the bookshelves - take a look at the 聽to see how it works, or stop by yourself. In the long term, the library and the research group for electronic literature will work on finding ways to draw electronic literature into the library on a more permanent way, perhaps at work written specifically for this site, a site-specific literary installation.聽

, one of the editors of ELC2 and an key theorist of electronic literature and digital art is currently visiting Digital Culture at UiB as a Fulbright specialist, and will be in Bergen until 18聽May.聽She is Associate Professor of English Literature at the University of Santa Barbara.