Stuart Moulthrop and Dene Grigar
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780262035972
- eISBN:
- 9780262339018
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262035972.001.0001
- Subject:
- Information Science, Communications
Many pioneering works of electronic literature are now largely inaccessible because of changes in hardware, software, and platforms. The virtual disappearance of these works--created on floppy disks, ...
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Many pioneering works of electronic literature are now largely inaccessible because of changes in hardware, software, and platforms. The virtual disappearance of these works--created on floppy disks, in Apple’s defunct HyperCard, and on other early systems and platforms--not only puts important electronic literary work out of reach but also signals the fragility of most works of culture in the digital age. In response, Dene Grigar and Stuart Moulthrop have been working to document and preserve electronic literature, work that has culminated in the Pathfinders project and its series of “Traversals”--video and audio recordings of demonstrations performed on historically appropriate platforms, with participation and commentary by the authors of the works. In Traversals, Moulthrop and Grigar mine this material to examine four influential early works: Judy Malloy’s Uncle Roger (1986), John McDaid’s Uncle Buddy’s Phantom Funhouse (1993), Shelley Jackson’s Patchwork Girl (1995) and Bill Bly’s We Descend (1997), offering “deep readings” that consider the works as both literary artifacts and computational constructs. For each work, Moulthrop and Grigar explore the interplay between the text’s material circumstances and the patterns of meaning it engages and creates, paying attention both to specificities of media and purposes of expression.Less
Many pioneering works of electronic literature are now largely inaccessible because of changes in hardware, software, and platforms. The virtual disappearance of these works--created on floppy disks, in Apple’s defunct HyperCard, and on other early systems and platforms--not only puts important electronic literary work out of reach but also signals the fragility of most works of culture in the digital age. In response, Dene Grigar and Stuart Moulthrop have been working to document and preserve electronic literature, work that has culminated in the Pathfinders project and its series of “Traversals”--video and audio recordings of demonstrations performed on historically appropriate platforms, with participation and commentary by the authors of the works. In Traversals, Moulthrop and Grigar mine this material to examine four influential early works: Judy Malloy’s Uncle Roger (1986), John McDaid’s Uncle Buddy’s Phantom Funhouse (1993), Shelley Jackson’s Patchwork Girl (1995) and Bill Bly’s We Descend (1997), offering “deep readings” that consider the works as both literary artifacts and computational constructs. For each work, Moulthrop and Grigar explore the interplay between the text’s material circumstances and the patterns of meaning it engages and creates, paying attention both to specificities of media and purposes of expression.
James Leach and Lee Wilson
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- September 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780262027168
- eISBN:
- 9780262322492
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262027168.003.0012
- Subject:
- Business and Management, Information Technology
This chapter draws together contributions to the volume Subversion, Conversion, Development. Cross-Cultural Knowledge Encounter and the Politics of Design to make several novel arguments in relation ...
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This chapter draws together contributions to the volume Subversion, Conversion, Development. Cross-Cultural Knowledge Encounter and the Politics of Design to make several novel arguments in relation to the design and use of ICT’s. Firstly, we note that while attention in new media studies has focussed on the use and reuse of content and meaning, the studies collected here offer a consideration of hardware and technology's potential for re-purposing, redesign, even subversion, in its uptake by different users. But for this to make positive sense, attention must be given to the different value systems, interests, and cultural worlds in which people live. We focus on the theme of knowledge, arguing that all knowledge is local knowledge, and as such, is both vulnerable to, and informative for, the designers of technologies. Imaginaries are highlighted as guiding design and use, and holding possibilities for important innovations and developments of appropriate technologies. The issue of reuse and redesign is approached through an idea of open technology, guided by actual knowledge of different ways of knowing and modes of life.Less
This chapter draws together contributions to the volume Subversion, Conversion, Development. Cross-Cultural Knowledge Encounter and the Politics of Design to make several novel arguments in relation to the design and use of ICT’s. Firstly, we note that while attention in new media studies has focussed on the use and reuse of content and meaning, the studies collected here offer a consideration of hardware and technology's potential for re-purposing, redesign, even subversion, in its uptake by different users. But for this to make positive sense, attention must be given to the different value systems, interests, and cultural worlds in which people live. We focus on the theme of knowledge, arguing that all knowledge is local knowledge, and as such, is both vulnerable to, and informative for, the designers of technologies. Imaginaries are highlighted as guiding design and use, and holding possibilities for important innovations and developments of appropriate technologies. The issue of reuse and redesign is approached through an idea of open technology, guided by actual knowledge of different ways of knowing and modes of life.
Anna Dezeuze
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780719088575
- eISBN:
- 9781526120717
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719088575.003.0002
- Subject:
- Art, Art History
For Arendt, the fragile balance between labour, work and action that lies at the heart of the human condition was fundamentally endangered by the planned obsolescence characteristic of the new ...
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For Arendt, the fragile balance between labour, work and action that lies at the heart of the human condition was fundamentally endangered by the planned obsolescence characteristic of the new post-war consumer capitalism. Artworks displaying a ‘junk’ aesthetic produced on the East and West Coasts of the United States in the period between 1957 and 1962 can be read in light of Arendt’s perspective, which intersected with both sociological critiques of the new capitalism and the writings of Zen master D.T. Suzuki and other popularisers of Zen Buddhism. Jack Kerouac’s 1958 novel The Dharma Bums resonated with both critiques of consumer society and newly discovered Zen alternatives. This chapter outlines some of the links between Kerouac’s Beat aesthetic and the assemblage and happenings of the early 1960s, by analysing the reception of landmark exhibitions such as The Art of Assemblage in 1961, and the practices of Robert Rauschenberg, Claes Oldenburg, Bruce Conner and Allan Kaprow.Less
For Arendt, the fragile balance between labour, work and action that lies at the heart of the human condition was fundamentally endangered by the planned obsolescence characteristic of the new post-war consumer capitalism. Artworks displaying a ‘junk’ aesthetic produced on the East and West Coasts of the United States in the period between 1957 and 1962 can be read in light of Arendt’s perspective, which intersected with both sociological critiques of the new capitalism and the writings of Zen master D.T. Suzuki and other popularisers of Zen Buddhism. Jack Kerouac’s 1958 novel The Dharma Bums resonated with both critiques of consumer society and newly discovered Zen alternatives. This chapter outlines some of the links between Kerouac’s Beat aesthetic and the assemblage and happenings of the early 1960s, by analysing the reception of landmark exhibitions such as The Art of Assemblage in 1961, and the practices of Robert Rauschenberg, Claes Oldenburg, Bruce Conner and Allan Kaprow.
