Performance

As part of a series of language art exhibitions in 2017, the year of documenta 14 (kasselkultur2017.de), Kunsttempel, Kassel, presented „p0es1s – postdigital“. The international exhibition featured artists from eight countries who present 16 current positions of language art in a rendition of the Post-Digital Publishing Archive. Following the opening, there was a closed artists’ round table as well as a performance open to the public with contributions by Mara Genschel, Jörg Piringer and Rui Torres on Sep 14, at 7 p.m. The show has opened a series on „Publishing as Art“ in the Kunsttempel.

The exhibition curated by Friedrich W. Block is part of the „p0es1s“ project which has organized exhibitions and research projects since 1992. The exhibition in the Kunsttempel has focused on current positions of language art labeled ‚post-digital‚ („a term that sucks but is useful“ – Florian Cramer)

"A Toast to the Flash Generation" took place on New Year’s Eve Day to celebrate the genius of the Flash Generation. Over 20 artists of Flash narratives, poetry, and essays will read and performed their works throughout the day via Zoom.

The term, “Flash Generation,” coined by theorist Lev Manovich in 2005, captured the zeitgeist of a new era of cultural production when artists and writers discovered they could express their creativity through movement, images, sound, and words through Flash software. Online journals like Poems That Go, Riding the Meridian, The Iowa Review Web, Caudron & Net, BeeHive, and many others, emerged as leading publishing venues for this new form of born digital media. During the heady period of 1999 to 2009, Flash influenced the development of net art, interactive art, Flash games, and literature, not to mention personal and organizational websites. It wasn’t until the rise of the Apple smart phone at the end of the first decade of the 21st century that Flash’s dominance as a viable form of digital production waned. After December 31, 2020 Adobe will discontinue its support for Flash, and all of this output will be threatened with obsolescence.

This event––besides celebrating the end of an important creative period and showcasing the wonderful Flash e-lit collected by the Electronic Literature Organization in its Repository––aimed to document it for posterity. The recordings and chat collected via Zoom will be held in the ELO Repository, has been made available on the Electronic Literature Lab’s Vimeo account, and will be published in Electronic Book Review.

During the event we provided information about the steps the Electronic Literature Lab is taking to preserve Flash works held in the Electronic Literature Repository and its own digital library. 

At the end of the event, Leonardo Flores, Chris Funkhouser and Dene Grigar lead the Toast to the Flash Generation.

Below is the program of readers/performers, featured works, and URLs to the work:

10:00 a.m.-10:15 a.m. PSTWelcome: Dene Grigar, Anastasia Salter, Mariusz Pisarski

10:15 a.m.-10:30 a.m. PSTAnnie Abrahams (France) “Séparation,” ELC2http://collection.eliterature.org/2/works/abrahams_separation/separation/index.htm

10:30 a.m.-10:45 a.m. PSTDan Waber (US): “Strings,” ELC1https://collection.eliterature.org/1/works/waber__strings/index.html

10:45 a.m.-11:00 a.m. PSTTina Escaja (Spain, US): “Pinzas de metal” (Forthcoming to the Repository)https://www.badosa.com/bin/obra.pl?id=n175

11:00 a.m.-11:15 a.m. PSTKate Pullinger (CAN, UK): “Inanimate Alice: Episode 1,” ELC1http://collection.eliterature.org/1/works/pullinger_babel__inanimate_alice_episode_1_china/index.html

11:15 a.m.-11:30 a.m. PSTDonna Leishman (Scotland): “Deviant: The Possession of Christian Shaw,” TIRWhttp://www.6amhoover.com/xxx/start.htm

11:30 a.m.-11:45 a.m. PSTReiner Strasser (Germany) & Marjorie Luesebrink “– in the white darkness,” ELC1http://collection.eliterature.org/1/works/strasser_coverley__ii_in_the_white_darkness/index.html

11:45 a.m.-12:00 p.m. PSTMaria Mencia, (Spain, UK) “Birds Singing Other Birds’ Songs,” ELC1http://collection.eliterature.org/1/works/mencia__birds_singing_other_birds_songs.html

12:00 p.m.-12:15 p.m. PSTChristine Wilks (UK): “Fitting the Pattern,” ELC2http://collection.eliterature.org/2/works/wilks_fittingthepattern.html

12:15 p.m.-12:30 p.m. PSTClaudia Kozak/Leo Flores: Ana Maria Uribe (Argentina): From “Anipoemas,” TIRWhttps://www.elo-repository.org/TIRweb/tirweb/feature/uribe/uribe.html

12:30 p.m.-12:45 p.m. PSTRui Torres (Portugal): “Amor de Clarice,” ELC2http://collection.eliterature.org/2/works/torres_amordeclarice.html

12:45 p.m.-1:00 p.m. PSTStephanie Strickland (US): “slippingglimpse,” ELC2http://collection.eliterature.org/2/works/strickland_slippingglimpse/slippingglimpse/index.html

1:00 p.m.-1:15 p.m. PST Break

1:15 p.m.-1:30 p.m. PSTClaudia Kozak: Walkthrough of Regina Pinto’s “Museum of the Essential and Beyond That” (Brazil)https://www.elo-repository.org/museum-of-the-essential/

1:30 p.m.-1:45 p.m. PSTJim Andrews (Canada): “Nio,” Turbulence.orghttp://turbulence.org/Works/Nio/

1:45 p.m.-2:00 p.m. PSTAlan Bigelow (US): “This Is Not a Poem,” (Forthcoming to the Repository)https://webyarns.com/ThisIsNotAPoem.html

2:00 p.m.-2:15 p.m. PSTSerge Bouchardon (France): “Toucher,” ELC2http://collection.eliterature.org/2/works/bouchardon_toucher/index.html

2:15 p.m.-2:30 p.m. PST Break

2:30 p.m.-2:45 p.m. PSTRob Kendall (US): “Faith,” Cauldron & Nethttps://elo-repository.org/cauldronandnet/volume4/confluence/kendall/title_page.htm

2:45 p.m.-3:00 p.m. PSTLeo Flores reads David Knoebel (US): “Thoughts Go,” ELC3http://collection.eliterature.org/3/works/thoughts-go/index.html

3:00 p.m.-3:15 p.m. PSTStuart Moulthrop (US): “Under Language,” TIRWhttps://www.elo-repository.org/TIRweb/vol9n2/artworks/underLanguage/index.htm

3:15 p.m.-3:30 p.m. PSTJody Zellen (US): “Disembodied Voices,” Turbulence.orghttp://www.disembodiedvoices.com/

3:30 p.m.-3:45 p.m. PSTErik Loyer (US) and Sharon Daniel (US): “Public Secrets,” ELC2http://collection.eliterature.org/2/works/daniel_public_secrets/index.html

3:45 p.m.-4:00 p.m. PSTJason Nelson (US, AUS): “Game, Game, Game, and Again Game,” ELC2http://collection.eliterature.org/2/works/nelson_game_game_game/gamegame.html

4:00 p.m.-4:15 p.m. PSTDeena Larsen (US): “Firefly,” Poems That Gohttp://elo-repository.org/poemsthatgo/gallery/fall2002/firefly/index.html

4:15 p.m.-4:30 p.m. PSTMez Breeze (AUS): “_Clo[h!]neing God N Ange-Ls_,” Cauldron & Nethttps://elo-repository.org/cauldronandnet/volume2/features/mez/clone/cl…

4:30 p.m.-5:00 p.m. PSTConversation and Toast: Leo Flores, Chris Funkhouser, and Dene Grigar

The appearance of new technologies and their exponential growth for several decades has changed our way of understanding knowledge. Although it is already a topic that is part of the contemporary background, it is worth remembering that digital culture and the possibilities of the internet have meant a radical change, only comparable, according to Alejandro Baricco, to the printing revolution.

The incorporation of the network and transmedia resources into the literary environment is fostering new poetics; new forms of textuality that, according to Joan-Elies Adell, go beyond the book and turn the computer or any mobile device into the natural space of the work. Hypertext, interaction, video game ... The very essence of literature is changing. Writers who think of the word in conjunction with HTML code, geolocation, processing or other programming tools. With their creations they come to expel us from our areas of literary comfort.

We are talking about jobs designed for the network, that new agora. We are talking about hypermedia works that, in contrast to orality or printed tradition, investigate within what Ernesto Zapata defines as electronality. We are talking simply about literature in the post-Gutenberg era.

This event was an interactive cabaret of electronic literature and media commemorating the first anniversary of the Electronic Literature Organization. Performing at the event were Joe Tabbi, Kurt Heintz, Talan Memmott, Bob Holman and others who performed live poetry telematically between New York and Chicago (via dial-up modem!), as well as interactive, collaborative CD-ROMs and video works.