"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
