interactivity

TOC's promotional tease – “You’ve never experienced a novel like this” – became awkwardly literalized when, after a Mac OS update, I could no longer open the novel. The tease inadvertently highlights the obsolescence that locks away so many works of electronic literature from present day readers. Even an exceptional work like TOC – exhibited internationally, prize-winning, the subject of many scholarly articles, underwritten by a university press – is no less subject to the cycles of novelty and obsolescence that render many works of electronic literature only slightly more enduring than a hummingbird. “The accelerating pace of technological change,” N. Katherine Hayles observes, “may indicate that traditional criteria of literary excellence are very much tied to the print medium as a mature technology that produces objects with a large degree of concretization”.

TOC’s adaptation to Apple’s mobile operating system (iOS) in 2014 is an end-run around a “generation” that lasts “only two or three years.” It’s a preservation strategy that achieves its absolute goal of restoring this brilliant, canonical work to readers. But this novel that was once available to anyone running one of the two dominant operating systems (PC and Mac) is now accessible only to people who own or can borrow an iPad, an expensive device that commands less and less of the tablet market share. TOC is too large a file set to load on the more commonly purchased iPhone; Apple doesn’t offer that option. The glutted Apple App Store surpassed 1 million apps for sale in October 2013, which means TOC must vie for smaller slice of the already-niche iOS population alongside productivity apps and unironic variations on Cow Clicker. TOC on desktop possesses an ISBN, which aligns it with books and makes it eligible for sale on sites like Amazon. But only e-book apps are eligible for ISBNs in the App Store, and Apple has a lock on all iOS app distribution.

What does TOC gain and lose in adapting to the iPad? This is rare opportunity to examine a canonical work of electronic literature where the identical content has been ported from desktop to iPad. In doing so, TOC programmer and co-author Christian Jara transformed its reader interface from click to touch, which in the iOS environment is stylized into a lexicon of eight gestures. The reader’s touch is a performance not an “end-point,” as performance theorist Jerome Fletcher puts it; touch is an act of writing that “performs throughout the entire apparatus/device”: story, machine, code, human body and the physical setting in which the performance transpires. TOC on desktop (2009), iPad (2014), and printed short stories (1994, 1996) is a medial evolution that prompts me to propose a device-specific reception history examining what's at stake in porting desktop-born works into the touch-intensive mobile environment.

(soucr: ELO 2015 conference catalog)

E-books, e-book readers, touchscreens and other types of displays do not belong to the realm of fantasy any more, but are an indelible part of our reality. Interactivity is becoming a key ingredient of electronic publications. There are several projects dedicated to children that allow the practicing of important literacy skills, such as language development, story comprehension, sense of the structure, and collaboration in storytelling by playing and experimenting. These activities are crucial to a child’s development.

During middle childhood the most important seems to be a process of development involving increasingly creative use of playing to develop plots and episodes, the transition from individual to group play, the growing importance of language in plot development and the strengthening of links between play and social life. It is important that a child interacts with a book, not just by passively following a story but by participating in its creation upon every encounter. Graphic design should aim at facilitating the linguistic and social development of a child, at the same time stimulating his or her creativity and abstract thinking, as well as supporting the development of fine motor skills, which are all necessary to self-sufficiency.

Therefore this project’s key requirements involve the following aspects – educational, emotional, ergonomic as well as more detailed objectives:

Using gestures to facilitate a child’s development (the development of brain hemispheres, eye-hand coordination, developing abstract thinking).
The opportunity of constructing a variety of stories – a child builds a story by himself or herself, deciding on the plot development.
The use of randomization and surprise elements, where the book becomes a new story, explored by a child at every encounter, but within the preprogrammed framework (beginning-development-ending).

Body mechanisms, which are necessary for the development of handwriting, are autonomy in dressing etc., a proper grip by hand and three fingers (tripod fingers grip), as well as the use of the non-dominant hand to hold paper. Proper positioning of the thumb and two other fingers is crucial for the correct holding of a pencil. This type of grip plays a key role in the mechanisms using fine manipulation.

Autonomy is based on the development of movements made in specific directions: up and down, inside and out, as well as circular. These are the same directions a child must master in order to write letters and digits. In dyspraxia therapy it is advised that “finger games” are used, such as the manipulation of puppets put on fingers, paper clips and clothes pegs (by manipulating these objects a child practices the opposition of a thumb and strengthens the three fingers participating in the pencil grip).

This paper presents the results of a qualitative user study conducted on a group of early readers (aged 6-9) in a primary school in Krakow, Poland, on a sample of 20 children. The presented solution is a new type of plot construction in a publication – an open structure that is not chronological but has some key points (like the beginning and end) predefined. It is also an attempt at using gestures, which are native to software in a way that is beneficial from the point of view of developmental psychology.

The prototypes of a paper and a digital tablet-based book made it possible to check children’s reaction to non-chronological storytelling application and aimed to verify the design principles along with fine motor skills needed to manipulate the objects on touch screens.

The aim of the study was to evaluate whether the paper book might help children learn the use of a more complex, tablet-based book, built using the same principles, but considering the usage of touchscreen and touch gestures. The test also aimed to verify the speed of mastering a user interface when little or no visual hints were provided.

The paper also explains how open structure designs, based on randomized elements, allow the expansion of the genre with educational books, aiming to help develop the young reader’s eye-to-hand coordination and make more engaging stories based on new content.

(Source: ELO 2015 conference catalog)

This dissertation is just one portal into the cyberspace-based virtual world called the "Xenaverse," so named because of its association with the world-wide syndicated television program, "Xena: Warrior Princess." The Xenaverse cannot be contained by this dissertation, but this project seeks to link and merge with the webbed Xenaverse culture in cyberspace. To learn about the Xenaverse you must step through a portal, become immersed and explore, both within and beyond the blurred boundaries of this dissertation, and into the Xenaverse itself.

When you are ready to leave, you will have to find your way out, for just as this hypertextual dissertation has an entry portal, it also has an exit portal, a space for you to debrief and share your thoughts on your way out, to contribute to the ongoing dialogue that is this dissertation web on the Internet.

The Xenaverse will stretch your imagination and disbelief in many ways: in constantly shifting voices and perspectives, through bastardized and parallel timelines, with flawed classical Greek deities, by darkly troubled heroines and their numerous bards, and most of all by the Xenites themselves, who have collectively created this virtual landscape in cyberspace. This dissertation aims to be one sort of tour guide, both describing and analyzing in an effort to understand this space. The journey begins with a single link.

Source: from the opening page to the hypertext-only doctoral dissertation

This presentation explores the theoretical implications of the ways in which text is used within
interactive glass objects. As car windshields, kitchen counters, bathroom mirrors, restaurant
tabletops, and other glass surfaces are increasingly wired to respond to human touch, how does
this change our perception of the text housed therein and what stories does this text tell us about
the state of interactive objects?

This presentation generates new lines of inquiry into the status of “electronic literature” as
writing itself is brought to life in everyday glass objects. The discussion draws evocative
connections between the history of depictions of glass and emergent discourses within the
technology sector that envision glass as holding unique promise for new forms of interaction
between humans, as well as between humans and objects. Examining glass as an object
continually calls our attention to the very thing that is supposed to be transparent yet mitigates
relations between people, information, and machines, as well as between people and their desired
objects and experiences. [.............] Indeed, many interactive glass surfaces
are designed to respond to the natural electricity generated by the human body. Thus, these
technologies not only blur boundaries between humans and machines but also call into question
binary distinctions between subjects and objects.

Our presentation considers the ramifications of text within these objects by examining it within
the terms of object-oriented theory and discussions of material culture, as well as within the
context of ongoing discussions about the intersections between technology and culture. The
presentation has two major components. The first involves a close reading of the narrative of
Corning’s “A Day Made of Glass,” which has received over 22 million views on YouTube during
the past year-and-a-half. The second showcases the presenters’ own collaborative project,
“Thirteen Ways of Looking at Glass.” This is an interactive image/text storytelling project that
takes inspiration from Wallace Stevens’ poem, “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird.” The
interdisciplinary piece explores the nodes where photography about glass and creative writing
intersect. In turn, it generates insight not only into the Corning film but also into the changing
nature of reading within the space of everyday interactive objects.

(Source: Author's introduction)

Digital fiction began by defining itself against the printed book. In so doing, transgression of linearity and the attempt to reduce the authorial presence in the text, were soon turned into defining characteristics of this literary form. Works of digital fiction were first described as fragmented objects comprised of “text chunks” interconnected by hyperlinks, which offered the reader freedom of choice and a participatory role in the construction of the text. These texts were read by selecting several links and by assembling lexias. However, the expansion of the World Wide Web and the emergence of new software and new devices, suggested new reading and writing experiences. Technology offered new ways to tell a story, and with it, additional paradigms. Hyperlinks were replaced with new navigation tools and lexias gave way to new types of textual organization. The computer became a multimedia environment where several media could thrive and prosper. As digital fiction became multimodal, words began to share the screen with image, video, music or icons.
In electronic literature, the emergence of new software and new devices is often followed by the creation of new texts. Head-mounted displays and tracking devices are being used to produce new textual responses. Bodily movement is often treated as the catalyser of these textual responses and the reader is often considered as the creator of a narrative written in real-time. This means that the attempt to offer the reader a participatory role continues to be fostered by electronic literature. In this thesis, digital fiction is described as part of an introspection and self-generating process catalysed by literature. Consequently, these new kind of texts will be defined as part of the ever-evolving field of literature.
While interactivity was often described as a set of physical activities that can interfere with attention, immersion was frequently seen as an uncritical and passive response to the text. Interactivity was used to offer freedom of choice to the reader and to give the reader the opportunity of co-authoring the text. Immersion was, by contrast, considered as the result of a reading experience constrained by authorial intention. In so doing, interactivity was mostly regarded as an antidote of reader’s immersion in the text. However, in this thesis, I will focus on a cooperation rather than a conflict between both. By describing interactivity as a set of cognitive and physical actions on the part of the reader and by defining immersion as a result and origin of these actions, I will demonstrate that immersion and interactivity cannot survive separately. This thesis aims at addressing the relation between immersion and interactivity by taking into account the text’s multimodality and transiency, as well as the ergodic and cognitive work done by the reader.

Rui Torres is Associate Professor at University Fernando Pessoa (UFP) in Porto and also author of several works of digital poetry. In this interview he explains how he started working in this field and where his inspiration comes from. Furthermore he explains why he sees the works of electronic literature as literary experiments and his concept of aesthetics taking in account his privilege for multimedia and the active participation of the readers in the creation of some his works. In the end he makes some considerations about preservation and archiving of works of electronic literature.

This essay analyses the concepts of poeticity and literarity in digital poetry by meains of a comparative analysis of the works by Philippe Bootz, Belén Gache and Óscar Martín Centeno in order to isolate the features that define digital poetry. On the basis of this analysis, the essay then tries to demonstrate which elements of poeticity remain that allow us to continue to classify as poetry its new digital manifestations, and which elements have changed, so as to make us modify the idea of poeticity and to redefine what we have traditionally understood as literature.