Portuguese electronic literature

The inherent complexity of multimodal databases constitutes a challenge in terms of structuring and interoperability. However, it also stimulates the translation of organized data into enhanced and adaptable interfaces. Using the Digital Archive of Portuguese Experimental Literature (www.po-ex.net) as a framework, I will describe possible strategies for curating digital archives, through appropriation and remixing of database assets, allowing artistic and creative re-interpretations of experimental and electronic literature.

(source: abstract repository)

The aim of PO.EX: A Digital Archive of Portuguese Experimental Literature (http://po-ex.net/) is to represent the intermedia and performative textuality of a large corpus of experimental works and practices in an electronic database, including some early instances of digital literature. This article describes the multimodal editing of experimental works in terms of a hypertext rationale, and then demonstrates the performative nature of the remediation, emulation, and recreation involved in digital transcoding and archiving. Preservation, classification, and networked distribution of artifacts are discussed as representational problems within the current algorithmic and database aesthetics in knowledge production.

(source: abstract DHQ)

Funkhouser describes the PO.EX’70-80 project and highlights several elements of the database, praising the taxonomy and preservation/representation of works.

A letter of support of the PO.EX’70-80 project research proposal

Pedro Barbosa recalls in this interview his memories of the first studies and works of electronic literature back in the 1970s when he was a student at the University of Porto. Starting from considerations about his collaborative works he makes a comparison between printed literature tradition and the age of new media focusing on the paradigmatic change of this very transitional period with live in and the differences of the creative work. Furthermore he makes an interesting statement on regard of the aesthetics of new media by comparing works of electronic literature with the oral tradition. In the end he mentions some of the milestones of electronic literature that he considers important.

"Infopoesia ou Poesia Informacional" [Infopoetry or Informational Poetry] was published on October 29, 1987, in the Diário de Lisboa, in the supplement “Ler Escrever.”

This benchmark article helped defining the state-of-the-art of “computational poetry,” by exposing the 1960s creative threads in the works by Nanni Balestrini, Herberto Helder, Margaret Masterman and Marc Adrian, and by additionally introducing new Portuguese and Brazilian authors, such as Pedro Barbosa, Silvestre Pestana, Antero de Alda, Erthos Albino de Souza and João Coelho. Furthermore, it disseminated for a general audience the relevance of computational programming in literary creation, by stressing that, for some authors, “a própria programação [é] o acto de criação poética por excelência, sendo o programa um poema” [the very programming (is) the act of poetic creation par excellence, being the program a poem], which facilitates different outputs.

[Source: Álvaro Seiça, "A Luminous Beam: Reading the Portuguese Electronic Literature Collection" (2015)]

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.