presentation

This 20-minute presentation highlights research conducted as a Fellow in the MIT Open Documentary Lab developing a methodology and software for parsing linguistic and semantic information from vast quantities of audio and video files for playback and synchronization across networked computers. The presentation will focus on the expressive potential of this methodology to create new forms of multi-modal digital poems. The goal of this research is to extend recent advances in computational text analysis of written materials to the realm of audio and video media for use in a variety of different language centered media production contexts. This methodology and software provides the ability to parse vast quantities of audio and video files for topics, parts of speech, phonetic content, sentiment, passive/active voice and language patterns and then playback the video or audio content of the search for consideration in an aesthetic context. Queries that are intriguing can be saved and sequenced for playback as a poetic remix of linguistic patterns on one or multiple monitors. For instance, an e-lit poet can create a database of hundreds of audio recordings of poems from the Poetry Foundation and parse the recordings for moments of alliteration; the search can then be played back as a generative remix of alliterations across decades of poems and poets. This new composition could then be sequenced across multiple computers in a gallery setting and spatialized with speakers playing in different locations in a room; imagine the alliteration example above but coming from a dozen locations in a gallery, sometimes the samples playing in a sequence around the room, sometimes all at once with the same phrase other times with pairs of speakers triggering simultaneously. The poetic possibilities that can be explored between the choice of material for the database, the choice of linguistic and semantic parsing and choice of spatial configurations (how many playback devices, where are they located) can foster intriguing new forms of e-literature. To make the concepts concrete I will illustrate the research with video documentation from a recent digital poem I created with the work that uses Youtube typography tutorials as its source material for a sixteen-computer composition. This humorous work demonstrates the multimodal aspect of the research. For example, when parsing for parts of speech like a superlative adjective in the Youtube tutorial database, the visual content of the word the author is constructing in their Adobe Illustrator interface is visually displayed; creating an aural and visual combination that has both sonic and graphic impact. The presentation will provide an overview of the process for making this form of digital poem as well as demonstrate creative applications of the research.

In this presentation, the author argues that we should “mind the gap” between screen and skin, especially where it eclipses the precarious identities vulnerable within our hegemonic cultures. The contact zone where users interface with electronic media is actually constructed out of far more political scaffolding than people often recognize. Though “user friendly” assumptions reinforce the invisible logic of idealized interfaces open to all, the realities of social conditions which contextualize those technologies should make us rethink who the “user” really is. How has the threshold of the interface become a barrier for them? The presentation investigates how precarious identities, such as the indigenous and the queer, must navigate the contested boundaries of language and embodiment through electronic literature as haptic media. Caleb Andrew Milligan begins by considering how Jason Edward Lewis plays out politics upon the surface of the touchscreen. With help from Lori Emerson’s critique of the iPad, he argues that Lewis’s Poetry for Excitable [Mobile] Media is furthermore Poetry for Ephemeral [Maintainable] Media, as it relies upon digital technology vulnerable to what Terry Harpold terms the “upgrade path” and its movements toward eventual inoperability. He argues that this feature is an intentional subversion on Lewis’s part (himself part Cherokee, Hawaiian, and Samoan) as an aboriginal design practice which explores through the medium’s ephemerality an aesthetic of materialized erasure—the erasure, that is, of aboriginal cultures in the face of forced assimilation into Canadian cultures. As Lewis poetically performs the precarity of identity-through-language upon precarious platforms that kill more electronic literature than they preserve now, we are left with only the fleeting sense of touch that connects (soon to be only connected) us to his appoems. He then considers the just as ephemeral haptics of Porpentine’s With Those We Love Alive. As a beautifully brutal examination of escape from toxic cultures, Porpentine’s Twine game literally escapes the confines of the screen as it encourages players to draw symbols upon their skin that correspond with the narrative beats. Beyond just the quick clicks of hypertextual interaction, players actually have to feel the physical prick of inscripting themselves, and join in the game’s cycle of pain. Combining the work of Anastasia Salter and Bridget Blodgett on toxic geekdom with Jaishree K. Odin’s on feminist hypertext, he considers Porpentine’s precarious identity as a trans woman game developer in artistic opposition to a digital climate of “Gamergaters.” Her work reaches outside of norms and touches where other texts flatly cannot go. He draw in Diogo Marques’s claim that our skin is just as much interface as screen to finally consider the ephemerality of Porpentine’s text as well, once the hand-drawn markings are washed away. The embodied art fades, and the Twine game’s intoxicatingly violent world of language remains. The presentation ends to question how we are similarly just as ephemeral as the gestures and drawings of these electronic literary texts. The “touchy” subjects between screen and skin that these works explore highlight the precarious identities that cultures often aim to erase. Electronic literature as haptic media helps us to get in touch with these overlooked lives, and to not only mind the gap, but to stick our fingers in it.

Source: https://sites.grenadine.uqam.ca/sites/nt2/en/elo2018/schedule/1124/Betw…

Electronic literature is a term that encompasses creative texts produced for printed media which are consumed in electronic format, as well as text produced for electronic media that could not be printed without losing essential qualities. In this paper we propose that works of electronic literature, understood as text (with possible inclusion of multimedia elements) designed to be consumed in bi or multi-directional electronic media, are evolving to become n-tier information systems. By "n-tier information system" we understand a configuration of components clearly separated in at least three independent layers: data (the textual content), process (computational interactions) and presentation (on-screen rendering of the narrative). In this paper, we build two basic arguments. On the one hand, we propose that the conception of electronic literature as an information system exploits the essence of electronic media, and we predict that this paradigm will become dominant in this field within the next few years. On the other hand, we propose that building information systems may also lead in a shift of emphasis from one-time artistic novelties to reusable systems. Finally, we show that this type of systems is impossible to archive with current approaches in the field, and offer a solution for the preservation of this type of works.

(Source: ELO 2008 site)

This paper presentation will be based on a 6­month long exploration of electronic literature
designed for children or that may appeal to children. This survey of the field will be conducted
publicly using I ♥ E­Poetry as a platform and structure for publication of weekly reviews of works,
which will result in a dataset of 15­20 works.
As a father of two children­­ a 4 year old boy and a 6 year old girl­­ I will have an ideal test
audience for the works. In addition to reading and critically appraising the works myself, I will also
invite my children to play, read, and interact with the works so I can observe their reactions and
receive their input when writing my reviews. The platforms I will be focusing on will be iOS (we
own iPhones, iPod Touch, and an iPad), Android (I own a Nexus 7), and the LeapPad Ultra
system of tablets designed for children. The affordances and constraints of these systems will
be of interest for my analysis.
For this exploration, I will define e­literature broadly and may include video games, interactive
e­books, apps, and more, as long as there is a significant engagement with language in digital
media. I will also present a selection of e­lit works, such as iOS apps created by Jody Zellen and
Jörg Piringer, to my children and observe their response to the works.
The resulting series of entries will draw attention to the topic and lead to insights on the current
state of e­literature for children. The paper and presentation will organize those thoughts into a
clear hypothesis, discuss a selection of e­lit works, and draw conclusions from the data. (Source: Authors abstract)

This presentation uses Chimamanda Adichie’s lecture The Danger of Single Story as a starting point to discuss how new media technologies can be used to counteract the simplistic narratives typically assigned to marginalized communities and allow for a more nuanced depiction. By examining two of the presenter’s multiformat, multi-year, transmedia documentary projects: Closer: A Journey with Charles and Punk Rock Mommy: Ephemeral the question of complexity versus economy will be addressed. The discussion will address: creative process, strategies for shared authorship that provide the subject with agency, justification for the technological variety, and respond to the challenges of this approach. With multiple channels containing varied information some viewers/readers/participants become disinterested where others find themselves immersed in the narrative. Mainstream audiences sometimes prefer the minimal investment required by a narrative where the text clearly states how one should feel about a subject. The abundance of simple stories that extol stereotypes or clichés for the sake of efficiency and expressing a convenient narrative (even if it is a “positive” depiction) is potentially damaging to our ability to empathize with human beings who encompass multiple layers along with fluctuating moods and attitudes. An open text that mirrors the complexity inherent in all human beings invites engagement on a deeper level. What we need are stories that embrace the variability that makes us human. The practice of engaging in challenging narratives requires a flexibility and patience that provides practice for empathetic and patient engagement with the non-mediated human beings we encounter in the flesh.

(source: author's abstract)

In tandem with this installation, we propose to present an approximately ten-minute-long collaborative theoretical paper entitled ‘ə-măn’yoo-ĕn’sĭs.’ BRIEF DESCRIPTION āmanuēnsis is a Latin word derived from ab + manus, or “by hand.” Originally used to refer to slaves, the word was later applied specifically to personal secretaries. We (Claire Donato and Timothy Terhaar) work as freelance amanuenses in Brooklyn, NY.
Our presentation will be twofold, taking on the form of both a scholarly presentation and an onsite installation. Throughout the conference, we will set up and run an on-site transcription booth.
Conference attendees will be invited to sit for exactly five minutes at the booth, to be monitored
by a timer. Each participant will be expected to assume the position of the Source in producing
dictation. At the end of the five-minute session, the participant will receive a hard copy of his or her document.

In addition to the on-site transcription booth, we plan to present a theoretical paper composed
using two compositional processes, which we are calling bimanuensis and anuensis. Via
bimanuensis, each of us will try to verbally articulate a theory of the process of transcription while
the other takes dictation. Via anuensis, we will directly appropriate language from documents
we’ve been paid to transcribe. Responding to the material and immaterial demands of transcription
processes, our presentation will alternately mimic and comment upon the cybernetic relationship
between the transcriptionist, the medium, and the Source (the employer, either embodied or
represented by a recording). We will argue that the position of transcriptionist exemplifies a
teleological form of becoming-machine that all laborers are imagined to aspire toward within
capitalist ideology. The transcriber, we will posit, inhabits a digital body that exists on a continuum
between pure receptivity, or total constraint (vis-à-vis the ‘exact’ reproduction of text), and
flexibility (vis-à-vis some notion of ‘accurate’ reproduction of text). Ultimately, we hope to build
upon existing theories of virtual bodies (N. Katherine Hayles), fractalized labor (Franco “Bifo”
Berardi), and feedback (Friedrich Kittler, Lawrence Weiner) while employing a non-traditional
presentation format that speaks directly to the conference theme of ‘affordances and constraints.

(Source: Author's abstract, 2012 ELO Conference site)