writing-materiality

The initial argument of this essay is absurdly simple, obvious, literal: language must be embodied and thus its particular medium is—literally, ontologically—the matter, the flesh, the materiality of any message that it articulates. Marshall McLuhan urged us to recognize that media signify, that the matter in which the message is embodied also traces differences that were already what we have come to call ‘writing’ in a poststructuralist, Derridean sense: grammatological practices. However, McLuhan’s copula was not ontological. It expressed a concern that these other, parallel messages were more significant than any linguistic message they embodied. This same anxiety has reached a kind of apotheosis in recent criticism of digital literature—from Christopher Funkhouser and Roberto Simanowski—revenant as no less than our ancient fear of cannibalism. The message of the medium literally consumes the materiality of language: its own body, flesh of its flesh. But this cannibalism would only be literal—and thus taboo, thus truly terrifying—if McLuhan’s copula were ontological. The consequences of recognizing that messages are only ever media, that they cannot otherwise be—cannot matter or be matter—has not been sufficiently addressed. There are, perhaps, two coherent approaches to the categorization of media as ‘new’: new media may be programmable (this is a novel property of media as general principle) and/or new media may be materially distinct, in literal substance or by embodying some novel form of interaction with space and time. This essay pursues the materiality of language into new media—thus categorized—critiquing certain aspects of theory, and suggesting certain potentials for the practice of literal art when the Message is (New) Media.

Reflections and predictions of technology's effect on reading and writing In this study, Christian Vandendorpe examines how digital media and the Internet have changed the process of reading and writing, significantly altering our approaches toward research and reading, our assumptions about audience and response, and our theories of memory, legibility, and context. Reflecting on the full history of the written word, Vandendorpe provides a clear overview of how materiality makes a difference in the creation and interpretation of texts. Surveying the conventions of reading and writing that have appeared and disappeared in the Internet's wake, Vandendorpe considers various forms of organization, textual design, the use (and distrust) of illustrations, and styles of reference and annotation. He also examines the novel components of digital texts, including hyperlinks and emoticons, and looks at emergent, collaborative genres such as blogs and wikis, which blur the distinction between author and reader. Looking to the future, reading and writing will continue to evolve based on the current, contested trends of universal digitization and accessibility. (Source: University of Illinois Press.)

Hayles’s book is designed to help electronic literature move into the classroom. Her systematic survey of the field addresses its major genres, the challenges it poses to traditional literary theory, and the complex and compelling issues at stake. She develops a theoretical framework for understanding how electronic literature both draws on the print tradition and requires new reading and interpretive strategies. Grounding her approach in the evolutionary dynamic between humans and technology, Hayles argues that neither the body nor the machine should be given absolute theoretical priority. Rather, she focuses on the interconnections between embodied writers and users and the intelligent machines that perform electronic texts.Through close readings of important works, Hayles demonstrates that a new mode of narration is emerging that differs significantly from previous models. Key to her argument is the observation that almost all contemporary literature has its genesis as electronic files, so that print becomes a specific mode for electronic text rather than an entirely different medium. Hayles illustrates the implications of this condition with three contemporary novels that bear the mark of the digital.

(Source: Publisher's catalog description)