Article in an online journal

This paper explores collaborative processes in electronic literature. Specifically, it examines writer authority as it applies to text, code, and other media. By drawing from cinematic auteur theory, Mitchell’s Picture Theory (1994), Said’s Beginnings: Intention and Method (1975), Cayley’s Grammalepsy (2018), and Flores’s (2019) generational approach to digital literature, this paper highlights unique issues that arise in the creative collaborative production of digital literary works, and the influence these processes have on how these works are ‘read’. The creative processes employed in Montfort, Rettberg, and Carpenter’s respective Taroko Gorge, Tokyo Garage, and Gorge (2009), Jhave’s ReRites (2017–2018), and Luers, Smith, and Dean’s novelling (2016)), as well as reflections on the author’s own collaborative creative experiences (Paige and Powe (2017) with Lowry and Lane, Little Emperor Syndrome (2018) with Arnold, and V[R]erses (2019–) with Breeze) are explored in detail. From these analyses, this paper concludes that in digital literary practices code should be regarded as a meta-authority that denotes authority to specific components of the work. A better understanding of these complexities as they apply to attribution is emphasised in the future development of digital literary creative practice and education.

The New River has been around for over 20 years, and in that time the digital world, and our readers' familiarity with that world, has changed drastically. In this year's Spring issue we take a moment to appreciate what still works from back in the early days of new media and the possibilities offered to us by its future.

We have been lucky enough to receive submissions from several past contributors this reading period, and have a pretty packed issue.

(Source: https://www.cddc.vt.edu/journals/newriver/17Fall/editor.html)

The world as we know it is changing: drones can deliver burritos, cars can drive themselves, all movies are remakes, and our middle school math teachers were all wrong – we do always have a calculator in our pocket. Welcome to the future! We’re talking about your smartphone. These small rectangular devices have affected nearly every aspect of our lives. New media is no exception. For this issue, we have curated a collection of pieces, both desktop and mobile, that exemplify all that new media has to offer in this future we live in.

(Source: https://www.cddc.vt.edu/journals/newriver/18Spring/editor.html)

When you consider that writing as a form hasn’t really changed all that much since The Epic of Gilgamesh, some 4,000 years ago, what’s occurring in the world of new media becomes that much more impressive. Digital writing is already able to do things that authors aspired towards for years; incorporating visuals, music, and sound, as well as interacting directly with audience. In this issue we’ve tried to put forth work that exemplifies the wide range new media is capable of.

(Source: https://www.cddc.vt.edu/journals/newriver/18Fall/editor.html)

I reflect on this edition I think about one of the major contemporary political issues of our time that reaches into the past and into the future.

Nature. The Earth. Climate. The human body. The human soul.

Many of these pieces evoke the cries of the earth under the scorching fury of our activity as humans. These pieces speak to the earth and the earth speaks back to them, creating a dialogue that begins in the soil and moves into the soul. Earth to Human. Human to Human. Human back to the Earth. I see these pieces, in collection, as a journey from the soil into the human mind. And if we are to regard media as a means of communication between humans, we can therefore understand how new media is an apt form of art for reflecting the current dissonance between the earth and the people who call it home: technology has both bridged the distance between humans, allowing us to communicate with people across the globe, as well as being the force that has damaged people’s lives; we as humans have a better understanding of the earth and its physical and biological systems than generations before us, while also almost unable to hear its cries—or, rather, we are not ready to truly listen.

(Source: http://thenewriver.us/editors-note-for-the-new-river-fall-2019/)

In some ways, the COVID-19 pandemic brought us closer to the mission of The New River, even as it pushed our meetings apart. Since the beginning, The New River has dedicated a platform to emerging and established artists working at the intersection of digital art and literature. Excellent execution has always been one of our top priorities, along with innovative ideas and user-friendly engagement. We aim to challenge passive readership—a symptom of overindulgent screen time and existential Googling. The artists we have selected for the Spring 2020 issue of The New River compliment this vision and complicate the questions “what is art?” and “who is it for?”

The reform ignited by digital media provided strong impetus to literary transformation at the turn of century in China. The market‐led rise of online literature has destroyed the balance of traditional literature and resulted in a fundamental digital readjustment of the overall literary structure. The fourth medium, with its irresistible technological force, has led to a large‐scale literary shift towards “being digital,” thereby changing literary traditions of existence and expression. Such being the case, we need to clarify digital media's dual function of “deconstruction” and “construction” in this literary shift so as to input new ideas from a different academic perspective into literary theory of the digital era, turn digital media's challenge to tradition into a chance for literary innovation and make the new media into a powerful driving force and effective resource for Chinese literature in the new century.

In her article "Electronic Literature in China" Jinghua Guo discusses how the reception and the critical contexts of production of online literature are different in China from those in the West despite similar developments in digital technology. Guo traces the development of Chinese digital literature, its history, and the particular characteristics and unique cultural significance in the context of Chinese culture where communality is an aspect of society. Guo posits that Chinese electronic literature is larger than such in the West despite technical drawbacks and suggests that digitality represents a positive force in contemporary Chinese culture and literature.