Book (Ph.D. dissertation)

People draw on many diverse sources of real-world knowledge in order to make up stories, including the following: knowledge of the physical world; rules of social behavior and relationships; techniques for solving everyday problems such as transportation, acquisition of objects, and acquisition of information; knowledge about physical needs such as hunger and thirst; knowledge about stories their organization and contents; knowledge about planning behavior and the relationships between kinds of goals; and knowledge about expressing a story in a natural language. This thesis describes a computer program which uses all information to write stories. The areas of knowledge, called problem domains, are defined by a set of representational primitives, a set of problems expressed in terms of those primitives, and a set of procedures for solving those problems. These may vary from one domain to the next. All this specialized knowledge must be integrated in order to accomplish a task such as storytelling. The program, called TALE-SPIN, produces stories in English, interacting with the user, who specifies characters, personality characteristics, and relationships between characters. Operating in a different mode, the program can make those decisions in order to produce Aesop-like fables.

(Source: Author's abstract)

This study has as its main research object the new forms of poetry based on informatics and it is located in the fields of critical theory, hermeneutics, semiotics of the text and digital culture.

These new forms emerging from the meeting of poetry and informatics are collectively called Digital Poetry. Digital poetry – also referred to as E-poetry, short for electronic poetry – refers to a wide range of approaches to poetry that all have in common the prominent and crucial use of computers or digital technologies and other devices. Digital poetry does not concern itself with the digitalization of printed works, it relates to digital texts. This work studies only electronic poems created to be read on the computer accessible online. It offers the close-readings of 35 e-poems in 5 different languages (English, French, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish).

How does electronic poetry deal with the possibilities uncovered by the new digital medium? A medium that easily allows us to redefine the writing space and the reading time; a medium that allows us to include images and sounds alongside the graphic text, adding also motion and creating new kinds of temporalities; and, finally, that allows the text to be reactive and interactive?

The distinction between digital and printed media hides a complex history. A full comprehension of the movement under consideration, as a concept in literature, requires clarification of the historical development from the “movement analogies” in printed literature (innovations in the literary movements and avant-gardes) to the literary innovations (poetic and artistic) in the Internet era.

The thesis has been organized around three deeply interconnected approaches: historical, descriptive and analytic. The first approach judges the “novelty” of the phenomenon within a historical context. The descriptive work to be done on the corpus is fundamental in order to establish a sort of typology of e-poetry and, consequently, to be able to start the analytic work.

The aim of the study is on the one hand to categorize electronic poems in order to make them more approachable and understandable as objects of study; and on the other it is to provide those who are interested in this new area of study with a sort of critical anthology of electronic poetry.

(Source: Author's abstract)

This thesis is about the poetic edge of language and technology. It inter-relates both computational creation and poetic reception by analysing typographic animation softwares and meditating (speculatively) on a future malleable language that possesses the quality of being (and is implicitly perceived as) alive. As such it is a composite document: a philosophical and practice-based exploration of how computers are transforming literature, an ontological meditation on life and language, and a contribution to software studies. Digital poetry introduces animation, dimensionality and metadata into literary discourse. This necessitates new terminology; an acronym for Textual Audio-Visual Interactivity is proposed: Tavit. Tavits (malleable digital text) are tactile and responsive in ways that emulate living entities. They can possess dimensionality, memory, flocking, kinematics, surface reflectivity, collision detection, and responsiveness to touch, etc…. Life-like tactile tavits involve information that is not only semantic or syntactic, but also audible, imagistic and interactive. Reading mediated language-art requires an expanded set of critical, practical and discourse tools, and an awareness of the historical continuum that anticipates this expansion. The ontological and temporal design implications of tavits are supported with case-studies of two commercial typographic-animation softwares and one custom software (Mr Softie created at OBX Labs, Concordia) used during a research-creation process.

This PhD dissertation is about works in which the user is a character in a fictional world, and the interaction that such works allow. What happens when you become a character in the story you're reading?

The concept "ontological interaction" is proposed, which is a form of interaction where the user is included in the fictional world. Kendall Walton's concept of fictional worlds is explored in relation to electronic literature and digital art, and other narratological concepts are also examined, in addition to a general focus on the themes of force and control.

The intentions of this practice-led thesis are to investigate the interplay between Internet based digital narrative, image and interaction, and ultimately develop new practice, which primarily within the experiencing of the artwork articulates a new contribution to the field of study. The dual literature and contemporary practice reviews highlighted this as desired output. The predominant research in the field is not focused on the production of new projects but uses various forms of literary and critical theory to search out new interpretations and structural understanding of the artefacts in question. Similarly the reviews revealed a strong set of visual hegemonies - namely the ascent of neo-minimalism and a preoccupation with the replication of reality. My practice sits between these poles as being a hybrid of detailed line art, handcrafting and popular imagery, and as such, functions with uniqueness. The interstitial paradigm is used to support the practice, as parallels are drawn not only in the aesthetics of the work but also the politic of the communication.

The thesis is organised in three sections, Chapter 1 is theoretically orientated, aimed at defining the context for the practice. Chapter 2 is focussed on the artworks and in the main discusses the thinking behind, development and the production of two new projects -- The Bloody Chamber and Deviant: The Possession of Christian Shaw. Chapter 3 presents the discoveries rooted in the practice, concludes the thesis and finally offers some possible vistas for further research.

The research questions were set-up to investigate the structural and aesthetic possibilities on offer to the practioner when aiming to create artworks that interstitially function on the premise of confutation and resistance whilst still attempting to create a sense of narrative immediacy.

Through a combination of making practice, reflective evaluation and the appraisal of existing artworks I developed a new aesthetic in answer to the research questions. This aesthetic is termed as the "fragital". The fragital is an uncommon pairing of the digital experience -- that being the individualized remote onscreen touch, and the sense of a material and sensitive tangibility. This was used as a means to significantly and emotionally immerse the participant within the multiple state environment, whilst still in the structural accessing of the project, utilising the powers of confusion and disturbance as inherent in interstitial practice.

The culmination of the research and an example of the fragital at work -- is located in the project Deviant: The Possession of Christian Shaw. The artwork is elucidated using critical insights from a group of twelve invited expert participants and an in-depth self-analysis. This group was invited on the basis of their interdisciplinary abilities, personal voice and commitment to my research area. The objective viewpoints of these participants was used not only to aid further understanding of the perception of the project but also to help me as the artist to extract extra arguments, complement my subjective understanding and gain additional contextual insights about my work.

The different strands of the presented research work together to offer new insights into the production and concept of screen-based multiple state environments, and an original artefact Deviant: The Possession of Christian Shaw, which stands as a method to experience the core of research argument. The insights and discoveries as located in this thesis would be of use to other digital narrative practioners and those studying new media art.

(Source: Author's abstract)

Digital Rhetoric and Poetics: Signify Strategies in Electronic Literature explores computational and media-based signifying strategies in electronic literature from the point of view of reading, writing, programming and design, with a focus on the rhetoric and poetics of heavily mediated, multi-modal digital artifacts. With the introduction of images, animations, audio, and the procedural into the area of literary practice it is perhaps no longer sufficient to consider electronic literature within the domain of traditional concepts of rhetoric or poetics. Signification in media-rich electronic literary work occurs across semantic and semiological systems, and technological paradigms. As such, it is important that both practitioner and scholar understand how these attributes of digital media operate poetically and rhetorically, how they facilitate and sometimes undermine meaning-making in electronic literature. Throughout the text many of the complex issues around electronic literature are exposed, and through this reading strategies and potential avenues for new or alternative critical methods are offered. In its breadth of considerations, this dissertation provides a substantial overview of my research interests and involvement in the field of electronic literature for many years. In addition, the dissertation provides something of a chronology of the field from 2000 to 2011, tracing the evolution and emergence of different manifestations of digital rhetoric and poetics. 

(Source: Web Supplement to Digital Rhetoric and Poetics)

This study extends work on notions of space and performance developed by media and poetry theorists. I particularly analyze how contemporary technologies re-define the writing space of digital poetry making by investigating the configuration and the function of this space in the writing of the digital poem. Thus, I employ David Jay Bolter's concept of "topographic" digital writing and propose the term "trans-medial" space to describe the computer space in which the digital poem exists, emerges, and is experienced. With origins in Italian Futurism, the literary avant-garde of the first half of twentieth century, digital poetry extends the creative repertoire of this experimental poetry tradition using computers in the composition, generation, or presentation of texts. Because these poems convey a perception of space as changeable and multiple (made of computer screen and code spaces), this "trans-medial" space is both self-transformative (forms itself as it self-transforms) and transforming (transforms what it contains). Media scholars such as Espen Aarseth and Stephanie Strickland often explain how computer programming makes such digital works become sites of encounter between agencies such as author, text, or readers. Conversely, I show that this "trans-medial" space is also a mediating agent in the performance of the text along with its readers in the sense that it engages in and with the performance of text. I examine three forms of digital poetry: Gianni Toti's video-poetry, Caterina Davinio's net-poetry, and Loss Pequeño Glazier's JavaScript-based poetry. These Italian and United States poet-scholars are leading figures in digital poetry. As scholars, they articulate the theoretical frameworks of this genre in landmark anthologies. As poets, their digital works are similar in that they are indebted to Italian Futurism; and yet they represent distinct visions of and about poetry in new media spaces. I use their works to think through video-graphic spaces, networked spaces, and scripting spaces as expressions of trans-medial space. In this respect, my comparative analysis opens up new venues for the reading of digital poetry by re-fashioning the concept and the function of the writing space of our digitized world.

This dissertation analyzes eLiterature in a multidisciplinary way, considering both the strictly literary aspect and correlated aspects such as the technological and educational ones.

The purpose of this study is to expand on Wayne Booth's work in the Rhetoic of Fiction regarding methods directing readers toward understanding in fiction to include the possibilities for pursuation avaiable in electronic mediums. The story theorizes the the answers to the following: How are writers in electronic spaces appropirating, expanding, and subverting electronic devices honed in print? How has the kairos, or situational context, of electronic spaces been exploited? What new rhetorical devices are being developed in electronic spaces? What does the dialogue between print-based and electronic-based works offers to rhetorical scholars in terms of rhetorical analysis and composition? 

The study analyzes the rhetoric of electronic litearture, creative works composed for display in digital environments. Analysis focuses on works that remediate classic printed literature to electronic publication. Analysis begins with close reading and develops N. Katherine Hayles's theory of media-spesific analysis as well as the Bakhtinian-based concepst of dialogism. The work analyzed fit the definition of electronic liteature posted on the electronic literature webside, that is, "works with important literary aspects that take advantage of the capapilities and contexts provided by the stand-alone networked computer". The study analyzes Shelly Jackson's Patchwork girl; George Hartley's "Madlib Frost Poem, Peter Howard's "Peter's Hiku Generator, Edward Picot's "Thirteen Wys of Looking at a Blackbird", and Helena Bulaja's "Coation Tales of Long Ago". For contast, the study analyzes John Barthes "Click", a printed short story that remediated electronic signinfiers. Six author interviews expand on data gained rhetorical analysis.

The study reveals how inovators in electronic mediums appropriate, expand, and subvert thetorical techniques honed in print-based practices. The study finds that since remediation changes kairos, the act provides an opportunity to understand emerging rhetorical thecniqus responsive to medium. Authors in electronica literature often wed literary techniques to technological possibilities, exploiting the capabilities of the new medium to advance literary and political rhetoric. The study finds that print-based practices linger in electronic publications and that electronic-based practices have become significant to print.    

In this study, I have chosen "hypertext" as the central concept. If we define hypertext as interconnected bits of language (I am stretching Ted Nelson's original definition quite a lot, but still maintaining its spirit, I believe) we can understand why Nelson sees hypertext "as the most general form of writing". There is no inherent connotation to digital in hypertext (the first hypertext system was based on microfilms), but it is the computerized, digital framework - allowing the easy manipulation of both texts and their connections - which gives the most out of it. In addition to the "simple" hypertexts, there is a whole range of digital texts much more complex and more "clever", which cannot be reduced to hypertext, even though they too are based on hypertextuality. Such digital texts as MUDs (Multi User Domains - text based virtual realities) are clearly hypertextual - there are pieces of text describing different environments usually called "rooms" and the user may wander from room to room as in any hypertext. At the same time, however, there are several other functions available for the user, she may talk with other users, write her own rooms, program objects performing special tasks, or, solve problems and collect game points.

 Hypertextuality and hypertext theory do not help us much (if at all) in understanding this kind of textual functionality. For that we need cybertext theory. Cybertextuality is - as Espen Aarseth has defined it - a perspective on all texts, a perspective which takes into account and foregrounds the functionality of all texts. From the cybertextual point of view all texts are machines which perform certain functions and which have to be used in a certain way. Also, the reader may be required to perform some functions in order to be able to read the texts, or, she may be allowed to act as an active participant inside the textual world.

Cybertextuality, then, is not only about digital texts, but because digital form allows much more freedom to textual functionality, there is much more need for cybertext theory in the field of digital texts than in print text. (1) So, keeping in mind cybertextuality is a perspective on all texts, we can use the term cybertext in a more limited sense to refer to functional digital texts - this means that all digital texts are not necessary cybertexts (plain text files like in the Project Gutenberg archives, or, e-texts in pdf format are no more functional than average print texts).

Now we can better define the scope of this study. The theoretical framework is a combination of cybertext theory and more traditional theory of literature. The focus is on hypertext fiction, even though several other text types - digital and non-digital, literary and non literary, fiction and poetry - are also discussed. To deepen the understanding of hypertext fiction and its reading, quite of lot of attention is paid to the evolutionary line of print fiction which seems to be a major influence in the background. That aspect explains the first part of the subtitle, "From text to hypertext", with an emphasis on the transitory phase we are witnessing. On the other hand, the approach is open to the latent aspects of the hypertexts discussed, which already refer to the wider cybertextual properties - because of that the "and Beyond". In the main title, "Digital Literature", literature is used in a narrow ("literary") sense. The method is inductive in that through scrutinizing individual, concrete exmples, a more general understanding of the field is sought after. Through not trying to include all the possible digital text types in this study I aim to be more analytic than descriptive.

This work should be seen as a collection of independent papers - some of them are previously published, some are still waiting for a proper forum. Most of them have started as seminar papers. I have used the opportunity to make some corrections and changes to the articles previously published (mainly to reduce redundancy, or, to add materials cut out from the publications) - thus, the chapters of this study are not identical with published versions.

In the first chapter of this study I will give a description of the various traditions behind digital literature, of characteristic properties of digital literature, and, the basics of cybertext theory. I consider various hypertext studies belonging as a part to the broader category of cybertext theory.

The second chapter, "Hyperhistory, Cybertheory: From Memex to ergodic literature", is an overview of cybertext theory, circling around Aarseth's theory of cybertext and ergodic literature. Various other approaches are discussed, and integrated to the theoretical framework. For understanding cybertext theory, a historical glance to the development of hypertext systems (and ideologies behind them) is necessary. The integration of hyper- and cybertheories is still very much in progress - hopefully this chapter contributes to that integration.

In the third chapter "Replacement and Displacement. At the limits of print fiction", several novels and stories are scrutinized from the cybertextual perspective. The aim of the chapter is to show the various ways in which print fiction has anticipated hypertextual practices.

The fourth chapter, "Ontolepsis: from violation to central device" focusses on the narrative device which I have dubbed ontolepsis. Ontolepsis covers different kinds of "leaks" between separate ontological levels (inside fictional universe). Metalepsis, the crossing of levels of embedded narration, is one type of ontolepses, and certainly so far the most studied one. There is a rather lengthy discussion of fictional ontology, and its relation to narrative levels, because these are essential topics in understanding the phenomenon of ontolepsis in all its forms. A science fiction novel, Philip K. Dick's Ubik, is used as an example, because its multilayered ontology serves perfectly in illustrating the multifarious nature of ontolepsis. In fiction, ontolepses have been seen as violations of certain conventions - the latter part of the chapter discusses how in hypertext fiction ontolepsis has become a central narrative device.

In the fifth chapter, "Visual structuring of hypertext narratives", three hypertexts, Michael Joyce's Afternoon, Stuart Moulthrop's Victory Garden, and Shelley Jackson's Patchwork Girl, are analyzed stressing their navigation interfaces and use of "spatial signification". Narratological questions are also foregrounded.

Chapters six and seven, "Reading Victory Garden - Competing Interpretations and Loose Ends" and "In Search of Califia" form a pair. They are rather lengthy analyses, or, interpretations, of Stuart Moulthrop's Victory Garden, and M. D. Coverley's Califia. In the end of Califia chapter, the question of interpreting hypertexts is discussed. Two forms of interpretative practice, hermeneutics and poetics, seem to have their own roles in regard to hypertexts.

The next chapter, "Negotiating new reading conventions" focusses on reading. In this chapter I'll look at how traditional reading conventions, on the one hand, still inform hypertext reading, and on the other hand, how hypertexts themselves teach new reading habits, and how new reading formations are negotiated.

The final chapter, "Hypertext Fiction in the Twilight Zone" is a kind of summary. It suggest that fiction based on "pure" hypertext may be closing its end, and at the same time, looks at the cybertextual means which have appeared to fertilize the field anew. In the horizon there are computer games, virtual realities and other massively programmed forms towering, but also a possibility for a new literature.

(Source: Author's Abstract)