Audience

This is an open session designed to build understanding of evolving contexts and conditions for making and presenting creative works by drawing upon the experiences of those involved both with making works for arts contexts and with curating exhibitions and other arts-venue contexts. The session will invite current and past ELO arts committee leaders, including ELO members involved in the ELO new Media Arts Committee, and gallery curators to help lead the open conversation. The open forum will share knowledge and develop new ideas about making and staging works for the public sphere. The open session may confront practical, theoretical, and perhaps even ideological and political issues, conditions and their cultural paradigms.

(source: ELO 2015 conference catalog)

This presentation focuses on curating electronic literature as a critical practice. Exhibits focusing specifically on Electronic Literature have been mounted at galleries, libraries, universities, convention spaces, and parks and other outside venues. The Electronic Literature Organization’s 2012 Media Art Show, for example, hosted exhibits in five different locations in Morgantown, including a community arts center, local gallery, the university library, a department’s conference room, and the city’s amphitheater, while the MLA 2012 and 2013 exhibits were held at the Washington State and Hynes convention centers, respectively. Exhibits of Electronic Literature are planned for U.S. Library of Congress in April 2013 and Illuminations gallery at University of Ireland Maymooth in March 2014, and in various locations in Bergen, Norway in fall 2015. This range of venues suggests a flexibility and appeal of Electronic Literature that is both scalable and broad. With these qualities in mind, the presentation will discuss questions including but not limited to:

*How is curating an exhibit of Electronic Literature different from curating other types of media/computer-based art?
*What is needed for preparing and, therefore, better educating audiences who visit Electronic Literature exhibits?
* How can we (or do we even need to) interest critics in reviewing Electronic Literature?
* What are some of the best practices we can use for mounting shows of Electronic Literature?

Look up the book's content: http://www.gbv.de/dms/bowker/toc/9781577663188.pdf

Understanding the processes of rhetorical criticism--the systematic investigation and explanation of symbolic acts and artifacts--creates opportunities for more effective communication. When we are aware of the various options available in the construction of messages and how they function to produce effects, we have the tools needed to question the messages in artifacts rather than responding uncritically. Sonja Foss, who has an enviable talent for synthesizing complex rhetorical concepts and processes into clear explanations, presents nine methods of rhetorical criticism. She carefully explains and illustrates the theory behind each method with abundant examples of applications. Interesting and lively essays, some written by students, encourage readers to develop their critical skills. Useful bibliographies list additional samples for each type of criticism. Rhetorical criticism is not a process confined to a few assignments in a rhetorical or media criticism course. It is an everyday activity we can use to understand our responses to symbols of all kinds and to create our own symbols to generate the responses we desire.

Also by Sonja K. Foss and available from Waveland Press:

with Karen A. Foss and Robert Trapp, Contemporary Perspectives on Rhetoric, Third Edition (ISBN 9781577662051);

with Karen A. Foss and Cindy L. Griffin, Feminist Rhetorical Theories (ISBN 9781577664963); with Mary E. Domenico and Karen A. Foss, Gender Stories: Negotiating Identity in a Binary World (ISBN 9781577667919);

with Karen A. Foss, Inviting Transformation: Presentational Speaking for a Changing World, Third Edition (ISBN 9781577667216);

with Karen A. Foss and Robert Trapp, Readings in Contemporary Rhetoric (ISBN 9781577662068);

with Karen A. Foss and Cindy L. Griffin, Readings in Feminist Rhetorical Theory (ISBN 9781577664970).

Titles of related interest also available from Waveland Press: Hauser, Introduction to Rhetorical Theory, Second Edition (ISBN 9781577662211) and Sillars-Gronbeck, Communication Criticism: Rhetoric, Social Codes, Cultural Studies (ISBN 9781577661719).