genre discussion

Pedro Barbosa recalls in this interview his memories of the first studies and works of electronic literature back in the 1970s when he was a student at the University of Porto. Starting from considerations about his collaborative works he makes a comparison between printed literature tradition and the age of new media focusing on the paradigmatic change of this very transitional period with live in and the differences of the creative work. Furthermore he makes an interesting statement on regard of the aesthetics of new media by comparing works of electronic literature with the oral tradition. In the end he mentions some of the milestones of electronic literature that he considers important.

In recent years, the field of digital poetry had at least three major critical monographs
discussing the genre and its state-of-the-art. Loss Pequeño Glazier (2002), Brian Kim
Stefans (2003) and Christopher T. Funkhouser (2007) have not only introduced new
critical perspectives, but have also discussed the genre’s problematic definition and its
denominations’ variety: e-poetry, cyberpoetry and digital poetry.
Considering Theo Lutz’s Stochastische Texte (1959) as the first work of
programmable poetry, one should note the genre’s long history of practice in spite of
its shorter history of critical writing. Therefore, the way authors have been coining
and defining the genre itself claims for a theorization standpoint and helps shaping the
field towards a specific path and perhaps a crystalized historical construction.
Do the referenced terms position their authors in a similar flow of thought? By
following a concept’s trajectory and the author’s choice, one must consider the fact
that its crystallization will shape future critical writing. In this sense, it is important to
discuss this diversity and track important differences. Therefore, I argue that one
needs to identify an option towards genre definition and keep a solid and accountable
reference to it. For that matter, I find digital poetry a suitable concept to adopt when
considering works of poetry that take advantage of networked and programmable
media.

In this interview Michael J. Maguire also known as clevercelt writes about his development in the field of electronic literature both as creative writer and academic scholar. He gives some insights into the work of programming, his interest for computer games and the Phd thesis. The interview stands out for the many references to other authors.

TheCoevas Strumentist di Parole is an group of authors or, as they define themselves, a literary band which created an interactive novel called TheCoevasIo interattivo (TheCoevas I interactive). The novel which was published in 2011 on the blog of the authors is accompanied by a medium-length documentary and is also published in form of printed book. Another characteristic of the novel is the variety of the online versions: iWork Apple, Powerpoint and pdf. As they explain in the interview, the project as a whole is conceived as an experiment of different ways of expressions and the work of writing is similar to the musical composition of a band. The very freedom of creativity is granted to the readers who can choose various audio-visual effects and narrative paths following their emotional and individual choices according to the demands of extemporaneity.