The Human Problem

The video-essay features interviews with 17 electronic literature scholars and practitioners including Mark Amerika, Simon Biggs, Serge Bouchardon, J. R. Carpenter, John Cayley, Cris Cheek, Maria Engberg, Jerome Fletcher, Maria Mencia, Nick Montfort, Jörg Piringer, Jill Walker Rettberg, Scott Rettberg, Alexandra Saemmer, Roberto Simanowski, Christine Wilks, Jaka Železnikar. The production method for the video-essay is interesting in that the questions being asked of the interviewees are never explicitly pronounced. Rather, the video is divided into sections based on the general themes Futures and Foci, Platforms and Politics, The Human Problem, Senses and Screens, Reading and Writing. The answers given by the various interviewees are wide-ranging and address issues as diverse as the future of electronic literature, the ownership of data, the roles of author and scholar, and the issue of national models of electronic literature. What emerges from the video-essay is a sense of the dynamism and complexities that make up electronic literature as a field. (Source: ELO 2015 Catalog)