literary systems

As a first step we propose such an evolutionary structure, the 'docuplex', as the basic storage structure for electronic literature.

The true storage of text should be in a system that stores each change and fragment individually, assimilating each change as it arrives, but keeping the former changes; integrating them all by means of an indexing method that allows an previous instant to be reconstructed.

At an early stage in the 90s, German net literature became a subject of a controversial debate between artists, theorists, and literary critics. A strong community evolved in which net literature was embedded in an infrastructure that made net literature publicly visible. Everything started with a call for a competition whose jury hardly defined what it was looking for; consequently, a critical study on terminologies and definitions unfolded. I regard competitions as public, peer-reviewed mediators for net literature. The advents of the German Pegasus-Award that launched in 1996 were of crucial importance for the community and its emerging field.

“It is remarkable that net literature in Germany has been stronger when its post-processing mechanisms were active: when juries from magazines called for submissions for an award in net literature. In Germany, prizes for works (of net literature) were awarded between 1996 and 1998 (Pegasus) and 1999 (Ettlinger Prize for Literature).

Critics are tasked with not only understanding a work of net literature but also with contextualizing, explaining, and critically discussing it. In Germany, critics from the literary tradition failed in giving an appropriate account to the new emerging field.

Nowadays, only occasionally competitions take place. The honored works are of quality but the impact of these competitions is low and does not reach many recipients. Additionally, there is (almost) no post-processing devoted to works of German net literature anymore. In fact, net literature in Germany became as invisible as its community.