Spanish digital literature

This intervention will focus on the circulation of digital literature in the Spanishspeaking context, from a distant reading perspective, analyzing digital literature as information, and its pieces as global artifacts in circulation. The aim is to discover how local processes co-exist and dialogue in a global network that is changing the way that texts are distributed and accessed, and it is modifying the very essence of texts themselves.

I am interested in whether e-lit in Spanish can be “understandable” at a globallevel due to the fact that its works have, in theory, an “unlimited” reach in terms of distribution and reception. Digital literature deals with the globalizing agents of the technological medium itself and of its system of circulation, as well as its technical, linguistic and cultural possibilities. We cannot forget that digital inequality is real, and that it has effects both at the level of production and at the level of reception. We will address if the Spanish language creates a homogeneous community of readers and if Spanish is a good unifying agent for the readers of digital literature. Around what affections and sensibilities have virtual communities of digital literature readers grown up, around what themes, genres, or specific digital creations? Are digital libraries or repositories responsible for creating culturally active reading communities? AreSpanish virtual communities of readers numerous and heterogeneous or, on thecontrary, are they concentrated in large uniform groupings? We will explore in what way the virtual space of Spanish e-lit circulation affect the physical and ubiquitous space with which it overlaps, the “real” territory. As well as if they are intertwined and how they affect each other.

Ciberia: Biblioteca de Literatura digital en Español, a collection of electronic literature works in Spanish created by the LEETHI group (European Literatures from Text to Hypermedia), using OdA 2.0., a learning objects’ repository built by ILSA research team at the Computing Sciences Faculty of the University Complutense of Madrid. Ciberia library emerges from the need to make digital literature in Spanish more visible, report its development, and leave a trail that would compensate for its ephemeral quality. This collection is part of the research carried out by two research groups in Spain: ILSA, which has developed the software, and LEETHI. This library now works as the nucleus of derivate projects that includes a publisher focused on electronic literature creation and on electronic and ciberculture theories and is part of Cell Consortium project.

This  article  presents  “Ciberia”,  a  collection  of  electronic  literature  works  in  Spanish, housed  in  OdA 2.0.,  a  learning  objects‟  repository  of  the  University  Complutense  of  Madrid.  The Ciberia project involves experimentation at the humanistic and technological level, since it deals with the challenge of archiving digitally-born literary works as well as with the archiving process itself, which we  are  carrying  out  in  OdA  2.0,  a  data  management  system  for  the  creation  of  learning  objects repositories  on  the  Web.  OdA  allows  different  researchers  to  work  collaboratively  in  a  simultaneous manner on the data base, they can not only introduce new objects but they can also modify the data model. This entourage  allows us to create taxonomies in an  inductive rather  than deductive manner. The  article  covers  aspects  such  as  the  objectives  of  the  collection,  the  elaboration  of  Ciberia‟s bibliographic  card,  the  process  of  metadata  cleaning  and  reconciliation  with  other  collections  of  the Linked Data cloud, such  as the CELL  Project, and Ciberia‟s research and  pedagogical functions. Moreover, we will showcase some of its most representative literary works as we revise the process of the collection‟s creation.

Ciberia Project has emerged around the creation of Ciberia, a digital archive dedicated to digital literature in Spanish, with the purpose of making its contents more widely shared and fostering community building around digital literature. This project in-tends to function as a platform for a community interested and/or specialized in new creative forms of literary publishing, using the Ciberia database as the confluence point and origin of collective interaction, creation and reflection on digital literature and its ramifications in the field of literary publishing. This paper provides a descrip-tion of the digital library Ciberia, and its spin-off, the web platform Ciberia Project, offering a detailed account of their structure and potentialities.

(Abstract article)

Spanish Digital Literature is now an artistic experimentation field which attracts the attention of many authors, critics and readers every day. Its heartbeat began in the late 90s. During these twenty years the launch of digital literature has coincided with the crises in textuality to which digital media has given rise (Romero López 2012). In addition, the creativity of so-called ‘digital natives’ is an added factor that is giving positive and substantial results (Pressman 2014). The new commitment to digital reading has been enough to bring about a knowledge crisis capable of formulating new socio-cultural changes, innovative ways of disseminating information and novel beliefs, which is what we are already witnessing. This essay shows the forking paths of Spanish digital literature. After the discussion about how digital literature emerged, the new textualities appearing on the digital literary paths will be reviewed.