An amalgamation of a series of lectures presented at Acadia University, Dalhousie Art Gallery and the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, tracing the influence and use of maps in the web-based works of J. R. Carpenter.
Notions of place pervade my fiction writing and maps have long featured prominently in my web-based electronic literature, operating (often simultaneously) as images, interfaces and metaphors for place. My most recent work involves the mapping my most immediate surroundings, my Montréal neighbourhood, Mile End. Entre Ville [2006] and in absentia [2008].
I moved to Montreal in 1990 and have lived in the Mile End since 1992. I have been using the Internet as a medium for the creation and dissemination of experimental texts since 1993. I made my first web-based writing project in 1995. And I made my first Montreal-based project in 2006. Given my preoccupation with place, why did it take me so long to take up the topic of Montreal in my work?