The use of computers as tools of literary and artistic creation has produced further paradigms within literary, language and media studies, but it has also promoted the resurfacing of a series of age-old debates. Digital media and digital technologies have extended the range of multimodal reading experiences, but they have also led us to readdress deep-rooted notions of text or medium. The dynamic network of media, art forms and genres seems to have been once again reconfigured. However, practices and debates that have preceded the emergence of the computer medium have not been discarded. In fact, they have been incorporated into experiences with the medium and have contributed to shaping digital artifacts. The “International Conference on Digital Media and Textuality” aims to examine this process. This conference seeks to move beyond the “old and new” dispute and to help us identify intersections, exchanges, challenges, dead-ends and possibilities. In order to achieve this goal, the panels of this conference are designed to cover multiple topics and fields of research, from media archaeology to teaching in a digital age. This event will be sponsored by the Electronic Literature Organization (ELO, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA). For further information, please visit the conference’s website at https://digmediatextuality.wordpress.com/ or contact the conference chair, Daniela Côrtes Maduro at cortesm@uni-bremen.de.
Panel I – ‘Nothing comes of nothing’ – This panel will be comprised of presentations that link electronic literature with literary, communicative or artistic practices which have preceded and influenced digital forms and genres.
Panel II – Introspective Texts – For this panel, we will accept presentations that focus on the way texts can be self-reflexive and mirror the process of their own creation or reading.
Panel III – Where is narrative? – This panel will be dedicated to ways in which digital media can be used to tell a story or to structure a narrative.
Panel IV – Trans-multi-inter-meta: the medium – This panel will focus on the role of the medium in the production, transmission and understanding of text, as well as on the conditions of media interaction, convergence, and divergence.
Panel V – Teaching the digital – This panel is focused on digital literacy and the teaching of electronic literature.
Panel VI – Tracking and visualizing texts – This panel is dedicated to the collection, archive and preservation of literature. It also aims to address ways of analysing and categorizing large amounts of data.
Between the 3rd and the 5th of November 2016, we will welcome six keynote speakers, attend artist talks, performances and visit one exhibition. The International Conference on Digital Media and Textuality will gather artists/ authors/ scholars/ readers at the Universität Bremen. ICDMT will be comprised of the Exhibition “Shapeshifting Texts”, sponsored by the ADEL (Archive of German Electronic Literature), and an evening of performances sponsored by the Literaturhaus Bremen. All the activities mentioned above are sponsored by the Electronic Literature Organization. In order to fulfil this event, we have received the financial support of the M8 Post-Doc Initiative Plus, Excellence Initiative. These events are part of the “Shapeshifting Texts: keeping track of electronic literature” postdoctoral project.
