[NetBehaviour] Electronic Literature 2012

[Alan Sondheim via NetBehaviour]

Electronic Literature 2012

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Posted by sondheim at 1:17PM No comments: Email
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ECO Communique: What is Electronic Literature
ECO Communique: What is Electronic Literature

1. The ECO asks: What is literature? Literature is already a
   matter of the archive, expanding genres, mutable canons.
   Literature is neither necessarily intended nor produced by
   particular species. Literature is either a moment of
   speculation which has been released, or a curtailment of
   loose and fluent ontologies. The epistemology of literature
   has traditionally been the diegetic, the gaze, not the
   glance. Literature perseveres now within the glance.

2. Organisms are electronic, quantum; the digital is slurry;
   inscription is always interactive. Games are literature and
   electronic, films are literature and electronic,
   intentionality entangles with literature when and where
   inscription is. Inscription and culture are entangled;
   culture and literature are entangled.

3. The label of literature is useless because it's extended to
   the breaking-point; the extension attempts conformal mappings
   from past to future. The label of electronic is useless
   because it's immanent; virtual particles fall under the aegis
   of electronic literature, even if uncharged. Just as the
   Higgs field draws out mass, inscription draws out the
   categoric and literature dies and exists on local terrains,
   drawing out the _field_ of literature. To inscribe is to
   augment and divide; to inscribe is to simultaneously negate
   and assert.

4. Any definition falls by the wayside as fast-forward culture
   clutters the imaginary with manifestos and definitions as so
   many uncanny ghosts. The real question (if questions,
   suspensions, are real in the sense that the answer is
   captured prey) is how to observe, absorb, without limitation
   and with a situational criticality that offers, as if
   Vaihinger's as-if, meandering with expectation under erasure.

5. Beyond literature and electronics, there are bodies. Beneath
   literature and electronics, there are bodies. Above
   literature and electronics, there are bodies. Most of the
   bodies are dead, most of the archives are vacant, most of the
   caretakers have disappeared, most of the inscriptions have
   never been read, most of the literature will never have been
   read.

6. The ECO states: The electronic literature of slime molds, of
   dinosaurs, of hemiptera, of prions; the electronic literature
   of cuttlefish, of starlings, of bacteriophages; the
   electronic literature of DNA, RNA, cellular processes.

7. At the limit, the analogic body is digital; at the limit, the
   digital body is analogic. At the limit, the electronic body
   is abject; at the limit, the abject body is electronic. At
   the limit, inscription _may be_ a gathering; at the limit, a
   gathering _may be_ inscription.

8. The ECO insists: A literature without limits is a literature,
   not degree zero, but degree infinite. What is _not_
   literature is already circumscribed, prescribed, a writing.
   Fast-forward culture: what is _not_ literature, _is,_ and
   what _is_ literature, _is not._

9. Special America is electronic literature, arduino is
   electronic literature, choreography is electronic literature,
   the body is electronic literature, makerbot is electronic
   literature; sex is electronic literature. Fastforward IRC,
   Fidonet, BBS, and newsgroups are literature; should they be
   archived?. Should the archive be archived? Should _a
   literature_ be _the literature_ be preserved? Does _a
   literature_ exist? Does literature?

10. THE ECO RECOGNIZES THE CRISIS.

11. Within the ECO - Electro-Cultural Organization, the Crisis
    is central. The Crisis is the literature of the
    becoming-extinguished, of the extinct, of information glut
    and universal controlled-transparency; of the tyranny of
    Fundamental Corporations: Google, Facebook, Apple, [...] of
    the tyranny of colonialism and neocolonialism; of the
    tyranny of the One Percent: of the Drifting Tyranny we
    confront on a daily basis. The ECO is the shadow
    organization of the ELO and is political to the core. The
    ECO acts ON Literature and THROUGH the Electronic. The ECO
    DOES NOT EXIST. LITERATURE DOES NOT EXIST. Posted by
    sondheim at 12:37PM No comments: Email ThisBlogThis!Share to
    TwitterShare to FacebookShare to Pinterest Tuesday, June 26,
    2012


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