Electronic Literature 2012
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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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