Regresando ..

Luego de una larga pausa.. retomo la actividad en mi blog.

Entre las novedades figuran el ingreso al grupo de investigación Hermeneia. Es un orgullo poder compartir la investigación y el desarrollo de nuevas ideas con mis colegas de  universidades catalanas, españolas, otros países de Europa y las Américas.

Entre otras noticias se destaca la publicacion de la publicación de la antología  Electronic Literature Collection  Volumen 2.

Este volumen cuenta con obras en una variedad de idiomas entre ellos el catalán, español y el portugués. Destacando así la heterogeneidad de este volumen.

Obras electrónicas en español

Back after a long… break on my blog. I just wanted to share with you the call for submissions for the Electronic Literature Collection, Vol. 2 .

It is a great opportunity to expose your elit work in Spanish which is going to be read by some of the most well known elit writers and literary critics. Hopefully your work will be published and it will help to spread the outstanding work of today’s  Spanish speaking elit writer.

Here’s the call as sent to me by my colleague Mark Marino

Electronic Literature Collection, Vol. 2 — Call for Work (9/30/08)

The Electronic Literature Organization seeks submissions for the
Electronic Literature Collection, volume 2. We invite the submission
of literary works that take advantage of the capabilities and contexts
provided by the computer. Works will be accepted from June 1 to
September 30, 2008. Up to three works per author will be considered;
previously published works will be considered.

The Electronic Literature Collection is a biannual publication of
current and older electronic literature in a form suitable for
individual, public library, and classroom use. Volume 1, presently
available both online (http://collection.eliterature.org) and as a
packaged, cross-platform CD-ROM, has been used in dozens of courses at
universities in the United States and internationally, and has been
widely reviewed in the United States and Europe. It is also available
as a CD-ROM insert with N. Katherine Hayles' full-length study,
Electronic Literature: New Horizons for the Literary (University of
Notre Dame Press, 2008).

Volume 2, comprising approximately 50 works, will likewise be
available online, and as a cross-platform DVD in a case appropriate
for library processing, marking, and distribution. The contents of the
Collection are offered under a Creative Commons license so that
libraries and educational institutions will be allowed to duplicate
and install works and individuals will be free to share the disc with
others.

The editorial collective for the second volume of the Electronic
Literature Collection, to be published in 2009, is Laura Borràs
Castanyer, Talan Memmott, Rita Raley and Brian Kim Stefans. This
collective will review the submitted work and select pieces for the
Collection.

Literary quality will be the chief criterion for selection of works.
Other aspects considered will include innovative use of electronic
techniques, quality and navigability of interface, and adequate
representation of the diverse forms of electronic literature in the
collection as a whole. For volume 2, we are considering works of
electronic literature in video.

Works submitted should function on both Macintosh OS X (10.5) and
Windows Vista. Works should function without requiring users to
purchase or install additional software. Submissions may require
software that is typically pre-installed on contemporary computers,
such as a web browser, and are allowed to use the current versions of
the most common plugins.

To have a work considered, all the authors of the work must agree that
if their work is published in the Collection, they will license it
under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0
License, which will permit others to copy and freely redistribute the
work, provided the work is attributed to its authors, that it is
redistributed non-commercially, and that it is not used in the
creation of derivative works. No other limitation is made regarding
the author's use of any work submitted or accepted.

To submit a work, prepare a plain text file with the following information:

   * The title of the work.
   * The names and email addresses of all authors and contributors of the work.
   * The URL where you are going to make your .zip file available for
us to download. The editorial collective will not publish the address
of this file.
   * A short description of the work — less than 200 words in length.
   * Any instructions required to operate the work.
   * The date the work was first distributed or published, or
"unpublished" if it has not yet been made available to the public.

Prepare a .zip archive including the work in its entirety. Include the
text file at the top level of this archive, and name it
"submisson.txt".

Upload the .zip file to a web server so that it is available at the
specified location. Place all of the text in the "submisson.txt" file
in the body of an email and send it to elc2.elo@gmail.com with the
name of the piece being submitted included in the subject line.

The Electronic Literature Collection is supported by institutional
partners including: Brown University, Literary Arts Program; Center
for Program in Contemporary Writing at the University of Pennsylvania;
Duke University, Program in Literature; Hermeneia at the Open
University of Catalonia; Maryland Institute for Technology in the
Humanities; Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Program in Writing
and Humanistic Studies; nt2; Pomona College, Media Studies
Program;UCSB, Department of English; University of Bergen, Department
of Literary, Linguistic, and Aesthetic Studies, Program in Digital
Culture; University of Dundee, School of Humanities.

Institutional sponsorship opportunities are still available. If your
organization or academic department is interested in more information,
please contact Helen DeVinney, Managing Director of the ELO, at
hdevinney@gmail.com.

Upcoming conference and new book

The PC/ACA conference is almost here!!

I will be presenting on Thursday at the 2008 National Popular Culture & American Culture Associations Conference.

I am looking forward to presenting Gabriella Infininita to colleagues and sharing ideas about this outstanding piece of Latin American digital literature.

Here’s the abstract of my presentation:

A glance at the ELO (Electronic Literature Organization) archive will reveal that there are very few Latin American hyperfictions written in Spanish. Hyperfiction in Latin America has been emerging and developing very slowly since the mid-nineties. Extreme Conditions (1996) and “El primer vuelo de los hermanos Wright,” (1996) by Juan B. Gutiérrez as well as Gabriella Infinita (2002) by Jaime Alejandro Rodríguez Ruiz are landmarks of the genre.

Gabriella Infinita brings to the fore topics that are common in many Latin American countries, such as a country in a civil war, freedom of expression, repression, fear and exile. The development of these strong themes is what differentiates this hyperfiction from its American counterparts.

The fact that Gabriella Infinita started as a print novel that subsequently migrated to hypertext and finally emerged as a multimedia hyperfiction portrays not only the author’s metaphorical interpretation of the volatile, chaotic and violent situation in Colombia in the 1960s but also the technological developments available to hyperfiction writers. A combination of well designed graphics, voice recordings and texts illustrate the main topics of this work, namely the events of a national conflict that has involved the military and guerrilla forces since 1964. Thus, the study of this hyper fiction will contribute to a better understanding of the development of the genre in Latin America and the historical situation from which it emerged.

Hurray I am heading to San Francisco ! It is supposed to be a great conference with lots of interesting papers!

—

A new book by renown scholar N. Katherine Hayles: Electronic Literature: New Horizons for the Literary was released  from the University of Notre Dame Press. The book comes with  a CD-ROM of The Electronic Literature Collection, Volume 1 and it is also supplemented by a website and blog where the author, scholars, teachers and students exchange ideas on digital literature.

From the book’s website hosted at the ELO:  “Hayles’s book is designed to help electronic literature move into the classroom. Her systematic survey of the field addresses its major genres, the challenges it poses to traditional literary theory, and the complex and compelling issues at stake. She develops a theoretical framework for understanding how electronic literature both draws on the print tradition and requires new reading and interpretive strategies. Grounding her approach in the evolutionary dynamic between humans and technology, Hayles argues that neither the body nor the machine should be given absolute theoretical priority. Rather, she focuses on the interconnections between embodied writers and users and the intelligent machines that perform electronic texts.we through close readings of important works, Hayles demonstrates that a new mode of narration is emerging that differs significantly from previous models. Key to her argument is the observation that almost all contemporary literature has its genesis as electronic files, so that print becomes a specific mode for electronic text rather than an entirely different medium. Hayles illustrates the implications of this condition with three contemporary novels that bear the mark of the digital.”

I can’t wait to have my own copy !I ‘ll place my order right away!  I am sure it will bring great ideas to strengthen the syllabus of a new course I would like to develop on  digital literature and Latin American Culture and Society.

Narratopedia

I just received an email from Jaime Alejandro Rodríguez Ruiz in which he almost officially introduces his new project:
Narratopedia. A unique and pioneering collaborative public platform in Spanish to share digital stories, comments and reflections on digital narratives. Narratopedia uses a blog structure where collaborators can contribute with texts, hypertexts, images, videos, animations, and audio. There are also a number of themes to promote the development of new collaborative narratives. Among the themes are travelling, the body, the universtiy, etc.

For those who read Spanish these are Jaime’s words:

“Narratopedia busca convertirse en el lugar de encuentro de narradores con medios digitales y en una comunidad de práctica que desarrolle, reflexione, soporte y sobre todo constituya un colectivo capaz de construir colaborativamente un gran relato.”

Jaime is also interested in receiving feedback from those who are using the platform.He welcomes specific groups who led by a professor can take part of this pilot program which will allow him to receive feedback and strengthen the platform. If you are interest contact him directly via the Narratopedia blog.

There is no doubt that Narratopedia is the center of convergence for those interested in the development, analysis and teaching of digital narratives in Spanish. Above all it is an exemplary model that will definitely inspire scholars to develop similar digital communities in other languages. For the time being it is unique …and it was started by a Latin American writer and scholar!

I encourage you to take a peek and to join the fascinating world of Narratopedia!

Hypertext in Context: Space and Time in Latin American Hypertext and Hypermedia Fictions

It is great to see that more scholars have realized how different the issues in Latin American hyperfictions are from the topics discussed in the American hyperfictions and digital works.

This is one of the points that Thea Pitman discusses in her article Hypertext in Context: Space and Time in Latin American Hypertext and Hypermedia Fictions in the last special issue of dichtung-digital .

I am excited that this area of research has attracted scholars’ attention since it proves to be an interesting are of research for Comparative Literature and for multidisciplinary studies of digital works.

Great lectures and performances at the Kennedy Center, DC

Today Ben and I headed to DC where we had a wonderful day at the Japan Culture and Hyperculture Festival at the the Kennedy Center.

We started our day with Robotopia Rising. As visitors entered the Hall of States at the Kennedy Center they were being greeted by Kokoro’s Actroid Der 2. It was quite intriguing and disconcerting at the same time not to be sure for the first seconds whether the lady in the kimono was a a real person or an actroid.

After going by the actroid …we saw a performance by Honda’s famous Asimo and Toyota Partner Robot. All these events were not only extremelly informative but amusing. Just think how much technology has advanced and the possibilities of Android Science. This is a new term to me and it was coined by Dr. Hiroshi Ishiguro, who in 2007 was selected as one of the “eight trailblazing scientist who are about to change your life.” Dr. Hiroshi Ishiguro gave a brilliant talk explaining the development of robots, androids and geminoids. Much of this information can also be found at Dr. Ishiguro’s lab website at Osaka University. It is just amazing…

Our visit to the Kennedy Center concluded with a fun and innovative performance by a young Japanese trio called YMCK which is well known for its “8 bit sound and pixel animation in live performance that reminds people of old video game consoles“. Scroll down the site and take a peek. You can even watch the event at the Kennedy Center. Enjoy!!

We also looked at some mangas (Japanese cartoons), Japanese sculptures and a lot more..If you happen to be in the DC area this week stop by the Kennedy Center. You will not regret it.

Worth noting…

A Companion to Digital Literary Studies is available now. From the table of contents and the contributors to this book I can tell this is a must read for those interested in the understanding and interpretation of digital literature. I will definitely order a copy for my academic institution.

I hope the selection of essays will give me new insights to better analyze Gabriella Infinita and Golpe de Gracia, the two digital Latin American pieces which are the focus of my research now.

Latin American Digital Literature at the National Popular Culture and American Culture Associations Conference

I will be presenting a paper on Latin America digital literature at the 2008 National Popular Culture & American Culture Associations Conference to be held in San Francisco on March 19 – 22, 2008.

Mi paper is entitled “Gabriella Infinita: Literary Metamorphosis in a Technological World.” I will introduce the audience to some of the changes that Jaime Alejandro Rodríguez, author of this piece, introduced during the process of creation and remediation of this multimedia literary work. Topics such as the importance of this piece in the context of Latin American history, politics, society and culture will also be introduced.

I am looking forward to sharing my insights on this wonderful piece with colleagues!

New article on Jorge Luis Borges, net-art and digital literature

A new article entitled <<Hemos logrado que leer ‘La intrusa’ de Borges sea pasar por diez videojuegos >> appeared in ABC.es on Wednesday, Jan. 16. The article features a telephone interview I had last week with Anna Grau, ABC. es correspondent in New York.

More news about literature (s) in the digital age…

My colleagues Dr. Amelia Sanz and Dr. Dolores Romero López from Universidad Complutense de Madrid have just informed me that their volume Literatures in the Digital Age: Theory and Praxis by Cambridge Scholars Publishing has been published. This volume has been enriched by the contributions of authors and scholars from all over the world.