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Electronic Literature: Individual Works

Collected by: Electronic Literature Organization

Archived since: Aug, 2007

Description:

This collection consists of sites that include works of electronic literature: works with important literary aspects that take advantage of the capabilities and contexts provided by the stand-alone or networked computer. This collection includes individual works of electronic literature and collections of works by a single author, as opposed to collections of works by multiple authors.

Subject:   Arts & Humanities individual works electronic literature individual authors

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Title: Lexia to Perplexia

URL: http://collection.eliterature.org/1/works/memmott__lexia_to_perplexia.html

Description: As the author writes in an introduction to the piece, "Lexia to Perplexia" (2001) began as an observation of the fluctuating and ever-evolving protocols and prefixes of internet technology as applied to literary hypermedia. As well, "Lexia to Perplexia" was originally meant as a critique of both the Author and User/Reader positions in relation to web-based literary content." That is, the reader will notice that in all four sections of the work – "The Process of Attachment," "Double-Funnels," "Metastrophe," and "Exe.termination" -- "Lexia to Perplexia" makes wide use of neologisms as a means of presenting, in Katherine Hayles´ words, "a set of interrelated speculations about the future (and past) of human-intelligent machine interactions, along with extensive resinscriptions of human subjectivity and the human body" (Writing Machines 49). However, the text is performed not only linguistically, but also narratively and visually. Narratively, Memmott alludes to classical literary references ranging from ancient Greek and Egyptian myth to postmodern literary theory reflecting on humans, technologies, and their collaborative agency. Visually, the work makes use of interactive features which override the source text, leading to a fragmentary reading experience. The functioning and malfunctioning of the interface itself carries as much meaning as the words and images that compose the text. As Memmott also instructs his readers to note, the "User/Reader of this piece…encounters a number of screens that appear simple upon access. As the User/Reader interacts with the presented objects -- images, textual fragments, various UI permutations -- the screens are made more." Entry drafted by: Lori Emerson

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Subject:   Animation/Kinetic textual instrument

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