Introduction to Electronic Literature

Before taking this class, English 4081, if were to hear the words "electronic literature" fanfiction, e-readers, and blogs are some of the things that would come to mind. After last week's class however, my mind has been blown. Electronic Literature is so much more than all that! It's a cross between literature, graphic art, computer science, and technology. The freedom and lack of limitation it affords is actually quite frightening, even to someone like me--a performing artist.

When I think of literature, I think of a story, and naturally a story is usually chronological, or at the very least can be pieced together and made sense of. The stories I am experiencing through electronic literature, however, are not so. They are much less lateral and much more circular. They are less of a story and more of an overall experience. In some ways they give me, the reader, a lot more freedom, but in other ways it can be even more restrictive than your average book.

One form of electronic literature we investigated was hypertext fiction. The example of this was a story called Twelve Blue, an HTML hypertext that used frames and image maps. This was like nothing I'd ever experienced before. The story, seemingly, had no beginning, middle, or end. To top that off there were so many ways to get to the another part of the story. Sometimes words were links to another story, sometimes images were links to another part of the story, but it was very hard to follow and thus to understand and make sense of.

Another story within the genre of hypertext fiction we investigated was Frequently Asked Questions about Hypertext. Although this piece of electronic literature was in the same genre (or tagged by the same keyword) as Twelve Blue its style was very different. This story was set up in a way very similar to a website, with an index and links that could be clicked on. It was a lot easier to follow because it was clear to me, the reader, where I could go and how I could get there within the story.

What I learned from these glimpses, was that my preconceived notions of electronic literature must be thrown out the window in order for me to enjoy and learn about this new and exciting form. In fact, my expectations must be wholly put aside and I must come at it as a young child first learning to read. It's something very new and different, and to impose the expectations I have come to know through my experience of print literature would inhibit me from truly embracing this new form.

This class will culminate in an end-of-semester project where each student will create a piece of electronic literature and display it in a gallery setting. Last week, we explored some different genres and our professor encouraged us to start thinking about what kind of project we might like to do. The genre that most interests me so far is locative narratives. I like the idea of incorporating different locations, like a scavenger or treasure hunt, with images, sounds, and story. I'm excited to further develop my ideas as I continue to discover the world of electronic literature!