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Tag: letteratura elettronica
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abstract |
saggio
Digital Code and Literary Text
Cramer, Florian
2004
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This paper is based on the general (yet disputable) assumption that the theoretical debate of literature in digital networks has shifted, just as the poetic practices it is shaped after, from perceiving computer data as an extension and transgression of textuality (as manifest in such notions as ''hypertext'', ''hyperfiction'', ''hyper-/ multimedia'') towards paying attention to the very codedness - i.e. textuality - of digital systems themselves. Several phenomena may serve as empirical evidence |
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This paper is based on the general (yet disputable) assumption
that the theoretical debate of literature in digital networks
has shifted, just as the poetic practices it is shaped after,
from perceiving computer data as an extension and transgression
of textuality (as manifest in such notions as ''hypertext'',
''hyperfiction'', ''hyper-/ multimedia'') towards paying
attention to the very codedness - i.e. textuality - of digital
systems themselves. Several phenomena may serve as empirical
evidence:
- The early focus of conceptualist Net.art on the
aesthetics and politics of code;
- in turn, the impact of Net.art aesthetics on experimental
literature / poetry in the Internet;
- the close discooursive affinity of Net.art to political
activism in the Internet;
- the close aesthetic affinity of Net.art to a the
languages and codes of an older, technically oriented
''hacker'' culture (of Chaos Computer Club, 2600, and
others);
- a convergence of the three cultures mentioned above -
Net.art, net activism and hacker culture;
- (a) Free/Open Source Software and/or (b) open network
protocols as key discursive, political and aesthetical issues
in all these camps;
- finally, the impact of hacker aesthetics, Net.art
aesthetics, code aesthetics and network protocol aesthetics
on contemporary writing in the Internet. (See the work of
mez, Alan Sondheim, Talan Memmott, Ted Warnell and
others.)
The question is how ''Codeworks'' (Alan Sondheim) fit
notions of text that were crafted without digital code - most
importantly: machine-executable digital code - in mind, and
vice versa. Is it a coincidence that, in their poetical
appropriation of low-level Internet codes, codeworks ended up
aesthetically resembling concrete poetry? And, apart from
aesthetic resemblances, how do computer programs relate to
literature? Is that what is currently being discussed as
''Software Art'' a literary genre?
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