Friday 26 August 2022

DIGITAL LITERATURE UNIT 2

 

Unit II : Digital Literatures

HYPERTEXT LITERATURE, A DEFINITION

Coined by Theodore Nelson, a pioneer in the computer industry in the 1960s, the term hypertext describes “non-sequential writing — text that branches and allows choices to the reader, best read at an interactive screen.”

Hypertext literature, then, follows the same definition. It’s literature that is non-sequential with branching storylines or pages. The reader drives the story by different clicking hyperlinks.

“When the story no longer progresses, or when it cycles, or when you tire of the paths, the experience of reading it ends,” Michael Joyce wrote in the introduction to the first hypertext piece of literature, “afternoon, a story.”

His story was distributed via floppy disk. It was the late 1980s. Readers navigated by clicking various hyperlinked pieces of text on each page. The story was not linear. No, readers clicked and clicked and clicked until they got bored and clicked away.

This is hypertext literature. Like a digital version of a pick-your-own adventure, writers of hypertext literature compile various segments of narrative, images, and other digital-based pages. Readers then navigate through these at their own pace and leisure. There is no beginning, middle, or end. No start or finish. The reader reads until they do not want to anymore and then they move on with their day. Some readers may spend hours navigating the pathways of a hypertext story. Some may spend only five minutes.

Which leads into another unique aspect of the genre. Every reader who interacts with pieces has a different experience. No two people will click exactly the same hyperlinks in exactly the same order. Readers can come to the same narrative again to experience it in a different order. The takeaways vary each time.

Hypertext literature isn’t simply a story written online. You can’t print these pieces out or write them in a notebook. By doing that, they would cease to function. To exist. In the digital world is where they survive.

EXAMPLES OF HYPERTEXT LITERATURE

Another example of hypertext literature is “I Have Said Nothing” by J. Yellowlees Douglas from 1994. The piece explores the death of someone the narrator calls Sherry and the notion of what death is in and of itself. It asks, “Shall we begin?” and “but does it stop?”

“my body — a Wunderkammer” by Shelley Jackson from 1997 includes sounds as the reader clicks various parts of a woman’s body to reveal memories the narrator has with those body parts. The shoulder section talks of swimmer’s arms and Frankenstein. Her eyebrows feature stories of makeup and 7th grade.

These Waves of Girls” by Caitlin Fisher, which won the Electronic Literature Organization award in 2001, navigates the narrator’s queer identity at ages 4, 10, and 20 years. Images and words or phrases link the three time periods together as audio plays through some of the pages.

Kendall’s “Penetration” is an example of hypertext poetry, another facet of hypertext literature. In it, readers select phrases like “deciding” or “daylight” from portions of the poem to reveal more.

THE DOWNFALL OF THE GENRE

Popular in the late 1980s and through the 1990 and early 2000s, hypertext literature was said to be a threat to the typical, linear way of storytelling at its height. But, as it turns out, writing stories that aren’t linear is hard and the genre posed issues that were hard to get past. Due to the nonlinear nature, the introduction of storylines or characters had to be done on each page, leading to repetition for readers as they clicked through.

While many of the aspects of hypertext literature pervade our daily lives (Wikipedia linking to other Wikipedia pages or a Tweet linking to a news story that links to yet another, for example), the genre of hypertext literature itself did not survive. As proof, I couldn’t even get “These Waves of Girls” to load on my computer when writing this.

While the genre did, in fact, predict the hyperlink-heavy time of today, the hyperlink literature didn’t last as long as they expected. Storytelling is still, majorly, linear.

Elements of Hypertext

The elements of Hypertext consist of nodes, links, buttons, trails, navigational tools, browsers, and editors.

Nodes

Hypertext sometimes called a network of nodes. A node is a collection of data organized around a specific topic. This node is linked to another node, forming a network. Node is a fundamental unit of hypertext, although there is no agreement as to what really constitutes a node.

Links

Links are also fundamentals unit to form hypertext. Links are almost always anchored in at their departure point to provide users with some explicit object to activate in order to follow the link. The destination point is reached by activating the anchor.

Buttons

Button is a visual cue in a node that alerts a user that a link is exists. In other words, button is a visual representative of a link in a node. By clicking or pressing button, the user is activating the link.

Editor

Editor is used in order to create a hypertext page/node. Editor is part of the hypertext system that enables user to create a node and link it into the network. Sometimes editor is not included in the hypertext systems, because the system is merely a presentation-only system.

Navigational tools

Browser

Basically, a browser is a program or sub-program that can display a diagram of a network of nodes.

Maps

Maps serve to improve spatial context in a hypertext network. Map is tracking all of the documents or nodes linked to the current document which is dynamically updated.

Overview diagrams

Overview diagrams serve as navigational aids. It can provide an overall view and serve as anchors for local overview diagrams.

Trails

A trail is a record of the nodes that a user has accessed in viewing a hypertext network.

Attributes

Attributes are any information related to the component. E.g.: ownership and content type of the component.

Presentation specifications

Contain information on how the component is displayed. It may include things like the preferred number of colors to display a gif file, the size of the window to be displayed, the location of the window, etc.

Anchor

There are two properties of an anchor; they are anchor id and an anchor value. The anchor value is used to locate a part of the content of the component. It depends on the structure of particular applications, documents, or data types on how to interpret an anchor.

Xanadu

What Does Xanadu Mean?

Xanadu is a hypertext/hypermedia project first conceptualized by Ted Nelson. Although originally conceived in the 1960s, Xanadu was still in development when it was eclipsed by Tim Berners-Lee’s World Wide Web in the 1990s. Nelson introduced the term hypertext. As a result, Xanadu is considered an important part of Internet history, as well as an inspriation for what future networks may be like.

Techopedia Explains Xanadu

Xanadu differs from the Web in many important ways, including: Two-way linking, allowing the user to track an original source as well as see content derived from that source Three-dimensional browsing (Xanaduspace) displaying a graphical line between hypertextual links A system of micro-payments that are paid to the rights holder whos content is copied Versioning of content to allow side-by-side comparison Project Xanadu released XanaduSpace 1.0 in 2007 as a prototype ofan eventual system, but Xanadu's broad ambitions have yet to be properly realized, whereas the World Wide Web is already out there and growing. That said, many of the features originally set out for Xanadu have been incorporated into the Web. This incorporation may continue as the Web evovles Xanadu owes its name to the mystical land of Xanadu from the poem “Kubla Khan” by Samuel Coleridge.

Project Xanadu was the first hypertext project, founded in 1960 by Ted Nelson. Administrators of Project Xanadu have declared it superior to the World Wide Web, with the mission statement: "Today's popular software simulates paper. The World Wide Web (another imitation of paper) trivialises our original hypertext model with one-way ever-breaking links and no management of version or contents."

Hypertext fiction

• characterized by linking structures (afternoon, a story by Michael Joyce; Patchwork Girl by Virginia Shelley)

• earliest form of electronic literature

Network Fiction

• diversified forms of hypertext fiction, such as narratives that emerge from data repositories (Twelve Blue by Michael Joyce)

• combines other media forms, like audio and video, in a networked structure (
These Waves of Girls by Caitlin Fisher)

• defined by David Ciccoricco as digital fiction that "makes use of hypertext technology in order to create emergent and recombinatory narratives."

Interactive Fiction

• Has more game elements; varies in the amount of narrative components

• Inspired Nick Monfort to coin the term “interactor” to describe the combined reading/authoring role of IF users

• Noted for innovative uses of convential literary devices (
Savoir-Faire, by Emily Short, for example, plays on the concept of literary metaphor, while All Roads, by Jon Ingold, encourages a self-referential critique of the empowering nature of the hypertext environment.)

 

Locative Narratives

• The “next step” in the evolution of the hypertext narrative: from digitalized three-dimensional spaces to actual ones

• A trendy variety of electronic literature, similar to email novels (popular in the 90s) and serial fictions communicated though cell phones

• location-specific narratives that can be played as audio tapes or keyed to GPS technologies used by the reader or listener (for example, 
The Missing Voice by Janet Cardiff is a “part urban guide, part fiction, part film noir” audio tape that the user plays as he or she goes on a tour of London. Her Long Black Hair takes listeners on a narrative journey through New York’s Central Park.)

"Codework"

• A natural language is hybridized with programming expressions; in its purest form, executable code

• Two addresses: human readers and machines

• “Broken code” pieces are more common; they contain literary devices associated with the print form, such as puns, parallel structures, neologisms (check out 
to Perplexia by Talan Memmott)

Generative Art

• Uses an algorithm to create and re-create text and/or visual components

• Draws attention to the transformation of temporal and logical relationships between reader and writer in digital space (
Regime Change by Noah Wardrip-Fruin; On Lionel Kearns by Jim Andrews)

Flash poem

• Another creative approach to literature that incorporates programming languages and functions

• Sequential screens that generally progress without interactivity (although 
poems that GO offers a fun selection of interactive pieces. The Dreamlife of Letters by Brian Kim Stefans is a non-interactive Flash poem.)

The genres presented here are not exhaustive and this list does not represent a standard followed by all critics of electronic media. It does, however, suggest the vast range and complexity of electronic literature and give a glimpse at the evolution of the form since early experiments with hyperlinked narrative structures.

Aspects of digital media

Non-linearity

In a book, the same information is presented to the reader in the same order every time the book is read. This linearity allows readers to have a similar reading experience when they read the same book. But a hypertext narrative is not necessarily linear; it may “flow” differently each time it is experienced. Hypertext media doesn’t have to have a beginning, middle and end like a traditional codex; instead, it may offer multiple entry points and contain many different pathways to the reader (Snyder, 1996).

Connectivity

A reader of print media is finished reading a text once he or she has read all the pages. But the connectedness afforded to digital literatures makes it possible to get entangled in a labyrinthine web of hyperlinks that never have a definitive end. The relative amorphousness of digital text has lead to the questioning of the finiteness of the reading experience, which Sheilds refers to as the “myth of totality” (2000).

The connectivity of the web also transforms the concept of narrative structure. In a traditional narrative, one might consider the structure of a narrative in terms of the arrangement of details in a paragraph or the progression of ideas in an entire work. Hyperlinks afford new ways of thinking about structure; for example, Mark Bernstein (1998) offers a classification of hyperlinked structures that could be useful in the criticism of e-literature.

The connectivity of the web also makes it possible to offer a viewer or a reader an unprecedented amount of sensory stimulation. Learning how to “hear” audio or “watch” video is paramount to learning how to “read” text in the digital environment (Miall, 1993).

Interactivity

Particularly with some genres of electronic literature, like interactive fiction, the interactivity of the user in the creation of the narrative itself blurs the traditional distinctions between reader and writer. Hypertexts vary in the amount of interaction required from the user, complicating attempts to classify e-literature based on user participation. Whereas “a print bound text is the result of many individual choices made by its author from among several available alternatives… a hypertext consists of many virtual texts with may be the work of different writers. Each reader makes one or more of these virtual texts an actual text when choosing which links to follow and which to ignore” (Snyder, 1996).

Contextuality

Electronic text offers instant links to or embedding of images, videos, audio, and other media. While print texts may refer or allude to extemporaneous texts or events, obtaining the information is not instantaneous as it is in an electronic medium. The task of reading online, then, includes experiencing and understanding the media that is alongside or within the text itself. Because of the diverse range of media that are available on the Internet, developing an understanding of the cultural, social or historical context all types of media is crucial to developing a critical perspective of electronic texts. Literary analysts (and teachers and students) must delve into the domain of culture and media analysis to more fully understand the texts they encounter on the web.

Interpretation Techniques

As the name itself indicates, interpretation is a way to convey a sentence spoken in one language to another.

Now, there would be people who might get confused between interpretation and translation.

Let me clarify, interpretation conveys the vocal conversation from the source text to the target language whereas translation is done in a literal way like converting books, documents, and so on from one language to another

Popular Interpretation Techniques

Interpretation is an important stone to step in for breaking language barriers and allowing easy communication. If you looking for techniques to satisfy your error free interpretation needs, then here they are:

1. Over the Phone Interpretation

What you’ll do, when you and the person with whom you want to communicate are not available for face-to-face interaction? How will you ensure fluent communication if they speak a different language than yours? That’s where you’ll need telephone interpreting.

The technique is possible when both parties establish an appointment and the participants of the call can hear only the voice.

 

Just imagine, how much your business will get profit when there will be no language barrier. You can communicate with utmost ease. Today, when the facility of VOIP and telephone is everywhere, performing phone interpretation has become convenient.

2. Consecutive Interpretation

Have you ever gone to an event where you have heard an interpreter speaking after the actual speaker has finished his speech?

This is what the consecutive interpretation technique looks like.

In this technique, the speaker pauses for some time in order to allow an interpreter to interpret from the source language to the target language. This is one of the most popular types of language interpretation. Consecutive interpretation is divided into two parts:

Long Consecutive Interpretation-

Here the interpreter takes notes of the speech to convey a long interpretation

Short Consecutive Interpretation-

Here the interpreter works relying on his/her memory. Each speech segment will be short enough to keep in mind.

3. Simultaneous Interpretation

Commonly known as conference interpreting, this technique is meant to be used for people who have limited English proficiency or the ones who doesn’t understand the language you speak.

 

Simultaneous interpreters interpret simultaneously along with the speech given. They listen to the speech through headphones and understand the meaning of the sentences, so there are no mistakes.

The direct audio feed is transmitted to the conference room where the interpreter sits and within a few seconds after every sentence finishes, interpretation is given. It’s of course complicated but it is a very effective interpretation technique. Furthermore, this might helped you know what is simultaneous interpretation.

4. Whispered Interpretation

It’s a quite simple technique where the interpreter sits or stands next to a small group of audience that belongs to a different culture and whispers an interpretation of the speaker’ spoken sentences. It can be done through headphones and microphones as per the preference of participants.

5. Video Interpretation

You might have heard about video interpretation, it’s really famous in the corporate world. It’s the most innovative technique used by companies to connect with hearing-impaired listeners without much hassle.

Isn’t it really nice to finally have something to look after the convenience of deaf or hard of hearing participants in the meeting? It’s popularly used in sensitive situations.

The most crucial benefit it gives is that an interpretation doesn’t need to be physically present, it can be done from a remote location very easily.

Video interpretation can easily connect you with clients without much fuss.

 

Working with the right company, with the right interpreter, and choosing the right type of simple interpretation or elite language interpretation according to your needs will make you realize it’s really worth every cent invested.

Conclusion:

Interpretation is the easiest way to make the speech or message understandable without much hassle. Especially when you have a professional interpretation company like Tridindia, the understanding becomes guaranteed. Tridindia has been serving clients for more than 18 years and has enough experience to provide with accurate interpretation.

Temporal Manipulation

Overview

The users of this ability are able to selectively alter the flow of time in a variety of ways. Temporal Manipulation is broken down into several branches.

Branches of Temporal Manipulation

Temporal Stasis

Temporal Stasis is a branch of Temporal Manipulation that allows the user to completely stop the flow of time.

Temporal Acceleration

Temporal Acceleration is a branch of Temporal Manipulation that allows the user to speed up the flow of time over an object.

Time Traveling

Time Travelling is a branch of Temporal Manipulation that allows the user to move through time and space into the past or the future.

Techniques to Manipulate Time

There are plenty of ways to control the flow of time so let’s look at some of them.

Linear time in a story

The most basic use of time is to show events in sequence. For example, in a novel, it is possible to have the character born, growing up and then reaching adulthood. The most basic method of using time in a narrative is to show events in the linear order of when they happen.

Some books are written entirely in this fashion, but most tend to have most of the story told in the order of events, thus written using linear time with minor usage of other techniques now and then.

Non-Linear time in a story

Non-Linear time allows the author to change the focus and order of events in a story. For example, it is common to have backstory inserted into the narrative. Although the main events may be linear, some parts showing the past to show context for why a character acted a certain way or details showing the future revealing the results of actions can be inserted.

Speeding Up the Action

Another very often used technique is to speed up the passing of time using an accelerated timeline. For example, if a character is on a long journey on foot, it can be accelerated to allow the story to focus on more exciting events.

You can have a jump cut to just move to a later time, maybe having a chapter break. One chapter ends getting on the bus, and the next chapter starts immediately with the character getting off the bus at their destination.

These timeslots can also be used to insert other pieces of action that bridge the time gap you want to remove. For example, you can use a flashback.

Flashbacks and flashforwards

A flashback is when a character remembers something that happened in the past. This is good to add context to the story. For example, your lead character can visit an old school and tell the reader via a flashback that he wasn’t so cool when he was younger. Revealing an embarrassing story about the first time he met his love interest in school would give an unfamiliar perspective on your now cool and successful modern hero.

A flashforward is when they see something that will happen in the future. This can be used to foreshadow events or just make the reader curious about what will happen next. For example, you could suddenly jump forward to reveal that the hero’s rival has won a prize for inventing an exciting new technology. Back in the current timeline, we can follow to see how the events unfold toward this potential future.

Foreshadowing

Foreshadowing gives the reader a hint of some future event and creates suspense and drama or unease. It can give subtle clues to the reader about good or bad events that will be coming, and as an author, you can use it to keep the reader turning the pages late into the night.

It can also be blunt such as a character discussing a future meeting or a deadline that gets referred to more subtly before occurring so the reader will wonder about the significance.

Pacing

Pacing in a story is how fast or slow an author writes a part of a story. The pacing in a story can build tension or cause the reader to become bored, depending on the effect the author is trying to achieve.

For example, you could write a very long section with lots of details about the small town and farm the family has just moved into to clearly message the reader that this is a slow-moving story. Or you could write this description quickly using short sentences with a sparse level of detail enough to convey the traumatic experience of the family’s need for a last-minute move. Using this technique brings an uncomfortable feeling to the reader.

Different genres typically use pretty different styles of pacing. A fast-paced detective novel will typically be more action-packed and have fewer descriptions of the surroundings and more on the characters and events.

Parallel or Multiple Timelines

Parallel or multiple timelines can show different timelines that affect each other. The grandfather died failing to break a speed record in the past timeline. In the second modern timeline, the grandson is determined to achieve what his grandfather was unable to do. The story can dramatically switch between them to show the relationship of the two efforts and build tension with the reader as we see the grandson unknowingly repeating some of the same mistakes that lead to his grandfather’s death.

Reverse Timelines

The reverse timeline is the opposite of the linear storytelling technique. A story is told beginning at the end and moving backward through time. A lot of flashbacks are commonly used in this style of story. It can be tricky to do, but if done well, it can be almost as compelling as a story told chronologically (though with its own kind of dramatic tension).

Failing Memory

Having a character with a failing memory can open all sorts of possibilities for writing. Sometimes a character will have no memory of parts of their life, sometimes they will have only fragments, and sometimes they will have no memory.

Authors can use this to build a mystery or mystery sub-plot. For example, a love story of a wife trying to stay connected to her husband who has a failing memory by capturing and preserving their life together as he remembers less and less.

Chapter and Section length

Another very common technique used by authors to control the reader’s perception of how time passes within a story is to vary the length of sections and chapters.

In one chapter, you can have several pages cover the activities of the detective, while in the next, you can describe far more briefly what the murderer is doing at the same time. The much longer descriptive section for the detective helps the reader perceive that the detective has to do a lot to catch the murderer. In the murderer’s chapter, using shorter sections and faster-paced language will help show the reader that the murderer is moving quickly and staying one step ahead of the detective.

Groundhog Day or Time Loops

The time loop plot, well known as the groundhog day trope, has been done in every media format many times over and yet still remains immensely popular.

Carefully done, you can build a tale of mystery and intrigue that relies on the idea of repeating the same day over and over again.

Yes, it is very well covered, but it can still be an exciting basis for a story, so do not rule it out if you have an idea.

By far the most popular episode of Star Gate is the groundhog day style episode Window of Opportunity.

 

DIGITAL LITERATURE UNIT 1



UNIT I

DIGITAL LITERATURE

As a topic, digital literature is very diffuse and very hard to define. As a crude working formula, the following classification could be used.

1. Digitalisations of print literature – this group include such great archival pursuits as The Project Gutenberg, and its Scandinavian counterpart, The Project Runeberg, which aim at digitalising as comprehensively as possible the old, mostly canonical, literature. These projects have several practical ends. They conserve old texts physically deteriorating, make rare works (which may exist in only one known copy) available for the larger public, and create useful corpuses for researchers and students. The possibility of word and phrase search in the texts alone greatly expands the usability of these archives for the researchers. In addition, the digital text archives enable all kinds of statistical style analyses – the term ”humanistic computing” has actually come to mean just this stylistical analysis of digital text corpuses – the study of whether a certain play is to be attributed to Shakespeare or not.

2. The digital publication of original literature – texts in this category do not employ any hypertextual techniques at all, or do so only modestly. Literature confirms to the established conventions, and digital form is primarily used in the distribution of the texts. This kind of publishing has been very small so far, and it has been, mainly, done by amateur writers. There are also established authors who have tried digital publishing – like the Finnish author Leena Krohn who published her story collection Sfinksivairobotti? (1996; The Sphinx or the robot?) only in digital format – in this case the reason was that Krohn wanted to include digitally enhanced illustration for the stories, which would have been very expensive in print book. There has been a small amount of parallel publishing too, that is, publishing the same material both in print and digitally. This has been mainly done by different magazines (amongst which there are rather many literary magazines).

 

LITERATURE USING THE NEW TECHNIQUES MADE POSSIBLE BY THE DIGITAL FORMAT –

This group includes everything from hypernovels to interactive poetry and multimedia encyclopedias, etc. Michael Joyce’s Afternoon. A Story (1987) is commonly seen as the first hypertext novel. It is a hypertextual story consisting of 539 lexias and 951 links connecting them, and it tells about a man who sees a car accident site on his way to work in the morning, and who is afraid that the accident victims (probably dead now) may have been his ex-wife and son. It is possible to read Afternoon in several ways (different set of lexias, in different orders), resulting in potentially quite diverse stories, but it is still possible to construct a frame story above the readers’ stories, telling about a man who procrastinates in finding out the actual facts about the accident victims’ situation and identity – and traces the complex human relations and love affairs with his ex-wife and colleagues, and ponders about his own life. Traversing the text systematically through, one can find the ”real story”, which explains why the man is simultaneously so shocked about the accident, and, frantically, tries not to think about it. There has been, so far, only one commercial publisher of hypernovels (and stories), but there are also diverse hypernovels produced in universities around the world – but usually these are not easily accessible.

 

There are also poetic works using interactivity and kinetic techniques. Jim Rosenberg’s Intergrams (1997) are especially interesting – they have two significant features: simultaneities, that is, several layers of text juxtaposed so that by moving the cursor, single layers can be read, and, syntax ”externalised” to graphic symbols which represent the syntactical interrelations between text fragments. In Robert Kendall’s poem A Life Set for Two (1996) the reader may choose the “atmosphere” of the text and other variables from a “menu”. There are also individual words which may change into other ones in the screen according to a programming.

 

Interactivity and temporal manipulation

To put it briefly, the novelty of digital textuality can be located, mostly, to interactivity and temporal manipulation.

‘Interactivity’is a highly problematic term in regard to literature, since all literature, after all, is interactive – a fact which was systematically formulated by Roman Ingarden already in thirties in his work Das LiterarischeKunstwerk (1960). This idea was further developed, especially, in reception aesthetics and reader-response studies; these research practices take it as their starting point that the reader is an active participant in the literary signification process. There are several kinds of interactivity, and the difference between the interactivity of conventional literature and that of digital literature was, for the first time, clearly expressed by Espen Aarseth, who decribes four categories of reader(/user) functions: interpretation, navigation, configuration, and writing.

Interpretation is an inseparable part of all reading. When reading hypertext, one has to, in addition to interpretation; actively navigate her way through the net of hypertextual paths. Furthermore, the reader/user may be allowed to configure the text, for example, add her own links to the hypertext. Configuration, thus, means reforming the text within certain limits. The last user function is writing, that is, the user is allowed to participate in the writing of the text – and writing may also be programming. It is a commonplace in hypertext theory to claim that because of interactivity, the “reader becomes an author” – this is, however, not accurate but only in those texts which offer their readers the writing function (in other texts the claim can be accepted only in some metaphorical sense), and such texts are very rare so far.

In a convincing way Aarseth also shows how the distinction between print and digital texts is, actually, quite ineffective. In many cases a certain print text may be much closer to some digital texts, than to other print texts, and vice versa. Aarseth, then, rather speaks of cybertextuality, which he defines as a perspective on all texts, independently of their medium: if a text makes use of configurative and writing functions, then it clearly is a cybertext– on the other hand, if a digital text does not use any other user functions than interpretation, then it does not, in any significant way, differ from traditional texts. This is a healthy notion, and mostly acceptable, but in practice the difference between print and digital texts may be more significant than Aarseth claims.

The manipulation of the temporal dimension is a topic which in Aarseth’s, otherwise exemplary, study is almost neglected, and it seems to be exactly that direction where the biggest differences between print and digital texts can be detected – in print texts it simply is not possible to control the temporal aspects of reading activity as is the case with digital texts. As examples of possibilities for temporal manipulation we can list the following:

1.limiting the reading time – the text will stay on the screen only for a limited amount of time. For example, in the Web text Hegirascope (1997) by Stuart Moulthrop the text on the screen changes every thirty seconds. Additionally, there are hyperlinks on the pages, clicking which the reader may ”direct the course of the text stream”. There are also texts which can only be read once – these can be seen as special cases of limited reading time. Surely the best known read only once type of text is Agrippa by the cyberpunk science fiction author William Gibson. In Agrippa the text scrolls by itself on the screen, and when a line has scrolled out of the screen, it vanishes – thus the reader can never return to the text already read. Uruguayan multimedia artist Gonzalo Frasca has also written highly interesting ”one session narratives”, texts which change each time the reader starts reading them. Once the reading session has ended, the reader may never return to the exactly identical text.

2. delaying reading time – the reading cannot proceed but after a certain waiting period. Let us say there is a scene in a text, where the protagonist takes a fifteen minutes nap – now the traversing through the text may be halted for that fifteen minutes, or whatever. (This has been, so far, mainly a potential option which hasn’t been used too much intentionally – in Internet one is, of course, confronted with this effect way too often, unintentionally).

3. restricting the reading period – this is also mainly speculation, but Markku Eskelinen, in his collection of essays Digitaalinenavaruus (1997; The Digital Space), has suggested several ways to employ this effect: a novel which can only be read during office hours etc. On the other hand, the text may vary according to whether it is read on day time, or night time etc.

4. text ”living” in time – a digital text may be updated at various intervals. As a minimalistic case we can take Leporauha mentioned above with its links to the front page of a newspaper. The contents of the front page, naturally, change daily, and with this simple device the author has achieved a work which changes daily without having to do anything to it himself. Interactive texts (which employ at least configurative user function) do change continuously through the work of the active audience. Thus we can have ”living” (or evolving) texts, whose existence is processual in nature.

 

WHAT IS DIGITAL LITERATURE?

Maybe some of you have read a short story on Twitter, seen a video poem on YouTube, or just followed the path of a hypertext story. It may surprise you, but all those things are considered literature. Digital literature, to be precise. Digital literature, or electronic literature, has been an emerging genre for decades now. But what exactly is it?

OVERVIEW

Electronic Literature is something that is created digitally and is meant to be viewed digitally. As explained by Katherine Hayles, "Electronic Literature is generally considered to exclude print literature that has been digitalized." Therefore, a book that is originally in print form but is transformed into an e-book is NOT an example of Electronic Literature.

What makes Electronic Literature different from other types of literature is that it is able to incorporate digital elements (such as photos, music etc.) along with the text, which creates an interactive experience for the reader.

What is Electronic Literature?

Electronic literature is not just a “thing” or a “medium” or even a body of “works” in various “genres.” It is not poetry, fiction, hypertext, gaming, codework, or some new admixture of all these practices. Electronic literature is, arguably, an emerging cultural form, as much a collective creation of terms, keywords, genres, structures, and institutions as it is the production of new literary objects.

The ideas of cybervisionaries Paul Otlet, Vannevar Bush, and Ted Nelson, foundational to the electronic storage, recovery, and processing of texts, go beyond practical insights and can be seen to participate in a longstanding ambition to construct a world literature in the sense put forward by David Damrosh: “not an infinite ungraspable canon of works but rather a mode of circulation and of reading … that is applicable to individual works as to bodies of material” (Damrosh 2003: 5).

Digital Literature is a form of literature born in the digital world. Meaning, the text was created on a laptop for example, and uploaded to a blog or webpage for online reading. This type of literature is not meant to be printed out because it may include several types of media. Such as images, sounds, videos and hyperlinks. This work is meant to be read on a computer.

A DEFINITION OF DIGITAL LITERATURE

Like speculative fiction or slipstream, digital literature is a vague concept. The definition changes depending on who you ask. Some say it is made up of texts that were created digitally, and that are (usually) meant to be read on a computer. The Electronic Literature Organization (ELO) has another definition for it: “Work with an important literary aspect that takes advantage of the capabilities and contexts provided by the stand-alone or networked computer”.

As stated by Loss Pequeno Glazier "electronic literature is best understood as a continuation of experimental print literature."

A more updated definition comes from the writer Simon Groth. He says that the intention of digital literature is to “showcase innovation and creativity in storytelling for digital media and new directions in contemporary literary practice informed by technology.” It’s still a very vague definition, and just like the others it provides absolutely no guidelines as to what can be considered digital literature or not. But it also leaves breathing room for newer technologies such as smart watches, smartphones, virtual reality, platforms like Twine, among other things. Technology that didn’t exist when the ELO wrote their definition in 2007.

So basically, it’s a new medium for literature. It takes advantage of technology to both write and present a piece of writing. Because it comes in many shapes and sizes, there is a lot of gray area in what can actually be considered digital literature, but think of it as the middle ground between ebooks and video games (none of which are digital literature, but they do share a lot of common ground).  Or you can see it as an intersection of digital media and textuality.

Electronic literature or digital literature is a genre of literature encompassing works created exclusively on and for digital devices, such as computers, tablets, and mobile phones.

EXAMPLES AND GENRES OF DIGITAL LITERATURE

There is so much digital literature out there, and from a wide selection of genres. Plus, it’s an ever-growing field that moves with new technological advances. Tomorrow, ten new forms of digital literature may be created. So this list is by no means comprehensive. But here are a few examples of Digital Literature to pique your interest, and hopefully inspire you to create some of your own writing.

Genres of Electronic Literature

1.          Hypertext Fiction

2.        Code Work[[Interactive Fiction|]]

3.        Flash Poetry

4.         Generative Poetry

5.        Interactive Fiction (IF)

6.        Locative Narratives

7.         Blog Fiction

 

Examples

Flash Poetry - "Faith" by Robert Kendall

Hypertext Fiction: "My Body" by Shelly Jackson

Code Work: "Waiting" by Damon Harmon {C}{C} {C} {C}

Generative Poetry: "Regime Change" by Noah Wardrip

For more examples, please visit: http://collection.eliterature.org/1/

 

TWITTERATURE

From poetry to fiction, collaborative or individual, there are many ways to use Twitter to create literature. An example of Twitterature is the account Dead End Fiction, which publishes horror-themed microfiction.

She left the house looking for fresh excitement. But what she found was: ghosts, monsters, demons, devils and all manifestations of shadow and wonder. Which was everything she had at home already.

HYPERTEXT

Hypertext fiction uses hyperlinks to create a non-linear narrative. This gives it a choose-your-own-adventure vibe to any story, and as readers you can choose what link to follow and therefore what path the story takes. An example of this is the story “I Have Said Nothing” by J. Yellowlees Douglas.

GENERATORS

This type of literature requires some specialized knowledge as you need to know how to code an algorithm. These algorithms are programmed to cycle from some random words, phrases, media, etc. to create an entirely new story for every reader. I’ve seen them used in poetry and long fiction alike. A famous poetry generator is Nick Monfort’s “Taroko Gorge”. And you can also take a look at Novelling, an online novel about writing that combines text, audio, and video.

VIDEO POETRY

Video poetry is exactly what it sounds like. It’s a poem accompanied by a video, be it a recording or graphics. Usually, the poem is narrated in the background while you enjoy the visuals that complement each verse. A simple example would be “We Keep Searching,” a video poem published on YouTube.

Engagement Technology

Virtual Reality

Virtual reality is an immersive, computer-generated artificial environment that attracts attention and creates a great talking point.

 

There are many cutting-edge virtual reality headsets on the market today that allow users to completely immerse themselves in the 3D world and this event technology offers a great way to explain complicated systems or bring large-scale products to life.

Your headsets can be preloaded with already existing 3D content or you can create your own immersive environments. Whichever option you go for, VR will create unforgettable experiences for your prospects and create a memorable buzz.

Augmented Reality

The new advertising trend of using Augmented Reality has proven itself a powerful marketing tool, allowing brands to connect on a deeper, more immersive level with their target audience.

AR lets you hide content behind marker images that can be included in your event display posters or exhibition stand graphics. It’s a totally fresh and unique way for visitors to interact with your brand.

Using this technology, individuals have access to digital information about particular products or services, but the interactive media sets itself apart by allowing the user to merge engagement across the physical and digital spaces.

Still new and unfamiliar to most people, it attracts the attention of visitors. This in turn creates the perfect opportunity for your sales team to engage with customers and promote the product or company.

Interactive screens

Customers have grown accustomed to interactive features in their daily lives, as they increasingly depend on their portable devices. So, when it comes to searching for or buying new products, they expect some level of independence and freedom

You can display vital information in a simple and versatile manner, making use of eye-catching graphics, images or videos.

It will also improve your exhibition stand’s efficiency because unlike a direct and personal approach interactive displays can work nonstop, move at the user’s speed and are available at their convenience.