[This is a post for historians of the future, when Wikipedia, after it will have been forbidden entirely (like all major "anarchistic" publications of the early years of the State-Grid-Halliburton-Google-Web (called World-Wide-Web back then)), will also have been systematically purged from all archives.]
Users at the time were not fully aware of the threatening danger posed by a legislation influenced by state politics/old-ecomnomy oligarchs/criminal syndicates to free speech, network neutrality, accessibility of internet services, … (plus the once in a century chance to change the whole planet for the better), worldwide. Therefore, they, instead of joining the protest, rather switched off JavaScript on Wikipedia.org and complained about those political nerds/idiots. Could they actually be so naive to believe that they could possibly change anything?
There’s all kinds of political comments in Stuart Moulthrop’s Victory Garden (the whole text is stance against the Persian Gulf War of 1990/91 (at least)). The different forms of these are especially interesting. This is a poem therefrom:
Hear it comes again, riverRerun past towering erections of the five Cousins with but one middle initial among them. I’ve seen The Best Minds of My Generation but I should’ve waited for the sequel. Revenge, renege, regain, once more around the bases.
Doesn’t nobody on this bus know any new jokes—Of course not, O Fool, for this is America I here singing: New Boston, New Trier, New London, New Berlin, New Hiroshima, New Victorygarden, New Jeruseylem [sic]. All’re bored!
Life mag say Mars Is Our Next Home (gee ‘n’ I can’t afford the one I ain’t got now) we’re gonna take that red planet & paint the town blue & we shall build an urb upon that orb & its name shall be calléd [sic]: SeemYouLackerTM : Registered Treadmark [sic] of the New and Improved Babylon.
… a novel about people trying to write a novel. It is a künstlerroman and a meta-novel, and it is not easily accessible. It is neither a carnival, nor is it crap. This is a thesis.
Today, the Electronic Literature Organization has announced the publication of their second compilation of digital Literature*:
The Electronic Literature Collection 2 comprises 60 works by almost 70 authors in 6 languages produced on the basis of a wide range of programming/mark-up languages. The anthology, which has been edited by Laura Borràs, Talan Memmott, Rita Raley and Brian Kim Stefans, is also being published as a hard copy (DVD).
ELC2 is ready for your syllabi and reading list. As a complement to our Electronic Literature Directory, and a continuation from Volume 1, this collection offers an anthology of works that pushes through the boundaries of literary forms, creating new kinds of experiences for interacting readers.
I don’t believe as yet that there will be that much real interaction, rather reaction. However, let’s see. This will be some nice reading for the semester break. The whole thing, by the way, is under a Creative Commons license. So, spread the word and the works.
Take a look at the Memexes designed by the students of the Cybertexts Seminar at the University of Bayreuth. Starting from Bush’s first text about the Memex, they were to discus the look of the machine and to depict it, as they understood it, at the blackboard. Remarkable is the glimpse one can get of the imaginative framework of a person in 2008 if one asks these questions: How do screens look like? How do levers look like? What’s the size and the form of a keyboard? What else is important about such a machine and working with a Memex in general.
I’d love to go there, but I can’t. Anyway, just for the archive then.
There is an international conference at the Cultural Studies Research Centre “Media Upheavals” (“Kulturwissenschaftliches Forschungskolleg Medienumbrüche”) in Siegen: “Beyond the Screen: Transformations of Literary Structures, Interfaces and Genres,” November 20-21, 2008.
Among the speakers are scholars like Roberto Simanowski, N. Katherine Hayles, Fotis Jannidis and Noah Wardrip-Fruin. Cf. the programme.
Der Komponist Johannes Kreidler hat am 12. September 2008 sein neues Musikstück bei der GEMA angemeldet. Das Stück ist recht kurz–eine gute halbe Minute–beinhaltet jedoch recht viele Zitate–70200 nämlich. Der bürokratische Aufwand für diese Anmeldung ist unglaublich. Natürlich ist das Kunstwerk selbst nicht nur das Musikstück sondern die Aktion um es herum. Sie zeigt wieder einmal, wie absurd überkommenen Gesetze aus dem Geist eines romantischen Geniekults und einer Wirtschaft, die vor allem auf physischen Waren basierte, im Informationszeitalter sind.
Exakt siebzig Jahre nach dem Verfassen, erscheinen ab heute die Tagebucheinträge von George Orwell als Blogeinträge auf der Website von “The Orwell Prize“. Vor siebzig Jahren tobte der Spanische Bürgerkrieg, an dem Orwell auf der Seite der Republikaner teilnahm. Das könnte also sehr spannend werden, auch wenn die Verbindung von Tagebuch und Blog irgenwie an längst überkommene Definitionen von Weblogs erinnert. Aber wie soll das Orwell wissen? Er ist ja längst tot und hatte keine Chance, sich ein bisschen in die Bloggosphäre einzuleben. Das führt zu einem weiteren Problem: Der Autor kann, wie der Guardian feststellt, nicht böse Fehden mit Kommentatoren ausfechten oder aktuelle Katzenbilder hochladen. Mal schauen, was das wird. Zum ersten Mal wird der Text vollständig veröffentlicht. Da sollte eigentlich ziemlich viel Käse dabei sein. Vielleicht auch deshalb das Ganze in Blogform?
UPDATE: Na, jetzt geht es doch erst am 9. August los. Dafür hier schon einmal das Blog.
Schlimm ist es, wenn man den Feiertagsgruß “Happy Kadaver” erhält. Man kann davon ausgehen, dass gerade Fronleichnam ist. Okay. Eine sehr freie Übersetzung. Viel schlimmer noch ist, wenn man das allerdings mit dem Cadavre Exquis verwechselt, weil man sich viel zu lange mit surrealistischen Spielereien beschäftigt hat.
Wenn einem also einmal die Wörter [sic] fehlen oder man einen Reim sucht, ihn nicht findet und weder seine PC-Bibliothek, noch ein gutes Wörterbuch dabei hat, kann man es einmal mit dem “Fünffachen Denckring der Teutschen Sprache” von Georg Philipp Harsdörffer probieren, der eine ganze Reihe potentieller teutscher Wörter bereithält.
DATE: A period of 10 months, many years ago. SUBJECT: 57 spoons collected from various restaurants and cafes in California & New York. OBJECTIVE: A study on the idealogy [sic] of the journey as a destination. Or, less in less-cliché terms, that the daily experience is worthy of meditation and comtemplation [sic]. INSTRUCTIONS: The following records are not a narrative. The rest is up to you. [here]
Looking at the text on the title screen of the project, one is amazed to see that the artist wants to authorize every kind of use except an understanding that this could be a narrative. The photos and captions seem to be ordered though, two places are given (California and New York; the artist is supposedly a graduate of New York University), the second part of the project’s name is ‘journal,’ the time is given (May 1996 – Feb. 1997; though the texts distances itself (‘many years ago’)): There seem to be hints that this could be a narrative (setting, time, plot, sub-plot, means of cohesion).
