Translator: Jeffrey McLean Reviewer: Ellen Maloney
Okay, think of your favorite book.
A novel, a short story, maybe a poetry collection.
Done? Yes? No? Tell me something.
Yes, okay, now forget about it.
And forget a little bit about the idea of literature you might have.
What's happening to literature in our digital society?
Is literature becoming digital as well?
Today, I would like to briefly introduce you to this new genre of literature
that is called 'digital literature' or 'electronic literature'
or even e-Lit, short for electronic literature.
Many names, I know.
But, what is this?
I don't know if you've ever heard about digital literature.
Or maybe not.
Digital literature is digital born.
So, you shouldn't think of your favorite book in a PDF version
that you can read on your iPad.
It's not that.
And you shouldn't think either of eBook readers.
Digital literature is created for and on digital devices
such as computers, smartphones, and tablets.
It mixes different semiotic systems and media,
which means that you can read texts
composed of just linguistic texts
both phrases and words.
But, other texts, many other texts,
are composed of texts, images, and sound.
It can be interactive and elements,
words, even letters can move around,
appear and disappear.
So, what is this?
Well, one definition of digital literature is provided by the ELO.
The Electronic Literature Organization.
And according to the ELO, Electronic Literature refers to works
with important literary aspects that take advantage of the capabilities
and contexts provided by the stand-alone or networked computer.
So, digital literature is a quite new genre of literature.
The first example, the first work of digital literature was created in 1952.
It's called "Love Letters" by Christopher Strachey.
Christopher Strachey wasn't a writer. He was a computer scientist.
And a pioneer in programming language.
And he was a friend of Alan Turing.
And in 1952, he used Alan Turing's random number generator
to create combinatory love letters.
What you're seeing now is just a simulator.
But, writing love letters should require time, some effort,
maybe some pain ...
if you're writing to someone that doesn't love you.
And suddenly, a machine can generate as many love letters as you want.
And in one click.
Maybe the literary and poetic result might not be perfect.
But, think! Already in 1952, a machine could generate love letters.
Something so human.
Since then, many things have changed.
And technology itself has changed a lot.
Computers, smartphones and the internet are part of our daily life.
And we are always on.
So, many works of digital literature are now available online for free,
which is interesting.
And digital literature has transformed itself.
Now, it is a literature to read, of course, but also to look at,
to listen to, to touch, and to play with.
But, let's have a look ... a closer look at a couple examples
of some recent texts.
The first one is "Déprise" by Serge Bouchardon and Vincent Volckaert.
It was first published in French in 2010.
"Déprise" tells the story of a man who is losing grasp,
and his relationship with his wife and his son.
Well, it's an interactive work, which means that you need
to interact with the text, and sometimes to be really inventive
to get what you need to do in order to keep reading.
In one scene, for example, you can direct the reading direction.
If you direct the reading direction in one way, you will read a love letter.
If you direct the other way around, you will read a break-up letter.
So, this text, besides telling you a story ...
mirrors your experience as a reader of an interactive, digital literary work.
While reading online, we think that we are kind of free.
We think it's a democratic space.
One of these things, the last one, is showing us
that it's not always like this.
In this scene, the main protagonist is retaking control over his life.
And you, the reader, are retaking control over the text.
The text is suggesting to you that you can type whatever you want,
in a special space.
In fact, it doesn't matter what kind of letter you try to type,
the text that emerges is always another one.
This is a new rhetorical figure,
one of those literary aspects that we talked about before.
It is called "interfacial antagonism".
It means that the text does exactly the opposite
of what you, the reader, are expecting.
You think you can type whatever you want,
In fact, you cannot.
So, digital literature raises many questions,
and shares elements with literature, of course, but also with art,
cinema, informatics, and with video games.
There are playful aspects in digital literature,
as there are narratological aspects in video games.
The next text I would like to show you mixes these two genres.
It's called "Liberdade", "freedom" in Portuguese.
Here, you are invited to navigate
into a three-dimensional space,
or environment.
You can move around the text, and you can even fly over it.
And, in fact, you have to read and direct your navigation,
your reading direction through your mouse and keyboard.
Like in a video game.
Liberdade was created in 2013 by a group of multi-disciplinary people,
directed by Alckmar dos Santos and Chico Marinho.
So, not just one author, but a group of people working on it.
And the scenario is the symbolic and metaphoric, digital version
of the real barrio, the real neighborhood, Liberdade, in São Paulo, Brazil.
So, the text talks about character, events of that part of the city.
Liberdade takes us into an imaginary island surrounded by water.
The text is composed of short stories,
poems, images, and there is some sound,
here there is silence, but there is some sound.
And there is also a prison ...
actually the opposite of the word freedom, liberdade.
While navigating, you find some hot spots
where you acquire memories of what you have seen.
It's like in a video game, you pass from one level to another.
But, if you leave the island, and you go to water,
because you are on an island and surrounded by water ...
If you leave the island and go to water, you lose your memories.
And you have to restart the text from the very beginning,
like in a video game.
So, we have seen that these texts are quite different from one another.
But, we have identified some elements that constitute
canon characteristics of electronic literature.
Of course, there is much more.
We have seen that there has been a change of style in electronic literature
from the very first texts to Liberdade, for example.
We have identified some literary aspects, for example, the rhetorical figures
and tackled some new narrative strategies.
We have seen that the machine flows give us an unstable text.
In this sense, we talk about aesthetics of the ephemeral
or aesthetics of the flow.
Because the same text cannot reappear exactly the same way
to different readers, like in Liberdade.
So, digital literature is a recent genre of literature
in constant transformation with possibilities yet to be discovered.
Now, re-think of your favorite book,
and now go and navigate
and discover your favorite text of electronic literature.
Thank you.
(Applause)