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Hold the Light:
W ith panels on "Models of Narrative", "Troubadours of Information", "Writing and Riding the Net", "Philosophical Approaches", and "Literary Games"; a "Developing for New Platforms" Roundtable; fifty new works responding to the question: "What distinguishes Electronic Literature?"; and much more, the 2014 Electronic Literature Organization Conference will convene in Milwaukee from June 19-21. ELO2014, Hold the Light: Identity, Change, Commitment, is hosted at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee by electronic literature pioneer and Professor in the UWM Department of English, Stuart Moulthrop. Featured works of electronic literature will be exhibited at the Digital Humanities Lab and the Conference Room, both in the UWM Golda Meir Library. "In addition to the conference's continuing concern with particular arts and ideas, Hold the Light invites thinking about what electronic literature can mean at a moment when all communications are touched by computation and digital networks," Moulthrop notes. "It is a watershed moment in that the organization is giving out the first of two annual prizes, The N. Katherine Hayles Award for Criticism of Electronic Literature and The Robert Coover Award for a Work of Electronic Literature", ELO President Dene Grigar writes in a statement that accompanies Authoring Software's coverage of ELO2014. "Hayles will be present to give a keynote address and announce the recipient of Hayles award." Keynote talks will also be given by Jill Walker Rettberg, University of Bergen, writer Illya Szilak, and Lane Hall, and co-founder of the Overpass Light Brigade. . "...Neither preserving nor directly opposing the conventions of print-lit, e-lit functions as a reflecting apparatus that unmasks language and meaning-making as machines through the revelation of its own machine-works," Illya Selzki notes in an abstract for her keynote. "Using multifarious examples from the work of Alan Bigelow, Mez Breeze, Emily Short, Jason Nelson, and others, I will show how these re-inscribe obstruction, glitch, error, randomness and obsolescence as potentiality... " The Conference name "Hold the Light," was also inspired by the Milwaukee-based collective Overpass Light Brigade, who use LED signboards to convey activist/community messages. such as the message PRACTICE PEACE at a vigil for Sikhs killed in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. Presenters in sessions that range from "A Feel for Algorithms" to "Children's Elit" include Sandy Baldwin, Kathi Inman Berens, Serge Bouchardon, Giovanna di Rosario, Carolyn Guertin, Lori Emerson, Dene Grigar, Leonardo Flores, D. Fox Harrell, Dominic Kao and Chong-U Lim, Marjorie Luesebrink, Mark Marino and Rob Wittig, Talan Memmott, Nick Montfort, Judd Morrissey, Kwabena Opoku-Agyemang, Jessica Pressman, Mariusz Pisarski, Aaron Reed, Scott Rettberg, and Anastasia Salter among many others. Curated by Kathi Inman Berens, the exhibition Hold the Light includes artists from France, Poland, Australia, Denmark, Norway, Canada, Ireland, Slovakia, Hong Kong, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In addition to evenings of performance, artists will also present their work in demo sessions, where they'll talk informally with guests who traverse their works. "It's a rare convergence for so many elit artists to be in one place at one time", Kathi Inman Berens notes in her statement about the exhibition. "The point of gathering live when often we can access each other's work online is to curate not just works but also conditions for artistic and intellectual surprises." "...what makes the work that the ELO does absolutely imperative in this 'Digital Information Age', as scholar Paul Ceruzzi calls it, is its leadership in developing methods for evaluating quality of 'digital' creative and critical works and its insights into cataloging a growing body of 'digital' fiction, poetry, and other literary forms..., President Dene Grigar writes in a statement for Authoring Software's coverage of ELO2014. "ELO 2014 Hold the Light provides us the opportunity to continue this important work together for three magical days. I hope to see you there."
"Explore what can we mean by electronic literature now, and in years to come" - Deena Larsen Focusing on computational creation of narrative and creation and preservation of electronic literature, pre-conference workshops are an "Intelligent Narrative Technologies" (INT)7 workshop; (Organizing Committee: Jichen Zhu, Ian Horswill, and Noah Wardrip-Fruin) a "Reading, Writing, and Programming" workshop, hosted by Deena Larsen and Joshua Fisher; an "Introduction to Animation with Processing" workshop, with Frances Van Scoy; and "Curating, Archiving and Preserving", hosted by Dene Grigar. In a closing event, Stephanie Strickland, Amaranth Borsuk, and Ian Hatcher will read at Woodland Pattern Bookstore in Milwaukee. Paper Sessions, Roundtables and Creative Works A sampling of Paper Sessions and Roundtables appears below, interspersed with images and descriptions of works in the exhibition. Collaborative Creativity in New Media: : Roundtable Discussion Joellyn Rock, Scott Rettberg, Jill Walker Rettberg, Roderick Coover, Sandy Baldwin, Rob Wittig Models of Narrative
Natalie Funk: "Examining the Role of Micronarrative" Bookishness, Past and Futures
Anna Gibbs and Maria Angel: "Digitizing Ariadne's Thread: Feminism, Encryption, and the
Unfolding of Memory in Digital Spaces" Developing for New Platforms: Roundtable Discussion Marjorie Luesebrink, Stephanie Strickland, Nick Montfort, Ian Hatcher, David Clark, Anastasia Salter, and Steve Tomasula
Collections in an International Context
Natalia Federova: "Postcommunist Elit" Children’s E-Lit
Leo Flores: "Discovering E-Literature for Children" Writing and Riding the Net
Kyle Bickoff: "Mapping the Convergence of Networked Digital Literature and Net Art onto the Modes of Production"
Literary Games
Stephanie Boluk and Patrick LeMieux:
"Echo Chambers: The Colossal Cave within House of
Leaves" Preservation and Publishing
Dene Grigar: "Preserving Literature through Documenting Readers' Experience: The Pathfinders Project" Narrative, Computation, Network
Steven Wingate: "Writing Synaptically: Using SCALAR as a Creative Platform"
A mong many other featured works in the ELO 2014 Media Arts Show are: Joel Beeson and Dana Coester: War Poems: Critical Race Theory and Database Narrative in Digital Public Histories
Amaranth Borsuk, Kate Durbin and Ian Hatcher: Abra,
Serge Bouchardon and iTrace Collective: La Séparation/Separation Andy Campbell and Christine Wilks: INKUBUS M.D. Coverley: Fukushima Pin Up Girl
Christy Dena: AUTHENTIC IN ALL CAPS
Caitlin Fisher: Cardamom of the Dead Christopher Funkhouser: #4ArtForFreedom
Jacob Garbe and Aaron Reed: Ice Bound Will Luers, Hazel Smith, and Roger Dean: Motions Piotr Marecki and Aleksandra Malecku:The Postulate to Hyperdescribe the World Mark C. Marino & Rob Wittig plus many participants: Speidishow
Stacey Mason, Stop & Smell Nick Montfort: Round Judd Morrissey: The Operature Scott Rettberg and Roderick Coover: Toxi City Complete information about ELO2014 is available in the resources listed below.
ELO2014 Hold the Light Home Page
Kathi Inman Berens,
"Disperse the Light" 1st: Gallery of E-Literature 1st Encounters
The Electronic Literature Organization |
Editor: Hold the Light: Celebrating 15 Years of Electronic Literature
It is hard to imagine that it has been 15 years since the founding of the Electronic Literature Organization by Scott Rettberg, Jeff Ballowe, and Robert Coover following the Technology Platforms for 21st Century Literature, hosted at Brown University. In the ensuing years the ELO has grown beyond the United States and to the continents of Europe, South America, and Australia. Its mission to promote electronic literature has seen much success, measured by its annual conferences, highly visible exhibits and readings, publication of its collections, activity on its social media, and recognition in national publications, both mainstream and academic. Its first official formal gathering, State of the Arts, was a symposium and media art show, hosted by scholar and ELO benefactor N. Katherine Hayles and held at UCLA in 2002, featuring major figures in the field, including Judy Malloy, John Cayley, Caitlin Fisher, MD Coverley, Stephanie Strickland, Stuart Moulthrop, Talan Memmott, and Loss Pequeño Glazier, to name a few. A second symposium and evening of performances, The Future of Electronic Literature, was held in 2007 at the University of Maryland, College Park and was organized by highly respect scholar, Matthew Kirschenbaum, with close to 75 people attending.
I had been present at the two symposia and knew from the growing number of participants at both that the ELO could easily sustain a full-fledged conference. The prediction held true, and 119 scholars and artists from 19 different countries participated in the three-day event in Vancouver, WA.
A proposal by Philippe Bootz at University Paris8 and co-founder of the digital poetry group L.A.I.R.E. resulted in the first international ELO conference. Cherchez le texte was held at such prestigious locations as the Centre Pompidou and BnF François-Mitterand. Alternating the conference’s location between the US and Europe meant that the organization could better serve many of its international members. Discussions are now underway for the next international ELO conference in 2015.
It is a watershed moment in that the organization is giving out the first of two annual prizes, "The N. Katherine Hayles Award for Criticism of Electronic Literature" and "The Robert Coover Award for a Work of Electronic Literature". Hayles will be present to give a keynote address and announce the recipient of Hayles award. The media art show, curated by Kathi Inman Berens, features art by 50 artists from 13 countries. And, of course, we are celebrating the organization’s success in "facilitat[ing] and promot[ing] the writing, publishing, and reading of literature in electronic media" for 15 years. It is an exciting time for electronic literature. To quote scholar Cathy Davidson, who spoke last week in Vancouver, WA, "the Internet is not going away". For those of us devoted to the art and scholarship of electronic literature, this simple fact means that the work we are doing is needed and is, itself, not going away. As I have written elsewhere, what makes the work that the ELO does absolutely imperative in this "Digital Information Age", as scholar Paul Ceruzzi calls it, is its leadership in developing methods for evaluating quality of "digital" creative and critical works and its insights into cataloging a growing body of "digital" fiction, poetry, and other literary forms, for the ELO is the only organized, scholarly body in the U.S. dedicated solely to the investigation of literature produced for the digital medium. ELO 2014 Hold the Light provides us the opportunity to continue this important work together for three magical days. I hope to see you there. Authoring Software Home 
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EL02014 Media Arts Show
EL02014 Media Arts Show:
ELO2014 Media Arts Show
ELO2014 Media Arts Show
ELO2014 Media Arts Show
ELO2014 Media Arts Show
By Dene Grigar,
The first conference with an open call for papers and art was
Following Visionary Landscapes, the ELO Board of Directors decided to host conferences every two years. Subsequent conferences took place at Brown University in 2010 (
We arrive now in 2014, with close to 120 scholars and artists about to arrive in Milwaukee, WI for