ELO Conference 2013 "Chercher le texte" in Paris (23.-28.9.2013)

Chercher le texte | Jörgen SCHÄFER from École des Arts Déco - Paris on Vimeo.

In Paris (endlich mal wieder in Europa!) fand die großartige ELO Conference "Chercher le texte" mit Vorträgen in der Bibliothèque Nationale und im EnsAD, Ausstellungen im Centre Pompidou und im Labo BnF sowie Performances in Le Cube statt! Im Panel "Transformations of the Literary" hielt ich einen Vortrag zum Thema “Rethinking Comparative Literature: Literary Studies in the Age of Electronic Media”.

Reviews of ITCMA books

The first (very positive!) reviews of books from the International Texts in Critical Media Aesthetics series have been published: Jan Baetens reviews Chris Funkhouser's New Directions in Digital Poetry in Leonardo, and there is a review of Martha Buskirk's Creative Enterprise in the Artnet Magazine.

International Texts in Critical Media Aesthetics

 

I am on the Editorial Board of “International Texts in Critical Media Aesthetics,” a new book series to be launched at Continuum Books in January 2012. Senior editor is Francisco J. Ricardo. This series will provide a transatlantic platform for new scholarship in the area of electronic art and literature. It introduces philosophical as well as historical monographs from international scholars dedicated to the problem of whether and how technology as a medium for art and literature simultaneously makes reference to and differs from the use of more traditional media and methods for these expressive practices. To date, five books are under contract, the first three books to appear early next year are Markku Eskelinen's Cybertext Poetics: The Critical Landscape of New Media Literary Theory, Chris Funkhouser's New Directions in Digital Poetry, and Martha Buskirk's Creative Enterprise: Contemporary Art betweenMuseum and Marketplace.

Video of "Electronic Literature Pedagogy" workshop

The video of my presentation "In Search of Sustainability" at the "Electronic Literature Pedagogy" workshop at Karlskrona (Sweden), June 15-17, is available at Vimeo:


Jörgen Schäfer - ELMCIP BTH Workshop from ELMCIP on Vimeo.

Eine Theorie der Medienumbrüche 1900/2000

 

Nicola Glaubitz, Henning Groscurth, Katja Hoffmann, Jörgen Schäfer, Jens Schröter, Gregor Schwering und Jochen Venus:
Eine Theorie der Medienumbrüche 1900/2000

Universi, Siegen 2011 (MuK - Massenmedien und Kommunikation 185/186)
202 Seiten, EUR 4.00

ISSN: 0721-3271

Free Download (PDF): urn:nbn:de:hbz:467-5678 

Das vorliegende Buch ist ein Ergebnis der Arbeitsgruppe "Theorie der Medienumbrüche", die während der zweiten Förderphase des DFG-Forschungskollegs 615 "Medienumbrüche" von 2005-2009 arbeitete. In der Gruppe wurde der Begriff des Medienumbruchs ausgehend von Lektüren einschlägiger medientheoretischer Texte intensiv diskutiert und schließlich zu einem Modell fortentwickelt. Dieses Modell und seine Begriffe (Emergenzereignis, Rekognitionsniveau, Faszinationskerne etc.) werden im ersten Kapitel vorgestellt. Die Kapitel 2-7 widmen sich drei entscheidenden Faszinationskernen des Medien­umbruchs um 1900 und ihren Entsprechungen im Medienumbruch um 2000. In Kapitel 8 werden diese Darstellungen nochmals perspektiviert und angereichert mit einer dichten Analyse der Verarbeitung der Faszinationskerne im Feuilleton.
Das Buch versteht sich als ein Diskussionsbeitrag zur medienhistoriographischen Methodik. Unser Ziel war es, einen Weg zu finden zwischen der sensiblen und dichten Beschreibung heterogener historischer Medienpraktiken und einer Begrifflichkeit, die Orientierung verschafft sowie Differenzen und Veränderungen hinreichend pointiert. Wir hoffen, mit unseren Begriffen die Umbrüche, die mit dem Auftreten neuer Medien verbunden werden, jenseits von Evolutionismus und Revolutionismus beschreiben zu können.
Da alle Texte in intensiver Diskussion der Arbeitsgruppe entstanden sind, versteht sich das vorliegende Buch als gemeinsame (!!!) Monographie von Nicola Glaubitz, Henning Groscurth, Katja Hoffmann, Jörgen Schäfer, Jens Schröter, Gregor Schwering und Jochen Venus. Das Buch spiegelt auch manche offene Frage wider, der manchmal kontroverse Prozess der konzeptuellen Arbeit zeigt sich auch in manchem offenen Ende und losen Faden. Das Buch zeigt aber auch, dass Teamwork kein leeres Wort sein muss. Es ist Zeugnis einer sehr produktiven und von Freundschaft geprägten Zeit.

Rezensionen

Es gibt Rezensionen zu den Büchern Beyond the Screen und Reading Moving Letters: Von Jan Baetens in Leonardo, von Florian Hartling in Medienwissenschaft, von Renate Giacomuzzi in literaturkritik.de, von Martina Pfeiler in dichtung-digital und von Anna Katharina Schaffner im Journal of Literary Theory.

CELL International Workshop on Databases and Bibliographic Standards for Electronic Literature in Bergen, June 20-21st

This CELL workshop is a follow-up of the meeting we held in Sydney last December. It presents international projects that document, curate, and present research on electronic literature: born-digital literary forms such as hypertext fiction, kinetic poetry, interactive drama, location-based narrative, multimedia literary installations, and other types of poetic experiences made for the networked computer.
Since June of 2010, as part of the HERA-funded ELMCIP Project, the University of Bergen's Electronic Literature Research Group has been developing the ELMCIP Knowledge Base (http://elmcip.net/knowledgebase), a platform positioned to become one of the leading research tools in this area of the digital humanities.
The primary goal of the workshop is to bring together members of several international projects working on the documentation of electronic literature. Representives of projects from the United States, Canada, Portugal, Germany, Spain, Australia, and Norway will gather to pubicly present work on their projects, and to discuss how to best establish an international research infrastructure for the field.
Among the goals of the workshop will be the establishment of a standardized set of bibliographic fields used to describe works of electronic literature, and to work towards implementation of data-sharing arrangements between databases. Participants will include humanities researchers, research librarians, and digital-humanities developers, so that we can both conceptualize and begin implementing standards in all the databases concerned.

Electronic Literature Pedagogy, June 15-17, 2011

I am participating in the ELMCIP workshop on "Electronic Literature Pedagogy,"
hosted by Blekinge Institute of Technology in Karlskrona, Sweden, June 15-17, 2011.
This workshop aims to examine the educational models of the study and practice of electronic literature that exist in Europe. Currently, there are relatively few European examples of such courses and programs. Such courses exist in a diverse range of disciplinary contexts and thus courses are informed by different theoretical and practical traditions. Therefore, the workshop will serve to both map and consolidate the educational models in practice in Europe today and to build upon shared experiences and knowledge so as to further develop educational models and policies in European higher education. The title of my presentation is "In Search of Sustainability: Institutional and Curricular Limitations of Teaching Electronic Literature."

Watch my presentation on Vimeo.

Workshop in Sydney

I am in Sydney, Australia, for a five day workshop to develop a set of methodological principles and practical procedures, including future funding applications, for the international collaborative development of a "Glossary of Literary Terms For Digital Environments." Participants include our wonderful hosts Anna Gibbs and Maria Angel from the Writing and Society research group at the University of Western Sydney, Scott Rettberg and Jill Walker Rettberg from Bergen (Norway),(ELMCIP), Peter Gendolla and Jörgen Schäfer (University of Siegen/Media Upheavals Project), Joseph Tabbi, Dene Grigar, and Davin Heckman (ELO), and a number of Australian writers, authors and theorists working in the field.

Neue Bücher 2010 (III): Anderes als Kunst

Thomas Kamphusmann/Jörgen Schäfer (Hrsg.)

Anderes als Kunst

Ästhetik und Techniken der Kommunikation.
Peter Gendolla zum 60. Geburtstag

Wilhelm Fink Verlag, München 2010
377 Seiten, Festeinband mit Schutzumschlag, EUR 58.00 / CHF 81.90

ISBN: 978-3-7705-5019-7

Wie organisieren Künste ihre Räume und Zeiten? Wie wirken technische Medien an künstlerischen Prozessen mit? Welche Rolle spielen insbesondere computerbasierte Medien? Wo und wie schleicht sich der Zufall in Epistemologien und Ästhetiken ein? Neben intentionalen Subjekten sind auch die Zeit- und Raumverhältnisse, die Menschen-, Zeichen- und Maschinenkörper, der Zufall sowie unterschiedliche Medientechnologien grundlegende Agenten ästhetischer Produktion und Rezeption. Der Band, der aus Anlass des 60. Geburtstages von Peter Gendolla zusammengestellt worden ist, vereint literatur-, kunst- und medienwissenschaftliche Beiträge, welche diese unvorhersehbaren Wechselspiele näher beleuchten.

Mit Beiträgen von Olaf Breidbach, Wolfgang Coy, Jörg Döring, Manfred Faßler, Thomas Kamphusmann, Kay Kirchmann, Otto Neumaier, K. Ludwig Pfeiffer, Karl Riha, Jörgen Schäfer, Helmut Schanze, Ralf Schnell, Jens Schröter, Erhard Schüttpelz, Roberto Simanowski, Klaus Vondung, Gundolf Winter und Carsten Zelle.

"Digitale Literaturvermittlung"

Mein Beitrag "Verteiltes literarisches Handeln. Vorüberlegungen zu einer Theorie der Literatur in computerbasierten Medien" ist in dem von Renate Giacomuzzi, Stefan Neuhaus und Christiane Zintzen herausgegebenen Band Digitale Literaturvermittlung: Praxis – Forschung – Archivierung im STUDIEN-Verlag Innsbruck erschienen.

"Literary Art in Digital Performance"

In dem Band Literary Art in Digital Performance, herausgegeben von Francisco J. Ricardo, ist mein Artikel "Looking Behind the Façade: Playing and Performing an Interactive Drama" erschienen.
Außerdem enthält der Band noch Beiträge von Francisco J. Ricardo, Roberto Simanowski, Rita Raley, Katherine Hayles, C.T. Funkhouser, Katja Kwastek, Maria Bäcke, Peter Gendolla und John Cayley.

Neue Bücher 2010 (II): Beyond the Screen

Jörgen Schäfer, Peter Gendolla (eds.)
Beyond the Screen
Transformations of Literary Structures, Interfaces and Genres
Transcript Verlag, Bielefeld 2010
568 S., kart., 44,80 €
ISBN 978-3-8376-1258-5

While literature in computer-based and networked media has so far been experienced by looking at the computer screen and by using keyboard and mouse, nowadays human-machine interactions are organized by considerably more complex interfaces. Consequently, this book focuses on literary processes in interactive installations, locative narratives and immersive environments, in which active engagement and bodily interaction is required from the reader to perceive the literary text. The contributions from internationally renowned scholars analyze how literary structures, interfaces and genres change, and how transitory aesthetic experiences can be documented, archived and edited.

Mit Beiträgen von Jean-Pierre Balpe, Giselle Beiguelman, Friedrich W. Block, Laura Borràs Castanyer/Juan B. Gutiérrez, John Cayley, Peter Gendolla, Maria Angel/Anna Gibbs, N. Katherine Hayles, Jeremy Hight, Ludwig Jäger, Fotis Jannidis, Katja Kwastek, Rita Raley, Francisco J. Ricardo, Andrew Michael Roberts, Jörgen Schäfer, Anna Katharina Schaffner, Ravi Shankar, Roberto Simanowski, Beat Suter, Joseph Tabbi, Jochen Venus und Noah Wardrip-Fruin.

Neue Bücher 2010 (I): Reading Moving Letters

Roberto Simanowski, Jörgen Schäfer, Peter Gendolla (eds.)
Reading Moving Letters
Digital Literature in Research and Teaching. A Handbook
Transcript Verlag, Bielefeld
384 S., kart., zahlr. z.T. farb. Abb., 34,80 €
ISBN 978-3-8376-1130-4

»Digital media« is increasingly finding its way into the discussions of the humanities classroom. But while there is a number of grand theoretical texts about digital literature there as yet is little in the way of resources for discussing the down-to-earth practices of research, teaching, and curriculum necessary for this work to mature. This book presents contributions by scholars and teachers from different countries and academic environments who articulate their approach to the study and teaching of digital literature and thus give a broader audience an idea of the state-of-the-art of the subject matter also in international comparison.

Mit Beiträgen von Astrid Ensslin, Peter Gendolla, María Goicoechea, Raine Koskimaa, James Pope, Alexandra Saemmer, Jörgen Schäfer, Roberto Simanowski, Janez Strehovec, Patricia Tomaszek, Noah Wardrip-Fruin, Karin Wenz und John Zuern.

Tagung "Beyond the Screen: Transformations of Literary Structures, Interfaces and Genres", Siegen, 20.-21.11.2008

International conference at the Cultural Studies Research Center “Media Upheavals”
University of Siegen, Germany, November 20-21, 2008
Organized by Professor Dr. Peter Gendolla and Dr. Jörgen Schäfer

Conference website: http://www.litnet.uni-siegen.de

Using electronic and networked media has resulted in such serious changes in the relationship between “author,” “work,” and “reader” that it seems necessary to make revisions in the tradi-tional models analyzing literary communication. The Siegen conference on “The Aesthetics of Net Literature: Writing, Reading and Playing in Programmable Media” (Nov 25-27, 2004; book available at Transcript Publishers) had already made clear that this triad has to be extended into the technical aspects of media: Literary processes emerge from techno-social networks, i.e. they materialize in the interplay between human and electronic “actants.”
If in the past discussions centered mostly on those projects that were perceived by looking at the computer screen or that were controlled via keyboard and mouse, now man-machine interactions are organized by considerably more complex interfaces. The specific attention of this follow-up conference therefore will be focusing on the aesthetic processes of AI-controlled environments that occur in the physical realm between the interfaces of technical sensors or effectors and the human body. Electronic media take “body language” to a new level as well since more and more the whole body is involved in the media activity. Increasingly complex sensors (integrated into vehicles, clothes and environments) “realize”—hear, see, feel, in other words: measure—the movements of the body, its mimics and gestures. This “multimodal” body itself then also ex-changes information with the “products” of this kind of technology. Such medial couplings and framings enable the co-operation of non-symbolic activities, symbolic language activities and algorithmic processes of computer systems.
If it is true that semantics is always the result of intermedial transcriptions between media then this development affects all human behavior concerning linguistic signs and therefore also the aesthetic processes of perception and self-perception. In this context the contributions to this con-ference will refer to literary communication and strategies thereby interrogating how literary structures, interfaces and genres change regarding:
- Locative Narratives, i.e. environmental, neighborhood and city projects with GPS-based media following literary patterns (e.g. travel- and adventure-narratives or detective stories like Jean-Pierre Balpe’s “Fictions d'Issy”; Stefan Schemat’s Augmented Reality Fictions; “Inter Urban” by 34 North 118 West or Susanne Berkenheger/Gisela Müller’s “Worldwatchers”).
- Immersive Environments (Cave or interactive camera-projection systems) in which reception does not only take place through the eyes alone but rather in which the whole body is “reading” and thereby recomposing already saved meanings or those that still have to be constructed (e.g. Noah Wardrip-Fruin’s “Screen”; John Cayley’s “Lens”; Camille Utterback’s “Text Rain”).
- Stagings of inner realms and environments in which real characters (from simple users to trained actors) and artificial ones (from avatars, software agents etc. to complex AI-programs) following quite classical dramatic patterns of activity are involved in dialogues (e.g. Michael Mateas/Andrew Stern et.al.: “AR Façade”).
Regarding the aesthetics of net literature therefore the question has to be asked whether we can continue talking of a specific migration of traditional literary forms into computer-based and net-worked media. Can we continue analyzing such examples as “literature”? In what way can the semantics of literary terminology, concepts and systems be retained or does it have to be revised? Can we still correlate the examples mentioned above with the three traditional genres?
Apart from this the performative projects mentioned above intensify the already difficult problem of the documentation/archiving of as well as the access to processes of electronic literature. Lastly, the conference also will address the problem of archiving and editing the rather transitory electronic literature, thereby attempting to advance the cooperation of current and planned data-bases, archives and editions.


Program

Thursday, November 20, 2008
9.30-10.00: Peter Gendolla & Jörgen Schäfer (Siegen): Welcoming Notes and Introduction

Panel I: Performance and the Emergence of Meaning
10.00-10.50: Roberto Simanowski (Providence, USA): Event and Meaning: Reading Interactive Installations in the Light of Art History
11.10-12.00: N. Katherine Hayles (Los Angeles, USA): Behind the Screen: Implications of Data-base Construction
12.00-12.50: Ludwig Jäger (Aachen, Germany): Epistemology of Disruptions: Thoughts on Some Principles of Cultural Semantics

Panel II: Literature between Virtual, Physical and Symbolic Space
14.30-15.20: John Cayley (Providence, USA): Surface Text: Text as Surface in Immersive 3D Environments
15.20-16.10: Noah Wardrip-Fruin (Santa Cruz, USA): What is Behind the Complex Surface?
16.30-17.20: Rita Raley (Los Angeles, USA): Locative Narrative: Figuring Urban Space in the Network Society
17.20-18.10: Anna Gibbs/Maria Angel (Sydney, Australia): Memory and Motion: The Body in Electronic Writing


Friday, November 21, 2008
Panel III: Beyond Genre: Transformations of Narrative, Poetic and Dramatic Structures
9.30-10.20: Francisco J. Ricardo (Boston, USA): Framing Locative Consciousness
10.20-11.10: Jochen Venus (Siegen, Germany): Beyond Game and Narration: A Morphological Approach to Computer Game Analysis
11.30-12.20: Friedrich Block (Kassel, Germany): How to Construct the Genre of Digital Poetry: A User Manual

Panel IV: Preservation, Archiving and Editing
14.30-15.20: Joseph Tabbi (Chicago, USA): On Reading 300 Works of Electronic Literature: Is There a Literary Mainstream in New Media?
15.20-16.10: Fotis Jannidis (Darmstadt, Germany): Scholarly Editing and the Net
16.30-17.20: Ravi Shankar (New Britain, CT, USA): Retrospective and Barometer: A Decade of “Drunken Boat”

Sponsored by: German Research Foundation (DFG), Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, and University of Siegen

Conference venue:
University of Siegen
Artur-Woll-Haus
Am Eichenhang 50
D-57076 Siegen

Contact:
Prof. Dr. Peter Gendolla, Dr. Jörgen Schäfer, Patricia Tomaszek, Fariborz Mansouri
University of Siegen
Cultural Studies Research Center 615 “Media Upheavals”
D-57068 Siegen
Germany
E-mail: {gendolla | schaefer | tomaszek | mansouri} (at) fk615.uni-siegen.de