13 | 2000

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Digital Art and Culture Konferenz Nr. 3, Bergen/Norwegen 2.-4. 8. 2000: Bericht
Simanowski, Roberto (2000-08-08) , S. 1-4
Avantgarde als Arrièregard: das Beispiel Kolportageroman
Storim, Mirjam (2000-08-18) , S. 1-6
Mirjam Storim führt die Diskussion zurück auf die Anfänge der Kulturindustrie in Deutschland um 1900 und zeigt, dass sich die Rollenbeweglichkeit von Autor und Leser ebenso wie die Phänomene Transversalität und Transfugalität bereits hier als konstitutive Elemente erkennen lassen.
Questioning Digital Aesthetics
Walther, Bo Kampmann (2000-08-22) , S. 1-10
Interactive multimedia art does indeed sets new standards as regard considerations of form, fabric, and interpretation. It seems as if our traditional idea of the work of art as a more or less fixed temporal and spatial entity interferes with the floating structure of the cyber-artwork. When does a piece of art or a multimedia installation seize to be that particular work or installation, and instead becomes an altogether different one? Digital art moves in areas of deliberate hybrid constellations wherein specific artistic knowledge and instruments of meaning reveal innovative, generic de-placements and infinite input-output-architectures. In light of these new conditions and possibilities, I set out to explore how we are to unite existing interactive computer art with a speculative, philosophical aesthetic. In the age of digital simulacra, a work of art is never safe, never to be trusted, never to be invested, since a digital piece is always already in the hands of a consumer who is both interpreter and creator. Guided by, respectively, Immanuel Kant, Niklas Luhmann, and Lars Qvortrup, a distinction between structural transcendentalism (Kant) and aposterioric functionalism (Luhmann, Qvortrup) is drawn in order to locate the specific field in which digital art operates. Kant says that true beauty is placed in the form attributed to the transcendental subject; and this form acts as a prism through which the art-thing is experienced. Luhmann, on the other hand, suggests that art, in its emancipation from religious, metaphysical, or edifying motives, none the less 'obliges' itself to difference. Modern art must be conceived as a difference which is propelled forward when man, in the absence of a 'clean' code of communication, embarks upon an artform which, paradoxically, tries to articulate the very un-explicable or un-articulated fabric of true expression. Luhmann's perspective seems to answer well to the praxis of digital artforms. Here the raison d'être of art is to put elements and viewpoints within the world at stake and at stage - to open up the level between the artist's form-decision and the art-spectator's fluctuating and unpredictable form-realisation. However, this new relation between artist, work of art, and public sphere is by far an unreflected aftermath of multiple social constructivist theses. Even though we may acknowledge the turn in the philosophy of art towards a polycentric system in which many different social codes are manifested, we must also maintain that the artist can be depicted as a unique 'point' in the ecology of art-structure from where the initial (and hence original) form-condition and -decision are extracted. Thus we have an 'artist of the first degree' who happens to press the button right before the work of art takes on its infinite journey towards change in character, form, and originality. But, however, all that which we used to call interpretation now reach into materialised expression; a fact that, negatively speaking, also means that the art-market is overflowed by products that are 'merely' spiralling reproductions of the original content. Mona Lisa with a beard and sunglasses may be performance art on Louisiana, but it is a crime on Louvre.
Die Aaleskorte der Ölig: Interview mit Frank Klötgen
Simanowski, Roberto (2000-08-22) , S. 1-6
Die Aaleskorte der Ölig von Dirk Günthers und Frank Klötgens ist einer der Preisträger des 98er Pegasus-Wettbewerbs für Internet-Literatur (Besprechung in dichtung-digital). Ein Text-Bild-Geflecht, das sich als Film ausgibt, 6,9 Milliarden Lesarten verspricht und eigentlich eine Parodie auf den Hypertext darstellt. Ein Werk, das nur Freunde oder Feinde hat. Roberto Simanowski sprach mit Frank Klötgen über die Ölig, den Ekel, Publikumsbeschimpfung, literarische Vorblider und die deutsche Szene der Netzliteratur.
The Distributed Author: Creativity in the Age of Computer Networks
Heibach, Christiane (2000-08-23) , S. 1-9
The Death of the Author has first been claimed by poststructuralist philosophy. When language is seen as an open system undergoing constant changes, it loses its power of forming the subject's consciousness. Author and reader become object to the open différance-movement of the signs. Hypertext theorists like George Landow and Michael Joyce transferred this core thesis of poststructuralist thinking to the literary application of hypertext. Hyperfiction, seen as a "garden of forking paths," seems to semantically represent the looseness of the signifier-signified-relation as the multiple narrative lines subvert any control by the reader and undermine the author's power to fix all contexts and therefore all meanings of the text sequences. Although Landow sees this hypertextual dimension as a fulfillment of the poststructuralist claim, that meaning is only constituted by the reader and not determined by the author, in hyperfiction this remains an illusion. As the reader has to move within an unknown narrative universe, her freedom is strongly reduced when she tries to figure out the coherence and connections between the lexias. It is still the author who determines the text by designing the possible ways the reader can take, and by writing and therefore fixing the text sequences. Nevertheless we experience a change of the author concept deriving from new writing practices in computer networks. The internet as the most complex networked platform is the sphere where the single creator is substituted by a collective and communicative creativity. Literary internet-projects meanwhile have developed a wide range of different cooperative forms that can be structured in "weak" and "strong" ways of collaboration. Under "weak" cooperation I subsume collaborations of authors and designers (the technical basis of internet literature and the development towards multimedia effects requires a wide range of qualifications that very rarely can be performed by one person) or multiple authors as e.g. realized in the literary project "Aliento" where three authors work together to create a narrative network of stories related to significant places of a fictional city. "Strong" ways of collaboration are those where any internet user can participate, as in cooperative writing projects like "*snowfields*" by Josephine Berry and Micz Flor , where - based on the concept of soap operas - different stories related to various topographical parts of Eastern Berlin shall be developed. Also "frame"-projects represent this way of cooperation - projects where the initiator sets the frame, and the participators are free to realize their interpretation as for example performed in "noon quilt" where people from all parts of the world are asked to describe what they see when they look out of their window at noon. Thus an intercultural network of different views expressing the different individual and cultural conditions is woven. Apart from these ways of collaboration a second form, basically communicative, appears. It is realized in Virtual Worlds where people meet to interact by text and tell each other their (true or fictional) story. "Conversation with Angels" is such a literary project where avatars talk to visitors, visitors to other real life visitors or avatars and no-one knows who the other is. The avatars have their own biography, and in communication with the visitors they develop narratives that only exist as long as the conversation goes on. These projects are fundamentally ephemeral and only alive as long as there are participants. These forms of cooperation and communication deeply change the notion of the author - they cause a shift from one creator-personality to multiple creators and thus a shift from the completed work to an ever-changing, never finished procedural project, where the act of communicating with others substitutes the desire to create an eternal and fixed work. The action is more important than the result.
Das Epos der Maschine: Interview mit Urs Schreiber
Simanowski, Roberto (2000-08-23) , S. 1-9
Urs Schreiber hat für sein Epos der Maschine (Besprechung in dichtung-digital) begeisterte Lobeshymnen der Netzgemeinde erhalten. Die raffinierte 'Ästhetik der teleskopischen Präsentation' schien einen neuen Weg der digitalen Literatur zu eröffnen, entstanden war ein 'ausfahrbarer Hypertext', der die nichtlineare Anordnung der Texte mit dem Spektakel ihres Erscheinens verband. Roberto Simanowski sprach mit Urs Schreiber über Entstehung und Konzept des "Epos", über das Lesen unter der Brandung technischer Effekte, 'Buchstabenblut' und die Digitalisierung konkreter Poesie.
Urs Schreibers "Das Epos der Maschine": Wenn konkrete Poesie digital wird
Simanowski, Roberto (2000-08-23) , S. 1-24
Urs Schreibers 'ausfahrbarer Hypertext' wurde von vielen ob seines beeindruckenden technischen und grafischen Designs als genial bezeichnet. Roberto Simanowski untersucht das Projekt als Werk der vierfachen Syntax - Text, Raum, Zeit, Interaktion - und fragt, inwiefern die Ästhetik des Spektakels den Text zum Effekt seines Auftritts funktionalisiert.
When Literature goes Multimedia: Three German Examples
Simanowski, Roberto (2000-08-24) , S. 1-10
In February 2000 Robert Coover noticed the "constant threat of hypermedia: to suck the substance out of a work of lettered art, reduce it to surface spectacle". Coover's message seems to be: When literature goes multimedia, when hypertext turns into hypermedia a shift takes place from serious aesthetics to superficial entertainment. What Coover points out is indeed a problem of hypermedia. If the risk of hyperfiction is to link without meaning, the risk of hypermedia is to employ effects that only flex the technical muscles. Can there be substance behind spectacle? In this paper I discuss three examples of German digital literature which combine the attraction of technical aesthetics with the attraction of deeper meaning. The first example, "Das Epos der Maschine" (The Epic of the Machine) by Urs Schreiber, presents a visual image consisting only of words, since the words themselves represent pictures by moving in a predetermined way. For example, words that put technology into question form a question mark with the word 'Truth' as a period. If one clicks on the question mark, the words disappear behind the 'Truth' as if it had swallowed them. However, the question can be 'eaten' in this way, it cannot be erased, because if one moves the mouse the word 'Truth' moves and is followed by those other words as if they stick on the truth until the cursor stops and those words disappear again. "Trost der Bilder" ("Consolation of Images") by Jürgen Daibers and Jochen Metzgers, tells the story of a man who falls in love with a mannequin and locks himself overnight in a store in order to gaze upon it. The manequin's face can half be seen in the background of the text and is shown at the end of the story without the accompanying text, but only for a moment. This combination of image and time setting leads to the deeper meaning, because the readers who hit the return button in order to see the mannequin's face testify to their attraction to the mannequin. To be sure, they do not thereby become like the man in the story; nevertheless, their action re-enacts the reading process in general, which is also a materialization of life in our imagination. The third example, "Digital Troja" (Digital Troy) by Fevci Konuk, uses words, sound and animated images, to discuss war both past and present time. One interesting effect here is the image of Paris, who obviously wants to run away from Troy but is instead caught in an endless loop. There are two breaks within the loop. In the language of animation breaks are supposed to stress something. I see these breaks as allusions to the famous sequence in Hitchcock's movie "North by Northwest" where Roger Thornhill, alias Cary Grant, realizes the danger of an approaching airplane, and to Discobulus, the ancient discus-thrower. While Discobulus is associated with the Olympic ideal, Thornhill evokes the Cold War. Both bring important issues in the story. Thus breaks itselfes serve as text and add meaning to the written text.
HYPERTEXT 2000: A rather subjective conference report
Rau, Anja (2000-09-05) , S. 1-2
HYPERTEXT 2000: Ein eher subjektiver Konferenzbericht
Rau, Anja (2000-09-05) , S. 1-2
Narrationspfade in Hyperfictions: Erzählung als Weg durch den fiktiven Raum
Suter, Beat (2000-09-10) , S. 1-20
Elektronische Hypertexte zeichnen sich oft dadurch aus, dass sie keinen eindeutigen Narrationspfad vorgeben, sondern ganze Netzwerke von Möglichkeiten anbieten. Raum und Zeit nehmen in Hyperfictions dabei wie in traditionellen Texten eine zentrale, ‘erzählungskonstituierende’ Rolle ein. Während in vielen Hyperfictions die Zeitdimension über die Hyperlinks erstellt wird, generieren die Texteinheiten den fiktiven Raum. Diese Raum- und Zeitdimensionen werden in Hyperfiktionen und interaktiven Narrationen sowie in manchen interaktiven Spielen über das Prinzip des Weges verknüpft – das heisst, der Topos des Pfads verknüpft die Dimensionen zu einer Narration. Diese narrative Verknüpfung muss aber meist vom Leser selbst geleistet werden, der mitentscheidet und mittels Anwählen einzelner Hyperlinks von Texteinheit zu Texteinheit transportiert wird und somit eine Reise in einer eigenen virtuellen Welt unternimmt. Der Leser handelt dabei quasi als Agent, der sich eine Geschichte zusammensucht, indem er subjektiv entscheidet und agiert. In der Arbeit wird näher untersucht, wie diese vektorale Interaktion zwischen dem Leser und dem Text vor sich geht und was daraus entsteht.
Digital Literature: From Text to Hypertext and Beyond
Koskimaa, Raine (2000-09-10) , S. 1-4
Abstract of Raine Koskimaa's PhD thesis.
Reading Victory Garden
Koskimaa, Raine (2000-09-12) , S. 1-21
Stuart Moulthrop's Victory Garden (1991) is one of the "classical hyperfictions" alongside Michael Joyce's Afternoon (1987) and Shelley Jackson's Patchwork Girl (1993). Of these three, however, Victory Garden has been all but neglected by the critics - in its truly novelistic size (993 lexias), multifarious navigating possibilities, innovative hypertextual devices, as well as intertextually dense frame of references it is well worth closer attention. The essay starts with an overview of the work, describing both the technical aspects (like the reader interface) and the main story lines and characters. Then, the hypertextual structure of Victory Garden is discussed, with particular emphasis on Moulthrop's use of the device we call "singular loop" (as opposed to an indefinite loop). In singular loop the reader is taken back to a previous point in the path she is reading, but the next time around not. There is a loop, a sequence of lexias read twice, but after that the path continues forward. One possible motivation for this kind of structure is to invoke a certain sense of malfunctioning, of an unintentional lapse in the running of the narration. Also, the questions of repetition and repetition with difference are discussed, trying to demonstrate the difference between hypertextual and narrative structures. Next, we try to identify alternative "framestories", which would motivate the hypertextual structures employed in Victory Garden. There are at least four of those: the Borgesian forking paths idea (which is closely linked to possible worlds semantics), the dream-as-hypertext, the virtual reality simulation, and, conspiracy paranoia. Further on, we will next turn to the intertextual references and allusions in Victory Garden, which back up these different interpretational frames. Three essential subtexts are Jorge Luis Borges' stories (especially "Garden of Forking Paths" and "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius"), William Burrough's stories employing the cut up technique, and, Thomas Pynchon's novel Gravity's Rainbow. In this essay we offer several competing interpretations of Moulthrop's work, but even all of them together cannot explain each and every aspect of the large web of Victory Garden. But, as we argue, trying to interpret Victory Garden means mainly to try and describe how the mechanism works; in other words, trying to explain the poetics of the text.
Netzliteratur im literarischen Netz: Interview mit Hermann Rotermund
Simanowski, Roberto (2000-09-26) , S. 1-7
Hermann Rotermund studierte Germanistik und Soziologie und promovierte mit einer Arbeit über „Ästhetische Bedürfnisse". Er war Lehrbeauftragter und wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter an der Universität Bremen (1977 bis 1983), Organisator der Bremer Literarischen Wochen und anderer Kulturveranstaltungen (1983 bis 1988) sowie Leiter eines Redaktionsbüros (1988 bis 1995). Rotermund konzipierte und koordinierte das Internet-Angebot von Radio Bremen und ARD und baute für die ARD den ersten Multimedia-Kanal im digitalen Fernsehen auf. Er ist Autor, Übersetzer und Herausgeber von Sachbüchern. Roberto Simanowski sprach mit ihm über Wettbewerbe zur 'Netz'-Literatur, deutsche Netzliteraten, Dichtung und Technik, Cyberoper und E-Books.
Hyperfiction pur: Interview mit Susanne Berkenheger
Simanowski, Roberto (2000-09-28) , S. 1-14
Susanne Berkenheger steht mit ihren preisgekrönten Hyperfictions "Zeit für die Bombe" und "Hilfe!" für die deutsce Fraktion des Hypertextes, die auch im Zeitalter des multimedialen Internet ohne Bild- und Tonelemente auskommt und allein auf das Abenteuer einer etwas (genauer: ziemlich) anderen Begegnung mit dem Wort setzt. Roberto Simanowski sprach mit ihr über beide Werke sowie über das Bombenlegen per Klick, über die Beobachtung des Lesers durch den Text, über die Beschleunigung des Lesers, seine Verwandlung zum Mitspieler, die Gretchenfrage der digitalen Literatur sowie über den Zusammenhang von Avantgarde und Wurst.
Poeten-Pinnwand digital: NULL. Thomas Hettches Netz-Projekt als Buch
Simanowski, Roberto (2000-09-30) , S. 1-6

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