What is E-lit?

 

What is E-Lit?

As someone who had very little knowledge of electronic literature before today, the first chapter of Electronic Literature by Scott Rettberg and "Electronic Literature: What is it?" by N. Katherine Hayles proved to be very informative. Both Rettberg and Hayles discussed how electronic literature differs greatly from print literature because the digital text relies heavily on computerization - e-lit primarily exists in the digital world. E-lit works require experimentation, and consistently push the boundaries of what literature is, how we write it, and how we consume it. Rettberg even argued that works of e-lit constantly change, even when they are published - many projects can change as the readers are consuming them, which is what makes e-lit so interesting. Consuming and writing e-lit allows you to be experimental, creative, and expressive - and with new eras of technology, e-lit is constantly evolving, and that makes it more difficult to define. 

In his first chapter of Electronic Literature, Rettberg mentions a work of e-lit produced by Judd Morrissey, titled "The Last Performance [dot org]". Morrissey's work was created after Goat Island, a performance collective in Chicago, wanted to produce a "last performance" in 2007. The project was open to public collaboration - people submitted lines based on the theme/construct - and the submitted words became lines of domes, spirals, lenses, and circles within circles - over 4,680 "glass lenses" made up the final product. Morrissey writes in his author description that "The lenses of the cupola have been transposed as compositional space that will be populated until the dome is complete. The dome writings are also processed as source material to create a constantly evolving textual landscape." Morrissey's project highlights the intersectionality that is key to e-lit; "The Last Performance" focuses heavily on architecture, but also community, and evolution - the performance itself is multilayered. 

Unfortunately, you can't contribute to "The Last Performance" anymore - in fact, when I tried to click on the "begin" button, I was re-routed to a "page not found" screen. (The technology itself used in this project is dated, having been "live to the public" for only two years.) However, perhaps that is the point, and that is what makes this project, and e-lit as a whole, engaging and experimental; there is a limit to time, to art, and to digital literature ... their very nature is impermanent.

This video shows the performance and end product of "The Last Performance".