Digital Writing and Readings
Adam Parrish recently taught a class at NYU in the ITP program: Digital Writing with Python. I was very interested to learn about it and to see documentation of the final reading/performance, with some links to students’ blog entries about their projects. Here at MIT, I teach a class called The Word Made Digital in which students do poetry, fiction, and less classifiable writing projects using Python and other systems and languages. And, I know that Daniel Howe has taught the RISD and Brown class Advanced Programming for Digital Art and Literature.
Nick Montfort contemplates electronic literature readings.
I suspect, though, that these classes that are mainly focused on writing and programming are rather rare – much more rare, I’d bet, than design and art classes that are heavy on programming. It may have something to do with the number of galleries and curated Web sites exhibiting programmed visual art, which seems to me to be much greater than the number of similar edited venues for digital writing that’s driven by code. I’m not sure which way the causality flows. But several of the art-loving among us have some idea that, say, Processing programs can be aesthetic, even though they’re made of code. It’s not as common for literary folks to think of Python, Perl, or other programming languages (whether or not they start with P) as ways of creating literary art.
My sense is that having readings, of the sort that Parrish hosted at the end of his class and of the sort that the Electronic Literature Organization has sponsored and organized over the years, is a useful way to address this gap between literature and the visual arts. (Full-blown festivals, of course, don’t hurt either.) A reading allows writers to show off a program, which may be intricate, and explain how it works. It’s fun for those who are already into digital literature, and an accessible way for other literati to see what computational writing is about and how it bring certain literary qualities into the digital realm – even if it does radically subvert others. And since there aren’t as many official, edited, and well-promoted publication options for computational writers, going to do a reading can be a good way to appear in a context of other writers and reach a public.
I’m trying to do my part here by running a reading series for digital writing, but that’s grist for the next post.
Tags: art | code | e-literature | Processing | programming | Python | readings | teaching
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2 Responses to “Digital Writing and Readings”.
The Nick is right when The Nick talks about readings.
I’ve always enjoyed doing talks, and try to put some performative play into mine.
I would love to do something like that here. To act as a go-between for institutions and writers/artists.
I’d also suggest we should do more video talks. I’ve not only done live video chats, but pre-recorded responses to student questions, then placed low and high quality versions online to grab.
Readings are an excellent idea, and to this I would add curating shows in galleries. As some of you know, I recently curated an offline (and online) show of digital literature at Austin Peay State University, and I have found since then, that galleries respond fairly well when asked if they might be interested in exhibiting a show of DL (at least, they don’t run away screaming).
Jason, in the past, has urged us to be pro-active in our approaches toward getting the word out (no pun intended) about digital literature. Between readings, gallery exhibits, and other venues, we might just find our way…
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