ELO_AI Arts Program installations

In early June an international collection of e-literature was installed in a gallery setting in downtown Providence (Rhode Island, USA) for the Arts Program of the Electronic Literature Organization 2010 Conference (ELO_AI), including my own piece, Underbelly. There were many wonderful works presented but I’d like to pick out a few that made me think about transliteracy in particular: Requiem, Ethereal Landscapes and Between Page And Screen.

The creators of these works augment their digital art and e-poetry with print, employing a delightful topsy-turvy kind of transliteracy, whereby the printed matter becomes a device for reading the digital, rather than the usual way remediation goes when texts originated for print are digitized. Reading these works, you wonder, where is the poem, where is the story? The poem, the art is powerfully and clearly present, but you’re aware that it doesn’t exist in the computer and it doesn’t exist on the page – it’s between these realms, slipping and sliding along the virtuality continuum – or perhaps it’s the reader who is transliterately sliding around in mixed reality?

Requiem and printed marker

It’s an experience that simultaneously displaces and enchants the human reader. It slides you into a magical zone where somehow your corporeal reading equipment – eyes (and reading glasses) – have been substituted by a black & white graphic and a webcam or barcode reader. It’s only when, and if, you allow yourself to be transformed like this that the poetry appears for you.

Have a look at the works, see where they take you…

Viewing Requiem - the image appears

Requiem by Charles Fisher and Caitlin Fisher

“Requiem is an augmented reality poem in which digital imagery and sound is superimposed on a physical object — in this case the card with the black and white marker. Simply hold the marker up to the webcam to begin experiencing the piece.”

Requiem, which incorporates a poem written by her father, is part of a larger, more fragmented work by Caitlin Fisher “about collections, hoarding and the things we save when people die” called Cardamom of the Dead. Download and print out a marker.

Pages from the Ethereal Landscape printed book

Ethereal Landscapes by Alexander Mouton and Christian Faur

“Ethereal Landscapes is an interactive electronic installation that immerses a viewer into a photographic artists’ book and generative video and audio data-base which a viewer can interact with in real-time through scanning the bar codes on the pages of an accompanying book….

“The concept comes from our love of the immersive quality of books (which can be held), of sound (which surrounds you), and of video (which engages your sense of temporality through its movement).”

Reading Ethereal Landscape with a barcode reader

Between Page And Screen written by Amaranth Borsuk and programmed by Brad Bouse

“…is an augmented-reality chapbook. Like a digital pop-up book, you hold the words in your hands…

“The poems—a series of cryptic letters between two lovers, P and S—do not exist on either page or screen, but in an augmented reality only accessible to the reader who has both the physical object and the device necessary to read it.”

Watch the video or print out the preview marker and try it for yourself (you’ll need a webcam).

This article is crossposted from Transliteracy.com

This special session at the Modern Language Association’s 2011 conference aims to explore the cultural meaning of critically dismissed casual games, art games, and indie games. The format will be a Pecha Kucha style roundtable, with each presentation limited to 20 slides at 20 seconds per slide (6:40 total). The bulk of the session time will be reserved for discussion.

Send an abstract to Mark Sample (msample1@gmu.edu) by 15 March 2010.

The Electronic Literature Organization’s
Fourth International Conference
& Program of Digitally Mediated Literary Art

June 3-6, 2010
Brown University
Providence, Rhode Island, USA
Organized by the ELO and Writing Digital Media
at the Brown University Literary Arts Program
dedicated to Robert Coover

The Electronic Literature Organization and Brown University’s Literary Arts Program invite submissions to the Electronic Literature Organization 2010 Conference to be held from June 3-6, 2010 in Providence, Rhode Island, USA.

electronic literature . writing digital media . language-driven digital poesis . literal art

We welcome papers and presentations on a broad range of topics. The conference will focus on the theory, criticism, close-reading, practice and archiving of language-driven digital art and poetics. Our gathering will also embrace all the related cultural practices that continue to be addressed by scholars and artists in our growing field: expressive processing, computational art, artificial cognition and intelligence, aesthetic gaming, information art, codework, digitally mediated performance, network & media art & activism.

In addition we will give a special welcome to papers that engage with the contribution that Robert Coover has made to our field. A festschrift comprised of papers from the conference is proposed and Professor Coover will be our chief featured eWriter. (Other featured speakers to be announced shortly.)

In conjunction with the three-day conference, there will be a juried Program of Language-Driven Digital Art, concentrating on but not confined to installation works. We plan to show the selected work in gallery spaces close to the conference venue in downtown Providence over a two week period. Subject to funding restrictions, selected artists will be awarded bursaries to assist with attending the conference. Submission guidelines will be posted on the conference website by mid November.

Deadline for Submissions: December 15, 2009
Notification of Acceptance: January 25, 2010
PLEASE NOTE: Deadline for full papers will be May 1, 2010 to allow for reflection and exchange on the papers prior to the conference and to get head-start in the publication process.

The basic cost of the conference is $150; graduate students and non-affiliated artists pay only $100. Conference registration covers access to all events, the reception, some meals, and shuttle transportation. All conference attendees are also expected to join the ELO before the conference and this can be done at registration.

We are planning to implement online submission and registration. Before submitting, please consult the conference website at:   http://ai.eliterature.org

(The above URL was not redirecting when this was first distributed. Until it is, please use:)
http://www.brown.edu/Conference/Electronic_Literature_Organization

After consulting the website, for further queries and all email correspondence contact:  elo.ai@eliterature.org

The above address should be used for all conference business. It will checked by myself and also those colleagues and students who will be assisting me with the conference organization. But I appreciate that you may sometimes also want to get in touch with the conference organizer: John Cayley Literary Arts Program – Box 1923, Brown University, 68 1/2 Brown Street, Providence, RI 02912, USA. office: +1 401 863 3966, John_Cayley@brown.edu

FURTHER SUPPORT AND SPONSORSHIP SOLICITED

The Conference is currently sponsored and supported by The Electronic Literature Organization, Brown University Literary Arts Program, Brown University Creative Arts Council, Brown University Library, and the RISD D+M Program. Any organization or individual in receipt of this call who would like to sponsor and support this major international conference, please get in touch. External sponsors are being sought and will be appropriately acknowledged.

Transliteracy Conference

Tuesday 9 February 2010, 9:30 – 17:30

Phoenix Square Digital Media Centre, Leicester, UK

In association with the Institute of Creative Technologies & the NLab Small Business Network,  De Montfort University
www.transliteracy.com/conference2010.html

Deadline for Abstracts:  1 December, 2009

Transliteracy is the ability to read, write and interact across a range of platforms, tools and media from signing and orality through handwriting, print, TV, radio and film, to digital social networks.  Since 2005, when Professor Sue Thomas introduced this concept in the UK, transliteracy has been taken up and explored by a broad range of academics and practitioners, from information scientists to literary theorists, artists and writers. The first Transliteracy Conference will take place at Leicester’s new Phoenix Square Digital Media Centre, on 9 Feb 2010.  This one-day event offers an opportunity for academics, artists, business people and practitioners to share discoveries, ideas, and creative works that amplify and augment transliteracy research.

This Call for Presentations invites 250 word abstracts.  Presentations should be 10-15 minutes in duration, and can be used to show work or deliver a short paper.  The Conference Panel will group presentations together thematically in sessions scheduled to include time to explore the issues and ideas raised through discussion.  Phoenix Square is well equipped with the latest technology, so presenters will be able to show work on screen and via the internet.

Themes to be explored include:

• transliteracy and libraries
• transliteracy and the arts
• transliteracy in education
• transliteracy in communications
• transliteracy in the workplace
• transliteracy and transdisciplinarity
• transliteracy in action – examples of transliterate works, like digital fiction, networked arts projects, or library resources

Abstracts should be submitted in the body of an email to transliteracy@googlemail.com  Please include a 100-word bio and contact email address.
Deadline for abstracts is 1 December, 2009; notification of acceptance by 18 December, 2009.
Further information can be obtained from Louisa Allen at transliteracy@googlemail.com
We expect to charge a modest delegate fee to cover costs.
Selected materials from the conference will be published online at www.transliteracy.com

For more about The Transliteracy Research Group (TRG) see www.transliteracy.com
To discuss Transliteracy visit transliteracy.ning.com

In(ter)ventions will explore the edges of literature, where technology, innovation, and literary practice meet. There is also open call for papers (deadline Oct. 15, 2009).