The room goes pitch black. The small stage lights flicker as the
author takes her position at the podium. In place of her book lies
a laptop. In place of the table with her books on it lies a
projector. And now the audience stares, not at the author, but at
the screen behind her that is projecting her novel.
Welcome to an electronic literature reading.
Technology has slowly begun to take over society, from
communication with friends, to shopping for groceries and even
studying for classes. This process of intertwining life with
technology continues with the emergence of a new movement in
literature that bases even book reading on the Internet.
“The electronic literature movement is something that
allows us to read books in a network of programmed media,”
according to Jessica Pressman-Lupien, a doctoral student in English
literature with a focus in electronic literature at UCLA. “It
basically allows readers to route their own storylines in books
““ they can flip from chapter 4 to chapter 19, for example,
and the story would still make sense.”
While there is a certain freedom for readers in e-literature to
go in different directions in a literary work, there is still
authorial control as the reading paths are author-created and based
on narrative and aesthetic decisions.
Electronic literature can be classified into numerous
categories. Animated text, usually poems, uses words that move or
morph onscreen. Hyper text is work based on reader interaction
while performance recordings or readings are works performed with
the help of digitized audio or video of the text being read or
performed.
“E-literature is non-linear and multi-linear, interactive
and multimedia,” Pressman-Lupien said. “It is a
different experience than reading print, demands different
skills/action and invokes different interpretations.”
Definitely different than e-books, electronic literature is
becoming an important part of literature for the 21st century,
according to N. Katherine Hayles, UCLA professor of English.
During readings authors utilize their laptops and screens as a
way to convey aspects of their works. By slowly emphasizing words
and phrases accompanied with dramatic pauses, audience members can
hear the slight clicking of computer buttons and witness the
morphing of computer images.
While some have argued that electronic literature may draw
readers away from classic, bound novels, many rising experts in the
field comment that electronic literature merely mirrors a new way
to read.
“The experience of reading literature in the digital realm
is very different than reading print,” Pressman-Lupien said.
“E-lit is not going to supplant books; this is not the death
of books. Rather, this is a different incarnation of narrative and
reading.”
The movement, now housed at UCLA between the English department
and the design/media arts department, is not just a phase or a time
specific avant-garde reaction in the world of literature, according
to Pressman-Lupien.
Though some see this as a revolutionary movement not yet
comparable to “classic literature,” e-literature can
lure a reader into a medium that makes apparent the layered
elements of storytelling. While this medium is still in its
fledgling stages, the Electronic Literature Organization, with help
from UCLA, will promote e-literature through more readings and a
student e-literature competition.
“This is the technology of our time, like the printing
press before it,” Pressman-Lupien said. “Artistic
expression in the electronic medium will continue to grow and
become standardized, just as more people will learn to read, teach
and publish in this medium.”
E-LITERATURE: For more information on the Electronic Literature
Organization, please e-mail Jessica Pressman-Lupien at
jesspres@ucla.edu or go to their office in 228H Kinross.