• printer friendly
• mail this article
• iPod format
• digg

Photo

Digital media artist Erik Loyer showcased chapters from his digital novel “Chroma” at

On Friday, performances by avant-garde poet Christian Bök and Los Angeles-based digital media artist Erik Loyer showcased some of the latest endeavors of UCLA’s Electronic Literature Organization at the Hammer Museum. Friday’s event, sponsored by the ELO and the Hammer Museum, was the first in a year-long series of events called “Beyond Hypertext: New Electronic Poetry and Fiction.”

Since its inception at UCLA in 2001, the ELO has worked to promote the development of electronic literature under the guidance of the English department and Design | Media Arts.

Loyer’s presentation involved his computer-based piece “Chroma,” a science fiction novel that blends narrative and interaction, and blurs traditional notions about image and text. The USC graduate and long-time computer aficionado sat at the front of the stage hunched over his laptop, manipulating the program with his mouse as the images were projected on a large screen.

Bök’s performance included readings from his avant-garde collection “Eunoia” and an excerpt from a work-in-progress called “The Cyborg Opera.” The word eunoia, Bök pointed out, is the shortest word in the English language to contain all five vowels.

Much of Bök’s work is best classified as sound poetry, a little-known form of expression that focuses more on the expressiveness of language and its phonetic attributes as opposed to the literal meaning of the words. As a result, Bök’s powerful and acrobatic vocal phrasings drew equal parts astonishment and amusement from the audience.

Both artists’ work reflects unconventional approaches to language and communication, something absolutely necessary in approaching the realm of digital literature. The aim of developing such a medium is ultimately to create works of literature that could not be reproduced without the use of a computer.

“The actual use of machines as an aid in the production of poetry or as a kind of mechanical prosthesis to creativity really hasn’t been fully explored,” Bök said. “I think its potential is quite interesting but probably frightening for many more conventional poets.”

Bök emphasizes the fact that electronic literature is still in its embryonic stages – without a coherent set of theories to inform the writing of electronic literature, much of it is still focused on shaking off the burden of other literary conventions.

But poets already have an idea of how computers can potentially play a role in the creative process. Loyer’s “Chroma” may seem like an elaborate computer game, but the work is really focused on telling a distinct narrative subtly colored by the user’s choices. Loyer’s first work of this kind, “Lair of the Marrow Monkey,” was created in 1998 and is now a part of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art’s design collection.

Another example of the promises of electronic literature is one posed by Bök: a poet could run text through a spell check and allow the computer to make its own modifications to the poet’s inputs. Or, perhaps, a programmer could allow users online to vote for certain phrases, putting one poem through a kind of Darwinian form of creative expression, where the voters’ aesthetic preferences ultimately decide the form of the piece.

While neither of these methods may produce actual art, they point toward new ways of thinking about creative expression in a digital age, and they present potential forms of art otherwise impossible without the intervention of computers.

“It’s possible to imagine in the future that poets may not be respected for the kinds of poems that they write, but for the programs that they could use that write poetry,” Bök said. “They may have to learn Perl, Quark or HTML in order to actually participate as poets in the literary milieu.”

Such notions inspired English graduate student Jessica Pressman to pursue study in the field. As associate director of the ELO, Pressman organized the Hammer series, and as a grad student she has incorporated digital literature into her course instruction. Her use of “Chroma” in an English 4W course last summer drew a positive response from many students.

“The students were very comfortable with the material,” she said.

As the first English doctoral candidate to focus on electronic literature, Pressman’s endeavors may run into harsh opposition from literary purists. But under the guidance of English Professor Katherine Hayles and Design | Media Arts Chairwoman Victoria Vesna, the ELO department is encouraging participation from any interested students in various fields of study at UCLA.

The ELO’s Matchmaker Initiative, one such endeavor, aims to connect student writers, artists and programmers with each other to collaborate and create their own kinds of electronic literature. The best productions will be presented at the Hammer Museum at the end of the school year as a part of the ELO’s reading series.

“There’s more and more criticism every day as more electronic literature is produced,” Hayles said. “But I’m convinced that it will eventually be an important component of every day literature.”

For more information visit www.eliterature.org.