Collaborative Introduction
The Exploration of Electronic Literature is a compilation of case studies that analyze the theme of exploration within electronic literature. These four pieces find ways of exploring new media, self-discovery, and modern society. The works highlighted in this compilation include:
--> With Those We Love Alive by Porpentine
--> Public Secrets by Sharon Daniel
--> Faith by Robert Kendall
--> Brainstrips by Alan Bigelow
Abstract:
Within electronic literature, the users are introduced to varying levels of interactivity and exploration. This exploration is not bound by examining the work and the genre on a surface level but extends far beyond into ones personal life and society as a whole. The extension into personal life and society is created by different technological forms and programs of electronic literature.
With Those we Love Alive
With Those We Love Alive by Porpentine is a e-literature work that focuses on the exploration of self through a fictitious story about a girl who creates artifacts to impress a skull empress. The story incorporates lighting, sound, and symbols in order to connect the reader the best they can to the literature. The story highlights certain aspects of society, such as violence and friendship, in order to create a story that more readers can relate to. The story also exemplifies the core of e-literature. Everything that is told is personalized for the reader, the reader is able to choose what they want to read first and which path they want to take in order to explore their self that they are creating in the game.
Public Secrets
Digital Media Artist, Sharon Daniel, creates pieces that serve as commentary for public institutions that foster and perpetuate social injustice. In the work, Public Secrets, Daniel investigates the injustices of the prison industrial complex through a compilation of audio recordings of incarcerated women speaking on their experiences within the system. As a piece of hypertext media, Public Secrets is a multi-vocal narrative of hundreds of statements taken from the female prisoners in California. The work was originally created on the popular technological platform, Scalar, and provides users with "an interactive interface to an audio archive" ("New Media Art | Interactive Documentary"). Daniel's intention for the piece was to be an abolitionist project in pursuit of a more human world (Vectors Journal Editorial Staff). With this information, users look to the work as a proposal towards absolving the barbarous prison system through those most affected by it, the incarcerated.
Faith
Faith by Robert Kendall is an unusual piece of electronic literature as well as an unusual poem. With limited interactivity, the work uses sound, color, and movement of words to emphasize certain words and create different layers to the poem. The role of the reader being to move to the next slide, each slide reveals a different idea about faith versus logic and how these two concepts affect each other. The different layers and ideas presented by Kendall clearly invite the reader to explore their own values when it comes to faith as well as messages sent by society as a whole about the influence that logic has on cultural and religious beliefs.
Brainstrips
Brainstrips is a hybrid of web comics and interactive modules that cover a vast array of topics concerning philosophy, science, and mathematics. Written by Alan Bigelow, an author and college professor, he attempts to teach these concepts and answer life's most thought-provoking questions in a satirical manner. This is done mainly through reading comic strips, completing quizzes, and self-reflection on a rating scale. Although the order in which the story is told cannot be manipulated, the reader has the opportunity to explore and relate its content to themselves and society as a whole.
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Introducing the Authors
"With Those We Love Alive" Analysis
"Public Secrets" Analysis
"Faith" Analysis
"Brain Strips" Analysis
Works Cited
To navigate this book, you can click in the top left corner to get to reach the table of contents. Each analysis has separate pages for different types of the author's exploration arguments. Within each page there may be links to other outside sources, other author's scalar pages, and annotated images to provide the reader with more information on the e-literature work. To interact with each annotated image, click on the image and hover the mouse over until you see more information on that image.
