Section I: "Intimate Mechanics: One Model of Electronic Literature"
In Intimate Mechanics, Stuart Moulthrop contributes to the medium-specificity debate surrounding the production of Electronic Literature and the field, more broadly. And he asks us to consider newer and future versions of E-Lit in light of his suggestions.
Positioning himself inside of this debate as a materialist or formalist, Moulthrop says that electronic literature is always both the text and the data; simultaneously the words and the computation. He borrows the terms scripton and texton respectively, to refer to these primary elements implicated in electronic reading.
Uniquely Moulthrop suggests that we think of Electronic Literature as a spectrum, involving the interplay of scripton and texton, and anchored by two poles. What he describes might look something like this:
“pseudo-literature” “para-literature”
- Artful misdirection or deception - Conceptually “literary,” with the
- Pretending to be “literary” in order ethos of open source software
to challenge expectations - the text is not the traditional content
- Scripton is offered as if it has a human author - generative logic is the focus
Example: Issue 1, hoax Example: Sea and Spar Between
The utility in defining these poles, for Moulthrop, is to draw our focus to the vast middle ground. He identifies a variety of types and functions of electronic literature, what fall somewhere between his end points. So, the spectrum might now look something like this:
Invites participation Loosely about interaction Twine Games
and/or reproduction between the two poles Deal with “intimacy
Ex: Tarako Gorge Ex: Lexia to Perplexia of mechanics” (title)
Ex: Mountain
Pseudo-literature Para-literature
The "intimacy of mechanics" is a concept derived from game critic Cara Ellison and Moulthrop explains it is as referring to “the constitution of the work as a balance between the expressiveness of story and the logic of game” (4). Thus, Moulthrop’s spectrum between content and computation in Electronic Literature mimics Ellison’s theory as applied to games. And he identifies Twine Games as a particularly unique example of a type of text which bridges both disciplines and concepts.
Twine Games, according to Moulthrop, rise conceptually from hypertext of the 1980’s even though they are most often considered games-proper by their creators and the community surrounding them. His examples include works like Anna Anthropy’s Hunt for the Gay Planet and a particularly strange “game” by David O’Reilly called Mountain. Noting similarities between E-Lit and Twine Games – including creators “on the fringes”, an ability to create/invite a community, as well as an experience, and an emphasis on interaction – Moulthrop suggests that these works may give us some clues about how we should think about Electronic Literature going forward.
He concludes: “Wherever we find ourselves in the space of electronic literature, whether at scriptonic or textonic edges or more likely in the weird middle, the cosmogenic question is our surest guide. Where does everything come from? Look to the code, if you can find it. If you cannot, you might wonder why. What does it all mean? That answer can be found in the world of hierarchy and conflict, of art and horror, to which imagination is ultimately tethered.”
This article makes me wonder some things that are admittedly simple, but which we haven’t yet contended:
- What is at stake in drawing these particular boundaries around Electronic Literature? From whom does he depart and with whom does he align? And why?
- What does the close affiliation with gaming mean for contemporary Electronic Literature?
- Do we see a connection between the history of Twine games, according to Moulthrop and the “affective turn” described by literary scholars? This supposed shift in art and literature is often couched as a response to deconstruction and postmodernism, in which artists and art consumers seek emotional or interactive participation as an antidote to postmodern pessimism.
- Can we imagine the ways that a fundamentally interactive and game-centered vision of Electronic Literature might allow scholars and creators to engage in contemporary debates and concerns, beyond academia?
