Rebooting Electronic Literature, Volume 4

Social Media Content for Richard Smyth's "Genetis: A Rhizography"

The following are postings on Twitter that promoted the live Traversal of Richard Smyth's Genetis: A Rhizography  prior to the event and thanked the participants after the event. Also included is a transcript of the YouTube Live chat from during the Traversal.
 

Twitter 

The Electronic Literature Lab used their Twitter account to post promotional content regarding the Traversal of Genetis: A Rhizography.

























 

YouTube Live Chat 

Because Traversals are all streamed live via YouTube, the lab takes advantage of the chat feature offered by the network to provide a forum for the audience to make comments and ask questions. The chat is then saved and added to this book as part of the Traversal archive. The Traversal can be watched on YouTube here.



Holly June
Hello everyone!

Kathleen Zoller
Hello!

trupaokl
[happy face emoji]

Richard Snyder
Hi all!

Andrew Thompson
Good morning!

Joel Clapp
Hello!

Mariusz Pisarski
Hello everyone!

Viet Anh Nguyen
Hello y'all

Holly June
For this event, Sarah West did the art in my place. She did a wonderful job!

Dan Walker
Hi everyone!

Astrid Ensslin
Hi everyone! Welcome! Good to see you all.

Kathleen Zoller
I heard a bit!

Kathleen Zoller
Hello Astrid! [red heart emoji]

Mariusz Pisarski
Indeed, Holly. Very nice, futuristic, art from Sarah for the event. It reminds of Judgment Day film poster a bit

Electronic Literature Lab
hi, folks

Electronic Literature Lab
There is a bit of a lag due to YouTube. We will edit the lag out in final production



Kathleen Zoller
I notice lexia are referred to as "cells", was lexia an official term coined by Storyspace or was it one scholars formed?

Holly June
I love how the folios even give you instructions on inserting the disc into your computer.

Kathleen Zoller
Agreed Holly, I think they unknowingly helped preserve the context of the work

Astrid Ensslin
@Kathleen: George P. Landow uses it in his books, drawing on Barthes.

Mariusz Pisarski
Great question, Kathleen. Lexia was formed by scholars. Technically in hypertext we speak about nodes and links. But George Landow took a term lexia from Roland Barthes and lexias replaced nodes

Kathleen Zoller
Oh how interesting! Thank you for answering my question. George Landow is definitely a name I remember

Electronic Literature Lab
Many us differentiated nodes and lexias by thinking of node as the apparatus that made it possible to add words/content to produce a lexia

Mariusz Pisarski
Very interesting!

Mariusz Pisarski
Felman, Shoshana. WRITING AND MADNESS: (LITERATURE/PHILOSOPHY/ PSYCHOANALYSIS). Trans. Martha Noel Evans. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1985.

Kathleen Zoller
@Electronic Literature Lab I love that!

Kathleen Zoller
Thank you, Mariusz!

Electronic Literature Lab
nodes are also referred to as spaces. See Bolter's Writing Space

Electronic Literature Lab
Plato took on the notion of madness and art in Ion.

Astrid Ensslin
my favorite part of the work

Richard Snyder
I appreciate the warning at the entry of the labyrinth. It seems very classical.

Astrid Ensslin
memography!

Electronic Literature Lab
The multiple paths available in hypertexts were seen / described often as "forking paths," a reference to Borges

Astrid Ensslin
we love surprises

Electronic Literature Lab
his lexis titles are important storytelling features

Kathleen Zoller
Hypertext has always felt like a sacred space to me, where my thoughts can move freely in abstraction. It is truly a unique and beautiful experience

Kathleen Zoller
There has to be a word for that

Richard Snyder
Well put, Kathleen. It seems to mirror the natural movements of the human mind. I believe that was Vannevar Bush's argument in the mid-20th century with the Memex.

Astrid Ensslin
a rhizography, Kathleen?

Electronic Literature Lab
Landow's book Hypertext was also influential during this period



Mariusz Pisarski
"logic of dreams, poetry, and invention"

Kathleen Zoller
@Richard Snyder @Astrid Ensslin those are both excellent thoughts! Agreed, it does seem to move in the same patterns as the mind

Electronic Literature Lab
I am loving the lore Richard is sharing with us

Kathleen Zoller
Agreed, having the author's commentary makes the work that much more rich

Richard Snyder
"I find comfort in this analogy."

Electronic Literature Lab
what is it when the father raised the child for himself?

Mariusz Pisarski
It's such a great, humorous take on the myth of creation: Ken and Barbie, junkyard.

Kathleen Zoller
Agreed, it's very unique!

Electronic Literature Lab
there is music here. Can you all hear it?

Kathleen Zoller
the music came back

Kathleen Zoller
yes!

Richard Snyder
I can!

Kathleen Zoller
It fades in and out

Electronic Literature Lab
Yes, that is the way it is presented

Electronic Literature Lab
we move to poetry in this next lexia



Richard Snyder
The idea of the boy being unable to generate his own life's blood is also fascinating--there is no independence without self-sustenance.

Kathleen Zoller
Very good point!

Mariusz Pisarski
Absolutely!

Electronic Literature Lab
hence the psychosis

Kathleen Zoller
The poetry feels very much like a creation story to me, especially with a woman being tied to nature

Richard Snyder
Interesting; so here the speaker captures self-sustenance but only through mimicking what the mother provides, not providing his own blood.

Richard Snyder
And the imagery is violent -- the sustenance can only be produced through the destruction of the self.

Electronic Literature Lab
We should be watching the titles of the lexias

Astrid Ensslin
@Kathleen: when you read "Myth" first, it is essentially like reading a feminist take on Genesis.

Electronic Literature Lab
if we had followed the r, we would notice the lexias spell out "parable"

Richard Snyder
Yes, it reminds me of poetry regarding the myth of generative creation that combined Christian and classical (e.g. the Bower of Bliss in Spenser's Faerie Queene)

Kathleen Zoller
@Richard Snyder that does seem to be one of the underlying themes of the hypertext



Kathleen Zoller
@Astrid Ensslin agreed!

Richard Snyder
Creation often seems to come from the excess of this sort of verdant overflow of life -- I'm seeing this here in the mother bursting with milk, but it is an imbalance instead of a balance.

Dan Walker
@Richard, it's interesting to think of how narrative-making and the therapeutic process ties into all of it -- stories as a way to do that self-sustenance

Richard Snyder
Oh, excellent point @Dan Walker

Astrid Ensslin
Agreed, Dan, and it's striking to see this trend happening in Twine now.

Mariusz Pisarski
And it is also a great news for hypertext scholars, after some years of neglect, the node-link structures found a very interesting narrative/therapeutic use

Electronic Literature Lab
It is such a horrific experience he recounts to us

Richard Snyder
I can't imagine going through this and then revisiting it. I appreciate the sharing.

Electronic Literature Lab
the sound again, "Bizarre."

Astrid Ensslin
I agree. It's shocking - Foucault through and through.

Electronic Literature Lab
Richard said it helps to talk about it with us

Astrid Ensslin
Apparently they gave him Haldol because they thought he was on drugs. He wasn't.


Mariusz Pisarski
Can you imagine being taken to a hospital under mental breakdown and see the name of the hospital bearing your won name.....

Mariusz Pisarski
Your own name

Astrid Ensslin
as if grad school was a symptom of mental health. Anyone who's been through grad school knows it's the exact opposite.

Richard Snyder
@Astrid Ensslin Yeah.

Electronic Literature Lab
It is a wonderful site in Mexico he is describing. I got to see it in the past

Electronic Literature Lab
You said it, Astrid

Electronic Literature Lab
Grad school was a trial of spirit

Electronic Literature Lab
we will begin the Q&A at 11:30

Dan Walker
I love the hypertext weaving back and forth between different kinds of writing -- theory, fable, memoir, all working together

Astrid Ensslin
The Plateaus

Electronic Literature Lab
blame school

Richard Snyder
@Dan Walker hypertext seems to encourage this mix of genres, don't you think? Perhaps the sort of compartmentalization effect of writing lexia leads to different modes of expressing the same things?

Electronic Literature Lab
mirror--Lacan?

Astrid Ensslin
Beautifully put, Richard


Katya Farinsky
Agreed Dan & Richard, the hypertext paired with personal stories is such a rich experience. [red heart emoji]

Richard Snyder
Reminds me of "They Flee from Me" by Wyatt..."all is turned thorough my gentlenessInto a strange fashion of forsaking."

Astrid Ensslin
It's from Haraway's Cyborg Manifesto Richard SnyderI think we can see, too, the mirror of the mind in its processing, input, and output -- no barrier between the primary and secondary

Mariusz Pisarski
@Dan @Richard Snyder Paths, such us "spiral link" and "memory paths of..." play an important part in organizing the whole. I think Richard uses Storyspace paths much more than most hypertext writers.

Richard Snyder
Did paths inspire the same mechanism in Scalar?

Dan Walker
yes @Richard Snyder! The tight little compartments arrange in so many ways. Reminds me of how on Instagram you can scroll from a beer ad to a political post to a friend's family photo all in one swipe

Astrid Ensslin
I doubt it, Richard.

Electronic Literature Lab
Ulmer was trying to get us to rethink hypertext theory, envisioning it as a rhizome

Astrid Ensslin
The paths are a lot more obvious and straightforward in Scalar

Dan Walker
let's drop everything and re-organize REL4 into a Deleuzian rhizome lol



Electronic Literature Lab
:)))))

Kathleen Zoller
Dan let's do iiiit!

Astrid Ensslin
So cool, does anyone know The Princess Murderer? It does the same thing but frames it in terms of a feminist critique of gamer culture.

Richard Snyder
Reminds me of the piece "Mobile Figures" by David Lloyd and Erik Loyer in Vectors. Rhizome as applied to historical scholarship, but here applied to personal history.

Richard Snyder
I love the idea of emphasizing the speed of composing in hypertext to map that.

Astrid Ensslin
I'd love to hear a bit more about Richard's work with Ulmer. Perhaps for the Q&A.

Electronic Literature Lab
Astrid, let's ask him to read this lexis and then move to the Q&A

Astrid Ensslin
If you ask me: writing is therapy - even if it's about (boring) narratology lol!

Electronic Literature Lab
if you have a question, please post it in this chat

Richard Snyder
Thank you so much, Richard. I'm wondering how the hypertextual nature of this work (vs. print) affected the process of revisiting it for you? I'm thinking of the fact that you "spoke" to yourself

Richard Snyder
audibly from the past, etc. Also the idea of being "lost" in your own previous thoughts, lexia, paths...

Electronic Literature Lab
Yes, we have the lexias to share in the book

Electronic Literature Lab
It was very personal


Richard Snyder
Thank you! It's very interesting to hear your process.

Richard Snyder
It's intriguing to consider these traversals as performances--works in themselves.

Electronic Literature Lab
the path to intellectualism involves the personal experience

Richard Snyder
Yeah, anysort of dualism that separates out the intellectual life as something apart from experiences, beliefs, ideals, and even traumas is impoverished as a result.

Richard Snyder
Dene, I was just typing this!

Richard Snyder
[smiling face emoji]

Mariusz Pisarski
Lakoff, George. Philosophy in the Flesh. Basic Books, 1999.

Electronic Literature Lab
[smiling face emoji]

Richard Snyder
I've read some great arguments that Montaigne's philosophy is so enduring because it is embodied -- before prescientific thought picked up Platonic dualism

Electronic Literature Lab
Yes. There are moments of insights like that one, but unfortunately the overriding view that persisted had been dualism, which is not really sustainable for humanity

Electronic Literature Lab
the hyper masculinity promoted by Trumpism is a sign of this

Richard Snyder
Stephen Toulmin: "Montaigne actually argues for the unification of body and soul...Philosophers are drawn to dualism, he suggests, only when they are uncomfortable with their own corporeal natures"


Electronic Literature Lab
I love Toulmin's work. Been a while since I read him

Richard Snyder
Yeah, he's great. This quote is from Cosmopoulis

Kathleen Zoller
I'm curious to hear your personal take on the pros of hypertext as a mode of self reflection?

Dan Walker
Hi Richard! Thank you for the reading! Given the changes you've described in how we understand trauma, and the changes in media/tech, how do you think you'd approach writing a work like Genetis today?

Astrid Ensslin
Randall Okita's VR work does that kind of thing, Dene.

Kathleen Zoller
Lately I've felt the intertwining of physical and virtual realities, almost to the point that my mind no longer separates them because one reality so deeply affects the other

Kathleen Zoller
Before, they felt completely isolated and unrelated

Kathleen Zoller
But, maybe I'm stretching it to say video chat is a "virtual reality"

Stella Wisdom
what about literary and dramatic performances in online gaming worlds like Minecraft and Grand Theft Auto?

Richard Snyder
@Kathleen Zoller well said. William Gibson has argued that the network is "everting" via mobile devices and the internet of things

Astrid Ensslin
Hello Stella! [smiling face emoji]

Stella Wisdom
Hi [smiling face emoji]


Electronic Literature Lab
Interesting, Kathleen. Virtual for me is a state that allows for us to rethink reality

Kathleen Zoller
@Electronic Literature Lab I love that

Stella Wisdom
yes [smiling face emoji]

Stella Wisdom
I was trying to lurk

Dan Walker
I've felt that intertwining also, Kathleen! I had a dream about being on a zoom call last night -- it was kinda bizarre, I've always dreamed physical reality things in the past

Electronic Literature Lab
we love lurkers

Stella Wisdom
[smiling face emoji]

Kathleen Zoller
Thank you Richard Smyth! I'm beginning to wonder if the medium determines how much is left to the reader's imagination vs how much is a controlled experience

Kathleen Zoller
Agreed, hypertext has its strengths

Stella Wisdom
I was thinking about writers and creatives experimenting in popular game world environments.

Astrid Ensslin
or LARPs! [smiling face emoji]

Stella Wisdom
I have lots of friends who LARP

Stella Wisdom
I have made notes of books that I should read from this discussion

Kathleen Zoller
Thank you!

Dan Walker
thank you Richard!


Katya Farinsky
Thank you all!

Stella Wisdom
thanks

Astrid Ensslin
Thanks, everyone, for joining us! Looking forward to continuing the conversation!

Richard Snyder
Thanks so much! 
 

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