Featured Works at the "Electronic Literature" Exhibit

Electronic Literature is viewed by many of its scholars and artists, such as C.T. Funkhouser and Eduardo Kac, as a descendant of experimental poetry produced in Europe, North America, and South America. It is a trajectory that begins in the early 20th century and has continued on to the current time, encompassing a variety of forms. The driving force behind it, however, is technological experimentation and innovation, not necessary limited to the computer but certainly at its center until the end of the 20th century. In the U.S. electronic literature is said to have begun in 1989 with the publication of Michael Joyce's afternoon: a story.

Because the ultimate goal of this exhibit is to present Electronic Literature in a way that makes it understandable to non-practitioners and scholars new to it, we have chosen to organize the work by medium (desktop, mobile, and readings and performances) and, by approach and style (locative, multimodal, and literary games, and so forth) instead of genres, such as hypertext fiction or flash poetry, etc., usually associated with Electronic Literature.

"Works on Desktop," curated by Dene Grigar

"Mobile — Geolocative Works," curated by Kathi Inman Berens

"Readings & Performances," curated by Lori Emerson

A special thanks to students in Grigar's DTC 354 "Digital Storytelling" course for annotating all of the works—especially to Nicole Buckner, Greg Philbrook, Jon Exe, Setareh Alizadeh, Krystine Omalley, and Jordan Walker for developing the additional content and creating the code for the three pages.