In an Arts & Entertainments feature in The Independent, Lisa Gee “explores the unbound possibilities of digital-era fiction” and announces the shortlist for the 2011 New Media Writing Prize. She asked a number of people working in digital writing and/or publishing to nominate their favourite works of digital literature and I’m delighted to say that Tim Wright and Jim Pope both recommended Underbelly, and Sue Thomas picked Fitting the Pattern. Here’s what they had to say in the accompanying video:

Tim Wright, digital writer/consultant, on Underbelly :

It’s a really interesting use of interactivity, Flash animation,  amazing sound and it’s a story about women miners but then also a thought piece about bearing children and motherhood and balancing work and home.

Dr James Pope, academic & judge/co-founder, New Media Writing Prize, on Underbelly :

I still maybe think it’s the best piece I’ve seen in terms of emotional connection to a piece of interactive work.

Sue Thomas, professor of new media, De Montfort University, on Fitting the Pattern:

It’s beautifully designed, but it also has very clever tools within it that you have to learn how to use before you can actually navigate the piece and read the story.

Here are the other recommended works:

• Inanimate Alice by Kate Pullinger and Chris Joseph, recommended by Alison Norrington and novelist and games writer Naomi Alderman.
• Welcome to Pine Point by Paul Shoebridge and Michael Simons, recommended by Sophie Rochester.
• The Golden Notebook Project recommended by Nico Macdonald, chair, Media Futures.
• Souciant magazine recommended by Keith Kahn-Harris, writer and academic.
• Kidmapped by Tim Wright,  recommended by Chris Meade.

New Media Writing Prize 2011 – shortlist

• He Said She Said – Alan Bigelow (USA)
• Loss of Grasp Serge Bouchardon (France)
• 88 Constellations for Wittgenstein David Clark  (Nova Scotia)
• Circle Caitlin Fisher (Ontario)
• Welcome to Pine Point - Paul Shoebridge and Michael Simons (Vancouver)

Also announced yesterday on the New Media Writing Prize blog, the shortlist for the student prize:

Student Entries

• Chasing Pandora – Emily Devereux, Allyson Cikor, Trent Redmond, Mathew Vickery  (Alberta, Canada)
• 5 Haitis – Simon Kerr  (Nottingham)
• Maybe Make Some Change – Aaaron A. Reed  (Santa Cruz, California)
• Unravelled –   Spenser Wain, Zac Urness, Kollin Branicki  (Alberta, Canada)

In his article, Stefans draws a comparison between Out of Touch and  ”a very early piece of internet poetry by the graphic designer Juliet Martin called ‘oooxxxooo,’ …which took as its subject the apparently desperate need of the artist-protagonist for the computer to ameliorate her loneliness.” About my piece, he goes on to say:

Her use of video, particularly the manipulations that reduce reality to iconic or cartoon-like (which I read as linguistic) simplicity, accentuates some of the horror at the base of this piece, which has a quasi-Expressionist element — I can’t help but see echoes of “The Scream” in here, or perhaps, with a very different valence in relation to time and experience (it doesn’t happen in Wilks’s piece), the blurred faces in the work of Christian Boltanski.

Making Out of Touch

Despite my background in film-making and scriptwriting, I rarely set out with a written script, storyboard or a wireframe design, a blueprint that I execute. I start with a collection (or network) of ideas that I want to explore. Then I experiment; manipulating text, code, images, sounds, video fx, animation, narrative elements… until something meaningful emerges.  To me, it seems a very hands-on, even tactile approach, like that of a sculptor or collage artist – although what is there to actually touch? A keyboard, a mouse, a digital drawing tablet. It’s a far cry from handling messy art materials or tussling with camera, tripod, lights on location and reels of celluloid in the cutting room. And yet there’s a strong sense of the haptic in what I do. This preoccupation with touch and its absence is a recurring feature in my work – e.g. the handiwork of the dressmaker in Fitting the Pattern and the sculptor in Underbelly – so I find it interesting that, in relation to Out of Touch, Stefans describes Juliet Martin’s oooxxxooo piece as “linguistic sculpture.” It also highlights how digital synaesthesia is a key expressive quality of digital media arts. And while I’m on the subject of cross-wiring… from crissxross to R3/\/\1X\/\/0RX and more xxxooo…

More Third Hand Plays

See my last post for a list of the previously published works of e-literature in the Third Hand Plays series and Brian Stefan’s accompanying articles. Also keep checking the SFMOMA blog throughout August for more posts in the series.

Throughout July and August, e-lit author and poet, Brian Kim Stefans is guest-editing a column for the SFMOMA Blog, entitled Third Hand Plays, ”describing concepts that can be used to understand and appreciate the varied and inchoate meta-genre known as ‘digital literature.’” To accompany his series of articles, Brian has commissioned a suite of new works of e-literature fron nine digital artist/writers worldwide – Jason Nelson, David Clark, Erik Loyer, Alan Bigelow, Jhave, Alison Clifford, Christine Wilks, Benjamin Moreno Ortiz, and joerg piringer. Yes, I’m thrilled, that’s me included “among the best of the digital writers out there.” My new piece, Out Of Touch, will published by SFMOMA shortly.

Here are links to the articles by Brian Stefans and the splendid new works of e-lit that have been published so far:

Third Hand Plays: An Introduction to Electronic Literature

Third Hand Plays: “Scrape Scraperteeth” by Jason Nelson

Third Hand Plays: The Comedy of Subjection

Third Hand Plays: “Repeat After Me” by joerg piringer

Third Hand Plays: The Comedy of Dysfunction

Third Hand Plays: “Something” and “Telescopio” by Benjamin R. Moreno Ortiz

Third Hand Plays: The Comedy of Reduction

Wednesday 4 May, 7.30pm

The Riverside, 1 Mowbray Street, Neepsend, Sheffield, S3

Signposts, South Yorkshire, presents the second in a series of performance experiments – three pieces in three different mediums.

The Shoebox Experiment (3 x 3)

Quint and Jow

Quint and Jow share a common goal: to prove that there’s more to the average pub quiz than meets the eye. Forming a team called The Venns, they spend improbable amounts of time in the pub… testing their theories, of course.  Through charts, graphs, and (their favourite) Venn diagrams, Quint and Jow will bring you exciting and unexpected findings from their not-entirely-serious research project. The Venns: A Quest for the Perfect Pub Quiz is created and performed by Chella Quint and Richard Jow

Underbelly

Underbelly is an award-winning work of digital fiction about a woman sculptor, carving on the site of a former colliery in Yorkshire. As she carves, she is disturbed by a medley of voices, from when women used to work underground mining coal. Created for the web, Underbelly is a playable story with multiple endings determined by choice and chance. Lurking within the dark regions of its map-like narrative terrain, are hidden voices, animated elements and grotesque imagery, which Christine Wilks will unearth in her live performance of the work.

The Nose!

Gogol’s “The Nose” represents one of the pioneering triumphs of the early absurdist movement; transcending satire, narrative and common sense. Locally  based storyteller Tim Ralphs transports the Shoebox to St Petersburg’s prospects in this hilarious and enticing re-imagining of the tale as a live performance. A drunkard barber, a womanising Major, a buzz of rumours and the inconceivable disappearance of The Nose!  Originally conceived as a series of podcasts, ‘The Nose’ is recomposed for the Shoebox Experiment.

Audience Feedback from the First Shoebox Experiment:

“Was brilliant. So different to anything I’ve seen before!

“Stunning”

“I enjoyed the atmosphere, mellow attentiveness, intimacy, surprise, voices, passion, stories, HEART, writing!”

Tickets: £4 (£3 concessions) are available at the Shoebox on the night and can be reserved in advance by email. Plus a fully stocked bar to whet your whistle and the company of a warm, welcoming audience ready for something new! Contact naomi.wilds@ntlworld.com or 0775 352 8919 to reserve your space. Map and directions.

See you there!

Underbelly

A splendid new edition of Hyperrhiz, the peer-reviewed online journal specializing in new media criticism and net art, is now published. And I’m delighted to announce that Underbelly features in the Gallery. Here are the full contents:

HYPERRHIZ.08

Issue 8
Spring 2011

Essays

Century of change? Media arts then and now
Darren Tofts

The Avant Garde Doesn’t Give Up
McKenzie Wark

The Brautigan Library: Questions and challenges of archiving electronic literature
John F. Barber

This is not that kind of library. This is another kind of library.
Nicholas Schiller

Computational Narration of Inner Thought: Memory, Reverie Machine
Jichen Zhu and D. Fox Harrell

Gallery

Underbelly
Christine Wilks

Speak Far and Wide
Hazel Smith and Roger Dean

Narrative Multiplicities + Pack Media: re-reading the reader into Dracula
Whitney Anne Trettien

Review

Mark Bernstein and Diane Greco, Reading Hypertext
Marvin E. Hobson

Read more at www.hyperrhiz.net

Introducing the ELMCIP Knowledge Base, an electronic literature database documenting works, critical writing, authors, publishers, organizations, events, teaching resources and more…

Currently in public beta, it’s sure to be a fantastic resource for anyone interested in electronic literature in Europe and beyond. Readers, writers and researchers are encouraged to actively participate. I’m also delighted to note that the Knowledge Base includes some of my e-lit works too.

*ELMCIP is a 3-year collaborative research project running from 2010-2013, funded by the Humanities in the European Research Area (HERA) JRP for Creativity and Innovation.

The Electronic Literature Collection, Volume 2, launched on the web last week, is an anthology of works by an international group of authors “that pushes through the boundaries of literary forms, creating new kinds of experiences for interacting readers.”  And, I’m delighted to say, it includes two of my works – Fitting the Pattern and Tailspin.

Published by the Electronic Literature Organisation, and edited by Laura Borràs, Talan Memmott, Rita Raley, and Brian Kim Stefans, Volume 2 picks up where the first volume, ELC1, left off.

The new collection includes 63 works drawn from (and extending beyond):

• Countries: Austria, Australia, Catalonia, Canada, Colombia, France, Germany, Israel, The Netherlands, Portugal, Peru, Spain, UK, US
• Languages: Catalan, Dutch, English, French, German, Portuguese, Spanish
• Formats: Flash, Processing, Java, JavaScript, Inform, HTML, C++

Like ELC1, the collection can be browsed by author, title, or keyword.

ELC2 speaks to both the continuity as well as the bright future of electronic literature. The works include many of the emerging categories of e-lit: mash-ups, geolocative, codework, as well as “traditional” and evolving forms such as hypertext, chatbots, and interactive fiction. The authors list presents readers with both veterans and newcomers to the field.

The collection is also available on DVD for free on request from the ELO.

ELC2 is published under a Creative Commons license, which means the collection can be freely shared, non-commercially, between individuals, libraries, and schools, provided that appropriate attribution is maintained and the works are unmodified.

Underbelly is an intense, educational, visceral experience, that delves deep into new media territory and transforms our expectations of what could be called literature. Exploring the experience of women miners in the nineteenth century the look, sound and writing of the piece are all magnificently distinctive and skilfully designed. I learned a lot “reading” and it hung around for days. This is powerful stuff.

He has lots of good things to say about the other shortlisted works too and I would encourage readers to go and explore the whole shortlist.

For my performance of Underbelly in Edinburgh on Halloween at Inspace no one can hear you scream I intend to wear shoes as red as wounds. Why? Because Underbelly is an exploration of women’s bodies in relation to the land – past and present, inside and outside, above and below ground – and shoes, especially red ones, are loaded with associations.

I’m tempted to say more but instead, it might be more fun to point you to my Underbelly Cabinet of Curios. It’s a digital collection of some of the sources, influences and catalysts that gave rise to Underbelly, and a peek at one stage of the process of writing and structuring the piece. Within the cabinet, you’ll also find some connections and contextual curios, creative works by others in other media that struck a chord with me in relation to the themes I explore in Underbelly… and, if you follow the merry dance, the significance of red shoes.

Since I spend so much of time stuck at my desk in front of a computer, I’m really looking forward to stepping out and into performer’s shoes – not least because there’s such a fantastic line-up of other artist-performers at Inspace on Halloween:

48 hours | Inspace no one can hear you scream

Sunday 31st October 2010, 7.30 for 8pm.
Inspace, 1 Crichton Street, Edinburgh EH8 9AB

As part of the third International Conference on Interactive Digital Storytelling, we present an evening of language in digital performance with works by Martin John Callanan, JR Carpenter & Jerome Fletcher, Donna Leishman, Maria Mencia, Netwurker Mez, Stanza and Christine Wilks.

We’re used to seeing print writers give readings on the literary festival circuit. Electronic writers need to do this kind of thing too. Self-publishing and submitting work for online publications and exhibitions is fine, but you can’t just rely on an audience finding your work on the web – like musicians and print writers, it helps to go out on the promotional trail, make a live appearance, give a performance.

Later this month my transliterate abilities as an e-lit performer are going to be tested – at Ilkley Literature Fringe Festival, with a great group of poets and fiction writers, and at Inspace in Edinburgh, with a fabulous line-up of digital writers and artists, as part of the International Conference on Interactive Digital Storytelling (ICIDS 2010).

In Ilkley, I’m performing with a group of creative print writers who came out of the Yorkshire Art Circus writer development programme some years ago. It’s a kind of reunion and to give ourselves an angle, we’re staging it as The Writers’ Group Exposed!!! We’ll be simulating a typical meeting – well, maybe not so typical because there will be an electronic writer in the group. It’ll be interesting to see how my e-lit (Fitting the Pattern) is received in this context.

For any writer, it’s seldom as simple as giving a reading, as the Ilkley gig demonstrates, but for the electronic writer, inevitably, there’s even more to consider. You’ve got to sort out the tech (computer software/hardware, digital displays/projection, sound, etc.) and more than likely you’ve got to be able to operate your tech and read/perform at the same time. Those are the practicalities, but there are also aesthetic and dramaturgical considerations too. How will your live self, your bodily presence, affect or interact with the virtual presence/s, visually, sonically and kinetically? Should work designed for the web be repurposed for live performance?

Canadian electronic writer Jim Andrews has an interesting take on this. Here’s his plan for a work he intends to perform at e-Poetry 2011:

Basically, the idea of the project is to scream my fool head off while playing Jig-Sound and dbCinema as instruments.

You’ve seen musicians play an instrument while they sing. Well, this is similar. Only I’ll be telling a story between (or perhaps during) screaming bouts. And the instruments I’ll be playing are Jig-Sound, which is sonic, and dbCinema, which is visual.

If live gigs are part of the process of reaching an audience, then should one build that potential into the design of the work from the outset (or at least somewhere along the way during the process of creation)? Should one consider it an opportunity for transmedia storytelling rather than promotion and networking?

In Edinburgh I’m performing Underbelly – playing it like an instrument – in an evening dedicated to Language in Digital Performance and, as such, the occasion will give me scope to explore these potentialities. For the most part, Underbelly presents a diegetic story-world that explores a psychic landscape where the predominance of spoken word exploits the intimate relationship between voice and the body, voice and interiority. I designed the piece as a work of playable media but not particularly for live performance so I’ll be adapting it for the Inspace show, mixing my live voice with the multiple voices on the digital soundtrack.

The ICIDS Language in Digital Performance event is billed as Inspace no one can hear you scream and, since it’s taking place on Halloween, we’ve been invited ‘to engage the spirit of this festival’… so, who knows, I might end up screaming too.

Article cross-posted from Transliteracy.com