{"id":430,"date":"2020-02-21T12:57:48","date_gmt":"2020-02-21T12:57:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/elit20\/?p=430"},"modified":"2020-02-21T12:57:48","modified_gmt":"2020-02-21T12:57:48","slug":"generating-new-appreciations-for-electronic-literature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/elit20\/2020\/02\/21\/generating-new-appreciations-for-electronic-literature\/","title":{"rendered":"Generating New Appreciations for Electronic Literature"},"content":{"rendered":"

Of all the tracery narratives we looked at in class, I felt most drawn to the Missed Encounters generator. I think this narrative outline stuck with me in particular because of both its comedic potential and its meta-like qualities. The interactions and observations described in the randomly generated encounters seem to mimic the random-ness of the generated narrative system itself. One missed encounter may seem so important and singularly impactful, but on tomorrow\u2019s walk a new story may present itself—the generator goes to work again.<\/span><\/p>\n

In contrast, I did not find either \u201cThis is How You Will Die\u201d or \u201cTaroko Gorge\u201d as engaging. In the case of \u201cThis is How You Will Die,\u201d I think I became distracted with the seemingly dated interface that did not appeal aesthetically. \u201cTaroko Gorge\u201d also presented a challenge in that I found the scrolling text made it difficult to focus on any narrative structure or flow. In <\/span>Electronic Literature<\/span><\/i>, Rettberg points out that electronic literature now focuses on the \u201ccreation of more consciously aesthetic poetic works that explore different modes of procedural and aleatory structure\u201d (38). In consideration of this manifesto, and my above case-study of sorts, I would determine that when in search of a Tracery narrative, I value an actual narrative of sorts–as displayed in Missed Encounters—and a visual display that does not distract from the text itself.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I am also reminded of Peter Rabinowitz\u2019s \u201cRules of Reading\u201d that we discussed in class. The Rules of Signification and Coherence seem particularly relevant here. For example, with \u201cTaroko Gorge,\u201d the Rule of Signification prompts us to interpret what we notice, such as the moving text and the patterns in the generated words. The Rule of Coherence reminds us to be generous readers, assuming that the text is supposed to make sense and that deviations are intentional. Keeping these Rules of Reading in our back pockets, we can explore new imaginings of literature, that often at first appear only loosely related to literature we\u2019re used to. However, we can also put these Rules to the side to allow for variables such as the creator\u2019s intent. A conscious decision to either play by these rules or to suspend them empowers readers to bring their reading skills to the table, while also allowing for a new mode of reading and exploring a text.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Of all the tracery narratives we looked at in class, I felt most drawn to the Missed Encounters generator. I think this narrative outline stuck with me in particular because of both its comedic potential and its meta-like qualities. The interactions and observations described in the randomly generated encounters seem to mimic the random-ness of …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":255,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-group-b"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/elit20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/elit20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/elit20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/elit20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/255"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/elit20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=430"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/elit20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":432,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/elit20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430\/revisions\/432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/elit20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/elit20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/elit20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}