Abstract
The focus of this study is to establish the aesthetic strategies related to globalisation that appear in digital literature in order to evaluate their possible classification as World Literature. This study proposes a conceptualisation for studying globalisation as a transcultural phenomenon based on theoretical developments of phenomenology, hermeneutics and social practices, including a classification of ways to address the links between digital literature and globalisation that appear in the texts considered here. The analyses of texts in different languages allow a wide and comparatistic approach, although a close reading of the German/English text Worldwatchers will provide more detailed types of strategies for the expression of globalisation through digital literature.
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Notes
As a point of departure, for the purposes of this study, we can take as a sufficient general definition for digital literature or electronic literature the one proposed by the Electronic Literature Organization: “Electronic literature, or e-lit, refers to works with important literary aspects that take advantage of the capabilities and contexts provided by the stand-alone or networked computer”. http://eliterature.org/what-is-e-lit/ [Accessed 12 July 2013], although the definition is controversial, among other things, because the spectrum is as broad as for literature in other media, and there is not only “one” electronic literature. To avoid questions regarding the limits of digital literature that would extend beyond the purposes of this study, I have opted to look at creations that are widely accepted by critics due to their quality, or form part of the anthologies put together by institutions like ELO or the ELMCIP [Electronic Literature as a Model of Creativity and Innovation in Practice]. Work on other creations that have literary aspects but fit within a more popular area of creation, like “fan fiction”, for example, given its magnitude, should be the object of a separate study.
With regard to this term it is worth noting that in German speech the preference for the term “Netzliteratur” (Net Literature) has led to a different perception of digital literature and has provided it with a wider meaning in the sense of something that exists as a whole and which has a specific aesthetic appearance that is conditioned by the media itself, as shown by Gendolla and Schäfer (2007). Their idea of net literature focuses on the aesthetic and communication processes based on “a wide notion of the net, encompassing more than computer networks, so that we can include in it the interplay of humans and machines […]” (2007, p. 24). This opens the door to a wider definition: “[…] this means that when we speak of “net literature” we do not speak of literary texts on the World Wide Web only […]” (2007, p. 25); and they understand this literature as a dynamic process that must be studied to determine “to what extent […] this literature, in the sense of networked experimental activities, aesthetically reflects far-reaching (man–machine) communications, thereby making invisible processes visible and communicable” (2007, p. 28).
In addition, cyberpunk science fiction is an example of a genre that has bridged the gap between globalisation and the Internet.
Grabovszki asserts that digital literature is a type of literature converted into a “world literature in a new sense of the notion […] the text and the producer of the text become decentralised entities and hybrids precisely because of their infinitive travel in digital space, therefore not belonging to any ‘nation’ or even an imagined community (Anderson) because this travel is directed by data and information […] a literature that contains a conglomerate of different cultural symbols travelling without discernable centres and locations” (1999, p. 7). Tabbi (2010) proposes that digital literature is a true world literature in as much as a continuation of assumptions that appeared in OULIPO [Ouvroir de littérature potentielle]; it frees itself from linguistic constraints and thus eliminates borders for its reception, thus becoming a space of creative freedom. Unlike these authors, Grether (1999) focuses on the analysis of global imaginariums or planetariums in digital literature and netart.
I developed this concept in Llamas Ubieto (2012).
A group of subjects acquires its identity as a collective due to a common connection (with the said past), whether through practical identity (of lived experience) or because it has joined the collective based on a categorical identity. In this sense I make use of the distinction between categorical identity and practical identity established by Hogan (2004, p. 8).
It is a figure that “steht für Regeln, Ordnungen, Gesetze, die es erlauben, etwas als etwas, jemanden als jemanden anzusprechen und zu behandeln” (“[…] represents rules, orders, laws that allow for speaking and dealing with something as something, with someone as someone”) (Waldenfels 2000, p. 257; Translation by the author). When responding to the ‘Other’, it is not actually two subjects that are involved, but three, because the subject takes on the role of a Third party, similar to a Judge in a trial that acts as the representative of the Law. This is an instance that emerges when we have to deal with each other since it sets into motion norms that differentiate and ascribe meaning to that “something” we are interacting with. (2000, p. 54, 57). This is necessary so that from a specific position we can perceive or detect “something” as “something other” and we can thus make the distinction between ‘same’ and ‘other’ and, on occasion, this intersects with the experience of strangeness, or even “something strange” in a cultural sense.
If one were tempted to develop a narrative of globalisation based on these premises, it would be of the type “everyone has access to the cultures of each and every other”, i.e. it would be seen as interdependence on a global scale.
Likewise, one should not confuse the definition presented here with those of the “transnational” or “translocal” (Pieterse 1997) or with that of ‘glocalisation’ (Robertson 1995) because, in these cases, the national or local collective orders in friction with this global order have been constituted based on categorical substantialisations and not always by a recurrence actually shared by the subjects that are ascribed to them.
Parkinson notes the following characteristic of globalisation that I also believe belongs to the internet: “the reconfiguration of space, both conceptually and experientially” (2002, p. 2).
It should not be forgotten that the institutions and various circles canonising these texts (ELO, ELMCIP, E-Poetry) are primarily Western and mainly English speaking. The difficulty in preserving this literature is enormous due to its obsolescence (antiquated software that cannot be located, etc.) and because in many cases, as they are self-publications on the web, their continuation in the medium over time depends on the authors. Thus, their presence and, consequently, their circulation often depend on personal efforts or on institutions such as those cited, which with their “Hypercolonial Studies” (Sanz 2013) bias, deny them the publicity and recognition that they grant to many other productions.
In the author’s words, “these ‘works’ are inscribed using the infamous polysemic language system termed _mezangelle_. This language evolved/s from multifarious computer code > social_networked > imageboard > gamer > augmented reality flavoured language/x/changes. 2 _mezangelle_ means 2 take words > wordstrings > sentences + alter them in such a way as 2/x/tend + /n/hance meaning beyond the predicted +/or/x/pected. _mezangelling_ @tempts 2 /x/pand traditional text parameters thru layered/alternative/code based meanings /m/bedded in2 meta-phonetic renderings of language. _cross.ova.ing ][4rm.blog.2.log][ /m/ploys a base standard of code > txt in order 2 evoke imaginative renderings rather than motion-based > flashy graphics” (MEZ (Mez Breeze) 2011).
B. Suter coined the term “Oraliterarität” for this, in the case of literature (Suter 2005).
This phrase is found within the collective work TanGo. Schwäbisch, spanisch – und zurück by Martina Kieninger; Johannes Auer; Reinhard Döhl and other guest authors (1998–1999) http://www.netzliteratur.net/tango/. This title links Carlos Gardel with the film Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari and humorously shows, metaliterarily and metatechnologically, the new medium’s facility for intertextual and intercultural pastiche. It can be found at http://www.netzliteratur.net/tango/nein.htm.
This work is fiction with the structure of a blog and was created in a collaborative effort by Susanne Berkenheger, Gisela Müller, Klaus Ungerer and other invited artists (2003) http://www.worldwatchers.de/. In Golpe de Gracia as well, hypermedia by Jaime Alejandro Rodríguez, the need to use actions from video games is linked to the text in such a manner that readers can only advance if they activate symbols that call upon their previous knowledge of the functioning of other programmes created for the medium. http://www.javeriana.edu.co/golpedegracia/.
The first version is from 1998, and the third version is in Spanish and in English and is from 2006: http://www.literatronica.com/src/Nuntius.aspx?lng=BRITANNIA&opus=1&pagina=&nuntius=OPUS_ABOUT_1&artifex=.
The works of this digital art group consisting of Young-Hae and Marc Voge, created in 1999 and based in Seoul, can be found at http://www.yhchang.com/. The multiplicity of languages into which their works are translated also has a connotation that forms part of the creative concept, because with this multiplicity, these artists thematise large-scale series production, reflecting on literature as a globalised mass product, which has this status because of the ways in which it is distributed in the market but also allows them to highlight the cultural diversity of possible receptors.
See also: Translations/Traductions http://www.archivenotes.net/ by Olivier Larochelle 2005, Translation http://collection.eliterature.org/1/works/cayley__translation/translation5.mov by John Cayley 2004 and On se comprend http://antoinemoreau.info/on_se_comprend/prisme.html 1996 by Antoine Moreau http://antoinemoreau.info/on_se_comprend/. Mechanical translation is also a resource in the dystopia by Illya Szilak, Reconstructing Mayakovsky (2008) http://www.reconstructingmayakovsky.com/.
Martina Kieninger http://www.netzliteratur.net/tango/valki.htm.
This is the case for “El idioma de los pájaros” [“The language of the birds”] in Wordtoys by B. Gache.
See, for example, “Valse Germanico” in http://www.netzliteratur.net/tango/vals.htm. According to its author, M. Kieninger (1999), in this case, the humorous alienation of the language can be perceived by the reader without the need for knowledge of the two languages.
The same function can be seen in cultural interactions between types of writing, in works like Nippon, by Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries, http://www.yhchang.com/NIPPON.html.
As Germán Sierra explains with regard to the mutant writers (2012, pp. 28–29).
Norman Ohler’s Quotenmaschine (1995) was the first internet novel in German.
As explained by Claudia Kozak: “From the outset, we will have to postulate the idea that technological poetics are not only about the thematic incorporation of contemporary techno-science in art. Taking on technical space implies taking on at the same time the historic-ideological character of technique, its historical modes of social construction of meaning, and it is precisely for this reason, since technique is not only a tool or instrument disconnected from its social configuration, that it is possible to read various “versions”—positions/variations/tensions, according to the subtitle that I have given this presentation—in these technological poetics. Some are closer to the modernising passion for technological novelty, a passion with which the heat of events often plunges uncritically into the idearium (which, at this point, we would call positivist) of progress; others are more distanced, less committed to this idearium—one might say more resistant” (2008, p. 342) [Translation by the author].
In some works the topic of neutralisation is a matter for reflection, sometimes humorous or with a critical undertone, as in “Loneliness” by Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries, http://www.yhchang.com/LONELINESS.html (2006).
“//unregelmäßigkeiten var inglese = new Image();{inglese.src = "grafik/gif/unregular.gif";} var tedesco = new Image();{tedesco.src = "grafik/gif/unregel.gif";} function parla(qualcosa) {window.document.paranormal.src = qualcosa.src;}.
//kalender var ingles = new Image();{ingles.src = "grafik/gif/calendar.gif";} var aleman = new Image();{aleman.src = "grafik/gif/kalender.gif";} function habla(usted) {window.document.gutentag.src = usted.src;}”. These expressions in various languages thus demonstrate that this other face of digital literary works (the double text) is a constituent part of the works and that they cannot be entirely understood without it.
Published between 2011 and 2012 by Rui Torres http://www.telepoesis.net/poemads/index.html. In many texts studied, the world of popular fiction is globalised by means of other communication media or the internet, such as TV series, cinema and comics as in “Memory” by Pedro Valle Javier http://synesthesiasinestesia.blogspot.no/2013/04/memory-e-poetry.html (6 April 2013).
This pizza includes “Venusmuscheln, Mondkäse, Astro-Pilze, Cybercreme” (Odile Endres, 1996), http://www.odile-endres.de/cyberprosa.htm#cyberprosa.
Entry 4/3/3 in the fictional blog Worldwatchers.
Senghor on the Rocks (2008) is a novel in German by Christoph Benda http://www.senghorontherocks.net/.
Die imaginäre Bibliothek (1988–1994) by Heiko Idensen and Matthias Krohn, http://netlern.net/hyperdis//pool/.
See Hahl: “Die Website (aus dem Englischen: site für ‚Ort‘, ‚Platz‘, ‚Stelle‘) wird allerdings nicht wirklich aufgesucht, denn der Mensch bewegt sich nicht zum Ort, der Ort bewegt sich zum Menschen […]” (Hahl 2013).
For the notion of “serendipitous reading” used above see Dolores Romero: “One can explore the network of texts, figures, and applications by travelling around the contents by way of the relationships. Thus, each trajectory is a specific journey, a narrative through knowledge” (2012, p. 11) and “The reader finds these works rather strange, and in addition, is forced to participate more actively in them, but at the same time the events that occur seem to happen by chance in a happy or beneficial way. This is what could be called Serendipity Reading. What exactly is being attempted here? It could be said that the goal is relativism and the loss of the hegemony and rationality of written language. […] just like in reality, time and space change according to the contingency of each reader, bringing about timelessness and utopia.” (Romero Lopez 2012, p. 12).
Other examples that show formulae of transcultural serendipity are glossarattrappen.de Attrappen sammeln, http://ausnahmeverlag.de/site/index.php?page=Detailansicht&buch=33&uid=&un= AusnahmeVerlags + Ann Cotten Nils Menrad (2007) or the collaborative project Noon Quilt by Teri Hoskin, which utilises the figure of multiple windows to construct a patchwork quilt of the world. Each contributor writes what he or she sees from his or her corner of the world and thus adds to this amalgam of corners. As explained on the web itself: “an assemblage of patches submitted by writers from around the world. Together they form a fabric of noon-time impressions. The quilts were stitched over a period of approximately 5 months during 1998–1999”. http://tracearchive.ntu.ac.uk/quilt/info.htm.
Dissonanzen by Odile Endres and Regula Erni (2005) http://www.litart.ch/pittoresk/ueberblick.htm.
Other examples in which the construction of a collective transcultural memory becomes a central piece are: mailancholie des bildschirmhintergrunds (1998) by Sylvia Egger http://serner.netzliteratur.net/mailancholie/; Heimatmuseum by Gisela Müller (2000), http://www.inbeta.de/schlampe/heimatmuseum2/; 23:40 – Das Gedächtnis by Guido Grigat, http://www.dreiundzwanzigvierzig.de/; Voices from Ravensbrück by Pat Binder (2000), http://pat-binder.de/ravensbrueck/index.html; Connected Memories (CREATIVE WORK) de María Mencía (2009), http://vimeo.com/7694524.
The categories under which they classify these “irregularities” are as follows: “alle/all; bärte/beards; flugobjekte/flying objects; gebäude/buildings; gelände/areas; personen/persons; vorgänge/proceedings”.
Their own metadata description of themselves runs as follows: “<META NAME = "DESCRIPTION" CONTENT = "We are the worldwatchers, sitting in a forgotten tower, watching the world through webcams, describing, what we see. We are public eyes.">” in http://www.worldwatchers.de.
“I look down there, hello, Stromboli, sparks spray back hello… the crater breathes the glasses blindly, I see nothing more, can be mistaken” http://www.worldwatchers.de/?p=53&more=1.
This is a polysemic play on words: the image on the web has entered the eye (the retina) and at the same time it has been trapped in that area of contact, which is the membrane or skin that is part of the web.
See entry 17.04.03.
“[…] is certain we call what floor is there as long as the satellite wants it. The pictures prove: everything” http://www.worldwatchers.de/?p=121&more=1.
“It is, often said the pictures speak another language—another language, for example, as the prattled word or French. For example, one doesn’t immediately get this. Our task is to know how therefore to listen to the pictures (to give her the feeling at least, she would be understood; so shy, the little pictures, brief deer, already are of this). It is our task to follow its lips and other movements on the most exact one, to read pixligen lines between hers, their Iconotalk, to transkribieren. Also, we are so to speak translation machines. Admitted with small flaws like linguatec” http://www.worldwatchers.de/?p=64&more=1 and http://www.worldwatchers.de/?p=63&more=1.
For example, in the commentary by Brea Lorwitz on the entry written by muji on 04.04.03, “vulkane beim essen” (“volcano at meal”) about Stromboli, Lorwitz connects in an imaginary way to the eruption of the volcano archived by her companion with the song “Tanz auf dem Vulkan” by the German pop group Nena and with Greek mythology. In a different manner, in her post on 11.04.03, muji connects the entry on Stromboli with the extraterrestrials in the entry for 06.04.03 and with the Kakita River in Japan. As observed in these two cases, the connection is semantically supported by the volcano.
In the same entry dated 06.03.03 that was mentioned previously, savaade comments, as if suspicious: “Nun entreißt man dir auch noch den Anblick. Jemand, der NICHT wir sind, beobachtet Saariselkä! Sie haben ihr Banner aufgepflanzt, wie üblich. “Observed”. […] Wurde das Bild bereits von den uns zuvorgekommenen Blicken manipuliert? Eine zarte Rosagefärbtheit schon um die Mittagszeit. Man will über den Ernst der Lage hinwegtäuschen. Achtung: Dieser Vorgang ist alles andere als abgeschlossen.” (“One snatches the sight from you now, too. We aren’t, for somebody, this one Saariselkä watches! You have planted this banner as usual. ‘Observed.’ […] Was the picture already manipulated by the looks anticipated us? A soft Rosagefärbtheit already around the lunchtime. One wants to deceive about the seriousness of the situation. Respect: This process is completed anything but.”) And in the second commentary for the entry for 25.04, it is humorously suggested that the unconscious of the worldwatchers may be transmitted to the screens by the Great System.
“The world is more still fully of this, no: The world is exact this. One single irregularity (beat me), many irregularities. So many irregularities, that nothing seems more regular than the irregular one.” http://www.worldwatchers.de/?p=108&more=1 and http://www.worldwatchers.de/?p=107&more=1.
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Acknowledgments
This study was financed by the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (Research Project “Electronic Workshops on Literatures -2″. Reference FFI2012-34666) and is included in one of the lines of investigation of the LEETHI Group (Spanish and European Literature from text to hypermedia).
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Llamas, M. Digitising the world: globalisation and digital literature. Neohelicon 42, 227–251 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11059-014-0261-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11059-014-0261-x