Research resources

Digital Literature: From Text to Hypertext and Beyond

Author: Raine Koskimaa
Publication Date: 2000

Definition of Digital Literature

• Digitalization of print literature, such as Project Gutenberg and Project Runeberg
• Publication of contemporary literature on digital platforms, however, the creation process follows static print procedures
• Literary creation that actively adopted digital formats such hypertext literature, interactive poetry, and etc.
• Net Literature, being hypertext literature made readable on networked platforms (Internet), that the content reference to and being updated by external sources.

Memex

It was based on combination of a large data base with possibility to link different parts of that data base to each other. One can start to read a Memex document and continue by using link and access the associative reasoning chain which was behind that particular document. In Memex, user is allowed to link together different documents, to gather links to named paths, to add new documents to the database and to return to the database and follow the previous paths.

Project Xanadu

"Visibly Connected Pages and Documents for a New Kind of Writing"
A different way of presenting hierarchy, "transclusion"
Nelson realized that he was trying to create a new kind of thing. It was a tool, but it was also a library, and a medium, and a legion of slave-librarians. In the mid-1960s, when he was working at a book firm, he started to call the whole scheme Xanadu.

Ted Nelson on Xanadu Space

Xanadu, Network Culture, and Beyond by Rheingold

Literary Machine By Ted Nelson as introduction to hypertext, hypermedia and Xanadu Space

Computer Lib, Dream Machines By Ted Nelson as explaining how computer works for layman

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Telecollaboration: Beyond Memex and NLS

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As We May Think, Vannevar Bush

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Electronic Literature Collection, an archive of three volumes (2006, 2011 and 2016, even have a bot section)

Qualities of Digital Literature

• Hypertextuality, Multi-linearity, Diverse Temporality
• User's active engagement in reading process

Brief Examples of Digital Literature

Hegirascope, in which page is refreshed in due time;
Victory Garden, in which the story has multiple hyperlinks as starting points; after entering content pages, user can choose from hyperlinks that are nested within content page.
Faith Robert Kendall's Kinetic Poetry
Luminous Airplanes in which the map shows networked clusters connect to each other
Thread Map Visualizer for web chat conversations

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Eastgate, a company that provides tools for hypertext writing.

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Wiretap, an event in V2 in 1995 on new ways of literature.

Gallery

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  Hypertext Diagram

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  Storyspace, a tool for hypertext writing developed by Eastgate

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  Vision for Project Xanadu

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  Project Xanadu, with Robert Adamson Smith, in 3D Space