DIGITAL LITERARY ARTS

AND [THE WEB OF LIFE][THE CAPITALIST WORLD ECOLOGY]

Prof. Élika Ortega https://elikaortega.net/ || elika.ortega@colorado.edu

Prof. Alex Saum-Pascual http://www.alexsaum.com/ || saum-pascual@berkeley.edu 

We are in the midst of a pandemic, trying to learn together #firstdisclaimer

This graduate seminar will explore how certain works of digital art and literature place digital production within a web of material accountability that rejects the binaries implicit in capitalist logic in pursuit of a new type of materiality. Although it may sound counterintuitive, the destruction of natural resources and human life is directly related to the evolution of digital technologies that project a perverse sense of immaterial existence. Rethinking digital materiality calls for a double framework of interpretation; one that looks both at the place of digital works within the web of life (Moore), as well as a new methodological approach that is based on a multi-directional relational logic. This requires not only a new framework to understand a new historical context (the Capitalocene) or new politics to frame digital objects (Haraway’s ontological politics) but also a different type of methodology and language such as Braidotti’s posthuman theory and politics, where new relationships of knowledge emerge from epistemic accountability and transversal ethics. In this seminar we will think with posthuman, environmental and material feminist critics, as we experience and discuss art and literature that exploits the affordances and limitations of the digital web. Particular emphasis will be given to artists working in the Spanish and Portuguese speaking world.

This seminar is taught simultaneously by Prof. Élika Ortega (University of Colorado Boulder, CUB) and Prof. Alex Saum (University of California Berkeley, UCB). Students enrolled in these courses will interact with both professors and students from both universities. Their participation will be carried out both asynchronously (via chat discussion and written responses) and synchronously (during video conference). There will also be a series of online interviews with scholars and art practitioners that will be shared publicly. This class also includes a creative making component, students will engage with materials by producing original works of “digital” “literary” “art”.

Joint Schedule

This schedule is a combination of synchronous and asynchronous activities. Classes will not meet for the whole scheduled time slot synchronously. Instead, the 2.5-3 hrs of seminar time, according to each group’s scheduled time, will be spread out among activities (students responses, instructor feedback, and synchronous discussion) following this order:

• Student reading responses due every Monday by 9am MST / 8 am PST. Every week, students will share a written response to that week’s reading/viewing materials. Responses can be written either in English or in Spanish. Please ask your professors about this.
• Video responses from instructors and/or other video recordings Monday afternoon available by 4pm MST / 3pm PST
• CUB class meets remotely Monday at 5-6:30pm MST via Zoom
• UCB class meets remotely Thursday at 3-4:30pm PST via Zoom
• All week long the class Discord channel will be open for seminar discussion. Each week one student will be in charge of leading discussion (offering engagement prompts, and suggestive questions, etc.) and moderating interventions.
• We will attempt to have a joint discussion with both classes a couple of times in the semester. Scheduling pending.

Assessment

• Critical responses (11) 40%
• Creative works of DLA + one critical commentary [artist statement] (2) 50%

• Works of elit 30% (15+15)
• Critical commentary 20%

• Participation (Discord forum and class discussion) 10%

Assessment Descriptions:

• Critical responses are short write ups of about 1 page (400-500 words approximately). These responses are the basis for the discussions lead during synchronous meetings. You will be given prompts to focus your readings and to help you write the responses. Please note that responses are not “final” pieces of writing. Instead, they are your initial thoughts around a set of texts and questions.
• Creative works. It is always hard to describe what is expected in a creative work #seconddisclaimer. Specific guidelines (and, where applicable, tutorials) will be given for each of these assignments. But keep in mind that this is not a studio arts class: your projects should be relatively polished, but they do not need to be gallery ready. These projects are meant to be reflexive and playful, experimental and thought provoking.
• Critical commentary. In this component of the final creative work, we want to see how you are bringing together the theoretical principles of the class into play with a creative expression. In a way, it is the scholarly justification, interpretation, or framework for the creative endeavors, and therefore it needs a scholarly apparatus of citations. This should be a long statement informed by scholarship, 10 pages double space minimum, plus an annotated bibliography.
• Participation. The best part of a graduate seminar is the chance to have nerdy conversations about interesting topics. Therefore, it is important to take an active role in them. Whether the conversations happen synchronously or asynchronously, you are expected to contribute to the discussion every week.

“Locations”

The main challenges of teaching remotely and across institutions in different time zones is building a sense of co-presence for all involved and avoiding a proliferation of platforms and the confusion and burnout they tend to cause. Therefore, a goal of this course (the silver lining to teaching during a pandemic in heavily technologized environments) is to be able to form scholarly communities that do not depend on enrollment and geographical location. To this end, we will forgo institutional platforms like canvas that can be more readily available but impose a series of limitations for interinstitutional work. Instead we will have central “locations” for this joint class that are based on widely used platforms and will be available to all students enrolled at both UCB and CUB.

• A Drive Folder serving as a repository of course readings, and as a submission portal for responses and other assignments.
• A Discord server that will effectively be the asynchronous seminar room. Weekly discussions will take place in a dedicated channel.
• A Zoom room for remote synchronous meetings of classes at their respective schedules.

Software Requirements

This is not a heavily technical class. But you do need access to a few pieces of software.

For general class proceedings you’ll need to use Google Drive, Zoom, and Discord https://discord.com/

Additionally, a lot of the creative works we’ll examine use Adobe Flash https://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/. This is literally the last semester these works can be taught live, as Adobe is discontinuing Flash at the end of 2020, so we must take full advantage of it. Please make sure you have installed Flash on your computer and that you have given the proper permissions on your browser. How to do it varies from browser to browser, but you can find step by step instructions through a simple web search.

We will also use a text editor like Sublime Text https://www.sublimetext.com/. Some other softwares we may use speculatively include Google Forms, PPT, Excel, etc.

Reglas de convivencia

Screen names and pronouns: Please share respectful screen names, and we invite you to use pronouns. If participants do not include pronouns, please refer to those participants by their name.

Online video participation: Depending on the circumstances and external environments from which you are joining online classes or meetings, you may or may not be comfortable participating by video. We prefer if you use video for the synchronous sessions, and if video is used, care should be taken with screen backgrounds to ensure they do not include flashing lights or other visuals that can make it hard for some people to participate. Participants should be mindful as well of the background that appears behind them, keeping privacy considerations in mind.

Student interventions: Please mute your microphones during video sessions, unmuting when it’s your time to speak. Please use the raised hand feature in Zoom if you want to speak.

As Zoom chat and Discord participation goes, please remember interventions will have to relate to course content (mostly).

Violations of virtual norms: All participants should be responsible for creating a safe, healthy, inclusive and belonging space for all. Just like in a physical classroom, misconduct in a virtual space may be subject to campus disciplinary action. Just.be.nice.

CU Boulder students please also refer to official University Policies available in this document.

Class plan

E-lit and Digital Materiality

WEEK 1: AUGUST 24-28

Class intro, tech check, show and tell of DLA, and community building

Nothing due

WEEK 2: AUGUST 31-SEPT 4

What’s e-lit and what does materialism have to do with it?

Mandatory reading

• Rettberg, Scott. Introduction to Electronic Literature. Polity, 2018
• Brown, Bill “Materiality” in Critical Terms for Media Studies, Ed. W. J. T. Mitchell and Mark B.N. Hansen (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010): 49-63.
• Hayles, N. Katherine “Media and Materiality” In Writing Machines (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002): 8-33.

Mandatory viewing

• Interview with Prof. Leo Flores, President of Electronic Literature Organization and Red Latinoamericana de Literatura Electrónica, Professor, Chair of English at Appalachian State University.

Suggested reading

• Hayles, N. Katherine “Electronic Literature: What is it?” Electronic Literature Organization. January 2, 2007 https://eliterature.org/pad/elp.html
• Bill, Brown. “Thing Theory” Critical Inquiry 28:1 (August 2001): 1-22
• Hayles, N. Katherine. “Material Metaphors, Technotexts, and Media-Specific Analysis” In Writing Machines (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002): 8-33

Due: First response *1 page* via google docs by 8am. Describe the importance of materialism for the study of digital media. How does this relate to DLA? Name your document following the prompt : [your institution UCB or CUB]_[your last name]_[week_#]. Eg. UCB_Saum_week_2

WEEK 3: SEPT 7-11. Labor day

Literary and Embodiment : the digital and the book

• Drucker, Johanna. “The Self-Conscious Codex: Artists’ Books and Electronic Media” Substance #82, 1997. 93-112.
• Borsuk, Amaranth. “The Book as Idea.” in The Book, Cambridge: MIT Press, 2018. 111-195.
• Borsuk, Amaranth and Brad Bouse. Between Page and Screen. Siglio Press, 2012

Mandatory viewing

• Interview with Prof. Amaranth Borsuk, Poet, Artist, and Associate Professor at University of Washington, Bothell.
• Borsuk, Amaranth, Essential Knowledge: The Book http://t-h-e-b-o-o-k.com/

Suggested reading/browsing:

• UC Berkeley’s Artists’ Books Collection

• Ortega, Élika. “Not a Case of Words: Textual Environments and Multimateriality in Between Page and Screen.” Electronic Book Review. 2017.

• Saum-Pascual, Alex. “Memory Traces: Printed Electronic Literature as a Site of Remembrance.” Comparative Literature Studies, 57.1 (2020): 69-94

Due: Second response *1 page* via google docs by Tuesday 8am. Why is the book still important to consider the materiality of DLA? How has the book changed because of digital technologies? Name your document following the prompt : [your institution UCB or CUB]_[your last name]_[week_#]. Eg. UCB_Saum_week_2

CUB students will forgo live discussion this week to observe Labor Day. Please contribute to asynchronous discussion on Discord.

Digital materialities

WEEK 4: SEPT 14-18

Mandatory reading:

• Hayles, Katherine N. “Toward Embodied Virtuality” and “Virtual Bodies and Flickering Signifiers” How We Became Posthuman. University of Chicago Press: 1999
• Ledesma, Eduardo. “Latin American Digital Poetry: Animated Embodiment.” Radical Poetry: Aesthetics, Politics, Technology and the Ibero-American Avant-Garde 1900-2015
• Uribe, Ana María. Tipoemas and Anipoemas http://www.vispo.com/uribe/anipoemas.html
• De Campos, Augusto. Clip poemas http://www.augustodecampos.com.br/clippoemas.htm
• Kac, Eduardo. Não http://www.ekac.org/nao.html and Reabracadabra https://anthology.rhizome.org/reabracadabra 

Attend online colloquium “Algorithmic Cultures,” organized by the Universidad Internacional Menéndez Pelayo, on Sept 17,  7:30am-11am PST

ALGORITMOS CREATIVOS: NUEVAS PRÁCTICAS DE PRODUCCIÓN ARTÍSTICO-CULTURAL

• Talk by Prof Saum-Pascual: “Algorithms, Poetry and Protest: the Politics of Making Things that Matter Online”
• Talk by Daniel Canogar: “Abstracciones Algorítmicas”
• Talk by Jonas Lund: “Decision Tree”
• Speakers round table discussion: “Algoritmos creativos: nuevas prácticas de producción artístico-cultural”

Suggested reading:

• Postman, Neil. “The Judgement of Thamus.” In Technolopoly. The Surrender of Culture to Technology. Vintage, 1993. 3- 20.
• Kirschenbaum,Matthew G. “Extreme Inscription: A Grammatology of the Hard Drive” In Mechanisms: New Media and the Forensic Imagination. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2008: 73-109

Due: Third response *1 page* via google docs by 8am. Think of the materiality and body of the word and explain how this can be exploited for poetic purposes.

[UCB students: In lieu of class mtg, add a short written response to Thursday morning’s talk to your Monday discussion on digital materialities]

WEEK 5: SEPT 21-25

Creative project week

Engage with the materiality of everyday digital tools and platforms in a poetic way. How can you make poetry out of twitter, excel, power point, survey forms, paper and glue, etc.?

Watch and read your professor’s tutorials to get ideas and learn new tricks.

Mandatory viewing:

• Interview with Prof. Mark Marino, Writer, Performer, Professor of Writing at University of Southern California

Suggested reading:

• Marino, Mark. “Introduction” to Critical Code Studies. Massachusetts: MIT, 2020
• Marino, Mark. Flight of the CodeMonkeys http://thenewriver.us/flight-of-the-code-monkeys/

Due: Creative work #1 Due Friday via discord, discussion on the projects will take place next week. Ask Profs about further submission queries if there are doubts about format.

The Digital and the Web of Life (Anthropocene criticism)

WEEK 6: SEPT 28-OCT 2

Earth and time: digital temporalities

Mandatory reading

• Hayles, Katherine N. “Tech-TOC: Complex Temporalities and Contemporary Technogenesis”, How We Think. University of Chicago, 2012
• Zielinski, Siegfried. “Introduction. The Idea of a Deep Time of the Media.” In Deep Time of the Media. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2008. 1-11.
• Beiguleman, Giselle. I Lv Yr GIF http://desvirtual.com/ilvyrgif/
• MacKern, Brian. 34s56w / Temporal de Santa rosa, Instalación. http://34s56w.org/xtcs/instalacion.html

Suggested reading

• Huhtamo, Erkii. “Dismantling the Fairy Engine: Media Archaeology as Topos Study,” in: Media Archaeology: Approaches, Applications and Implications, ed. Erkki Huhtamo and Jussi Parikka (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011), 27-47.

Due: Fourth response *1 page* via google docs by 8am.

WEEK 7: OCT 5-OCT 9

History vs Archeologies

Mandatory reading

• Parikka, Jussi. “Materiality: Grounds of Media Culture”. A Geology of Media. University of Minnesota Press, 2015
• Matthews, Andrew S. “Ghostly Forms and Forest Histories.” In The Arts of Living in a Damaged Planet. Minneapolis, Minnesota UP.  2017. 145-156.
• Tisselli, Eugenio. La puerta http://www.motorhueso.net/lapuerta/ or The Gate http://www.motorhueso.net/thegate/,  Mycelium Rider http://www.motorhueso.net/mycelium/ and Amazon http://motorhueso.net/amazon/

Mandatory viewing

• Watch interview with Eugenio Tisselli, writer, artist, independent researcher

Suggested reading:

• Morton, Timothy. Part I. “What Are Hyperobjects” Hyperobjects. Philosophy and Ecology after the End of the World. University of Minnesota Press, 2013

Suggested viewing:

• Thursday, October 8 |  5 — 6:30 PM | Register here. Advancing Hollow Bone Narratives through Media Platform Connectedness

Ruth Hopkins, Dakota/Lakota Sioux writer

How are indigenous communities affected by Trumps’ border wall, and how is coronavirus in some ways a repeat of the transmission of invader’s disease? A widely published columnist with bylines from The Guardian to Teen Vogue, Ruth Hopkins’s lecture will focus on how indigenous spirituality relates to advocacy, and how ancestral voices are speaking to the world through social media.

Presented as a part of BCNM’s Indigenous Technologies initiative and History and Theory of New Media Lecture Series.

Due: Fifth response *1 page* via google docs by 8am.

WEEK 8: OCT 12-OCT 16

Anthropocene vs Capitalocene vs Chthulucene

Mandatory reading

• Moore, Jason. “Anthropocene or Capitalocene? Nature, History and the Crisis of Capitalism” 1-11 and “Capitalocene and Planetary Justice”. Maize 6, 49-54. 
• Crutzen, Paul J. and Eugene Stoermer. 2000. “The Antropocene.” IGBP [International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme] Newsletter, no. 41: 17-18
• Tiselli, Eugenio. The 27th, El 27. http://motorhueso.net/27/
• Laufer, Milton. La industrialización latinoamericana y otros anacolutos.  https://youtu.be/NddeY5hXw5Q [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPp3aPdlDbc]

Mandatory viewing

• Watch interview with Prof. Jason Moore, Professor of Sociology (Historical Geography)  at Binghamton University
• Watch interview with Milton Laufer, writer, artist

Due: Fifth response *1 page* via google docs by 8am.

New Materialism

WEEK 9: OCT 19-OCT 23

Troubled Materialism

• Haraway, Donna. “Tentacular Thinking: Anthropocene, Capitalocene, Chthulucene” In Staying With The Trouble. Making Kin in the Chthulucene. Durham, Duke University Press, 2016. 30-57
• Yusoff, Kathryn. A Billion Black Anthropocenes or None. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. 2018
• cárdenas, micha. Redshift and Portalmetal https://scalar.usc.edu/works/redshift-and-portalmetal/index
• Escaja, Tina. Robopoem@s. https://proyecto.w3.uvm.edu/robopoems/Robopoemas2020.html

Mandatory viewing

• Watch interview with Distinguished Prof. Tina Escaja, Department of Spanish, and Director of Gender, Sexuality and Women's Studies at University of Vermont, poet, artist.

Due: Sixth response *1 page* via google docs by 8am.

WEEK 10: OCT 26-OCT 30

Historical and New Materialism

Mandatory reading

• Edwards, Jason “The Materialism of Historical Materialism”. New Materialisms: Ontology, Agency and Politics. Duke UP: 2010. 281-297
• Coole, Diana and Samantha Frost “Introducing the New Materialisms.” New Materialisms: Ontology, Agency and Politics. Duke UP: 2010. 1-43
• Carpenter, JR. “Etheric Ocean” http://luckysoap.com/ethericocean/ and “The Gathering Cloud” http://luckysoap.com/thegatheringcloud/ 
• Moll, Joana. The Hidden Life of an Amazon User https://www.janavirgin.com/AMZ/ and CO2GLE http://www.janavirgin.com/CO2/CO2GLE_about.html Defoooooooooooooooooooooooorest (2016) http://www.janavirgin.com/CO2/DEFOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOREST_about.html

Mandatory viewing

• Watch interview with Joana Moll, Artist, Researcher

Due: Seventh response *1 page* via google docs by 8am.

WEEK 11: NOV 2-NOV 6

Feminist and indigenous materialism: ontology and beings

 Mandatory reading

• Barad, Karen “Posthumanist Performativity: Toward an Understanding of How Matter Comes to Matter,” Signs 28:3 (2003), 801-31.
• Blaser, Mario. “Ontology and indigeneity: on the political ontology of heterogeneous assemblages.” Cultural Geographies, 21:1. 2014. 49-58.

Suggested reading

• Ahmed, Sara. “Orientations Matter”New Materialisms. Diana Coole and Samantha Frost Eds. Duke, UP, 2010. 234-257.

Mandatory viewing:

• Watch interview with JR Carpenter, Poet, Artist, Researcher

Suggested/Mandatory viewing

• Thursday, November 5 |    5 — 6:30 PM | Register here. World Re-Building: Aboriginal Territories in Cyberspace and the Initiative for Indigenous Futures

Skawennati, Artist & Co-Director of Aboriginal Territories in Cyberspace and Skins Workshops in Aboriginal Storytelling in Digital Media

Skawennati is a Mohawk multimedia artist, best known for her online works as well as Machinima that explore contemporary Indigenous cultures, and what indigenous life might look like in futures inspired by science fiction. Her lecture will present the artwork and ideas of the Indigenously-determined research/creation networks she has helped to found, lead and coordinate.

This event is mandatory for UCB students. UCB students will meet on class Zoom after the event 6:30 - 7:00

Due: Eight response *1 page* via google docs by 8am

Posthumanist turn

WEEK 12: NOV 9-NOV 13

Humans, machines and other species

Mandatory reading

• Haraway, Donna. Companion Species Manifesto: Dogs, People and Significant Otherness, Prickly Paradigm Press, 2003
• Hayles, Katherine N. “The Semiotics of Virtuality” and “Conclusion: What Does It Mean to be Posthuman”, How We Became Posthuman. University of Chicago Press: 1999
• Romano, Gustavo. IP Poetry. http://ippoetry.net/ and and Becoming Code/Devenir Código http://4rt.eu/dc/ 

Suggested reading

• Angel, Maria and Anna Gibs. “At The Speed Of Light: Cyberfeminism, Xenofeminism and the Digital Ecology Of Bodies” In #WomenTechLit. Computing Lit, 2017

Mandatory viewing

• Watch interview with Gustavo Romano, artist, curator, independent researcher

• *go to “settings> auto-translate” to watch with (automatic) English translation of (automatic) Spanish captions [quite the work of e-lit in itself]

Due: Ninth response *1 page* via google docs by 8am

Posthumanities

WEEK 13: NOV 16-NOV 20

Mandatory reading

• Braidotti, Rosi. “Post-Humanism: Life Beyond the Self” and “Post-Humanism: Life Beyond the Species”. The Posthuman. Cambridge: Polity, 2013
• Kac, Eduardo. GFP Bunny http://www.ekac.org/gfpbunny.html, Genesis http://www.ekac.org/geninfo2.html, Natural History of the Enigma http://www.ekac.org/nat.hist.enig.html 

• Gache, Belén. Word Market (2012) http://meiac.es/turbulence/archive/Works/word-market/ and A Deconstructive Theory of Syntax (Poetic Manifesto) (2020) https://abc.perspektive.at/parataxia-manifesto/

Suggested Reading

• Braidotti, Rosi. “How To Do Posthuman Thinking.” In Posthuman Knowledge. Cambridge: Polity, 2019. 122-152

Mandatory viewing

• Watch interview with Belén Gache, poet, artist, independent researcher

• *go to “settings> auto-translate” to watch with (automatic) English translation of (automatic) Spanish captions [quite the work of e-lit in itself]

Due: Tenth response *1 page* via google docs by 8am

Making, writing

WEEK 14: NOV 23-NOV 27- Thanksgiving break  

UCB and CUB students will forgo live Zoom discussion to respect Thanksgiving break. All discussion this week will take place on the relevant Discord channels. Students are encouraged to start work on final creative projects and their artists statement.

WEEK 15: NOV 30-DEC 4

Making, writing

Zoom and Discord channels will serve for one on one consultations.

WEEK 16: DEC 7-DEC 11

Making, writing, and sharing

Due Dec 10: share your final creative project and artist statement on Discord by 8am, we’ll meet as a full group to present these materials