[spectre] Next Thursday Club: 22 November with Joseph Tabbi (London SE14)

[Maria Chatzichristodoulou [aka maria x]]

**NEXT THURSDAY CLUB ** NEXT THURSDAY CLUB ** NEXT THURSDAY CLUB **

Supported by the Goldsmiths GRADUATE SCHOOL and the Goldsmiths DIGITAL 
STUDIOS

6pm until 8pm, Seminar Rooms at Ben Pimlott Building (Ground Floor, 
right), Goldsmiths, University of London, New Cross, SE14 6NW

FREE, ALL ARE WELCOME. No booking required.


*22 NOVEMBER with JOSEPH TABBI *
:
Toward a Semantic Literary Web: Three Case Histories

Supported by Goldsmiths Department of English and Comparative Literature 
and Pinter Centre for Performance and Creative Writing - ECL


In this talk, Joseph Tabbi introduces a new literary and arts 
collective, Electronic Text + Textiles, whose members are exploring the 
convergence of written and material practices. While some associates 
create actual electronic textiles, Tabbi has explored the text/textile 
connection as it manifests itself in writing produced within electronic 
environments. His online laboratory consists of two literary web sites, 
EBR (www.electronicbookreview.com), a literary journal in continuous 
production since 1995, and the Electronic Literature Directory 
(www.eliterature.org), a project that seeks not just to list works but 
to define an emerging field. Rather than regard these sites as 
independent or free-standing projects, Tabbi presents their development 
in combination with the current (and similarly halting) development of 
semantically driven content on the Internet (e.g., The Semantic Web, or 
Internet 2.0).

His purpose is to determine to what extent *concepts* can flow through 
electronic networks, as distinct from the predominant flow of 
*information*. The latter, in which documents are brought together by
metatags, keywords, and hot links, is arguably destructive of literary 
value. Where tagging and linking depend on direct, imposed conectivity 
at the level of the signifier, the creation of literary value depends
on suggestiveness, associative thought, ambiguity in expression and 
intent, fuzzy logic, and verbal resonance. At a time when powerful and 
enforced combinations of image and text threaten to obscure the 
differential basis of meaning as well as the potential for bringing 
together, rather than separating, rhetorical modes, Electronic Text + 
Textiles seeks to recognize and encourage the production of nuanced, 
textured languages within electronic environments.

JOSEPH TABBI is the author of two books of literary criticism, Cognitive 
Fictions (Minnesota, 2002) and Postmodern Sublime (Cornell, 1995). He 
edits ebr (www.electronicbookreveiw.com) and hosted the 2005 Chicago 
meeting of the Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts. He is 
Professor of Literature at the University of Illinois, Chicago.
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Next Club:

13 DECEMBER with ALEX GILLESPIE, BRIAN O'NEILL & ROBB MITCHELL
:
Cyranoids...*

How can “speaking the thoughts of others” enhance and subvert social 
interaction both face-to-face and remotely ?

The audiences are invited to participate in a social event cum 
performance seminar and experience being cyranoids, synchronoids or 
sources...


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THE THURSDAY CLUB is an open forum discussion group for anyone 
interested in the theories and practices of cross-disciplinarity, 
interactivity, technologies and philosophies of the state-of-the-art in 
today’s (and tomorrow’s) cultural landscape(s).

For more information check http://www.goldsmiths.ac.uk/gds/events.php or 
email Maria X at drp01mc at gold.ac.uk

-- 
Maria Chatzichristodoulou [aka maria x] PhD Art and Computational Technologies  Goldsmiths Digital Studios skype: mariax_gr www.cybertheater.org