<p><a href="http://cordite.org.au/electronica" target="_blank">"Cordite 36: Electronica</a>
has been a fascinating and challenging issue to put together. It
contains forty new poems, fifteen spoken word tracks, a dozen features
and, for the first time, a selection of multimedia or ‘e-lit’ works.
Bringing together these disparate types of content raises an interesting
question for Cordite as an online journal. Have we finally broken
through that invisible barrier between ‘text-based journal’ and ‘online
journal of electronic literature’? </p>
<p>In her <a href="http://cordite.org.au/poetry/electronica/electronica/" target="_blank">editorial</a>
introducing the issue, Jill Jones rightly points to the issue’s
presumptive focus on electronica and electronic music, specifically “the
ways musicians in various modes and guises have used electric
technologies to generate sound.” The poetry in this issue runs the gamut
from highly experimental works to extended meditations on musical
memories and forms. It’s absorbing, intriguing and puzzling – and this
is just as it should be. </p>
<p>The spoken word tracks selected by our audio editor Emilie Zoey Baker
are similarly pre-occupied with the bleeps, hisses and clicks we
associate nowadays with electronic music. From Philip Norton’s bizarro <a href="http://cordite.org.au/media/audio/yes-i-dream-of-electric-sheep/" target="_blank">Yes I Dream of Electric Sheep</a> to Sean M. Whelan and Isnod’s <a href="http://cordite.org.au/media/audio/dream-machines/" target="_blank">Dream Machines</a>,
the works selected here paint an aural kaleidoscope that fizzes and
pops, echoing electronic art from the works of Phillip K. Dick through
to Kraftwerk. Check out the individual tracks or <a href="http://cordite.org.au/media/audio/electronica-spoken-word-mix/" target="_blank">stream the hour-plus mix of electronica as one</a>. Headphones highly recommended!</p>
<p>When it comes to the selected works of multimedia or ‘electronic
literature’, however, we are faced with a series of disruptions that
more often than not question rather than reflect the theme of the issue.
Benjamin Laird’s <a href="http://cordite.org.au/media/sound-less-scape/" target="_blank">Sound-less-scape</a> and <a href="http://cordite.org.au/media/nothing-left-in/" target="_blank">nothing left in</a>,
for example, present the reader (viewer? player?) with opportunities
for interaction but remain stubbornly mute, like a silent rave. Joshua
Mei Ling Dubrau’s <a href="http://cordite.org.au/media/video/et-tu/" target="_blank">Et Tu</a> demonstrates the jump-cut nature of screen-capture technology when applied to text, while Konrad McCarthy’s <a href="http://cordite.org.au/media/video/tv-life/" target="_blank">TV Life</a> strips bare the artifice of the audio-visual in a montage of movements. </p>
<p>The publication of these pieces – some HTML-based, others video –
inevitably raises the question of genre and form. Is this literature? Is
it even e-literature? As Tim Wrights asks in <a href="http://cordite.org.au/features/the-electronic-literature-collection-v2/" target="_blank">his review of the Electronic Literature Collection Volume 2</a>,
‘What literature today isn’t electronic?’ I’d like to think, instead,
of overlapping spaces – some of which may be electronic, others organic.
Beverliey Braune’s <a href="http://cordite.org.au/features/supra-text-sequences/" target="_blank">Supra-text Sequences</a> essay offers one glimpse into such a world. </p>
<p>When it comes to the work of Jason Nelson, one might instead ask
where the electronic world actually stops. I’m really excited to be able
to publish three of Jason’s work in this issue, because in many
respects his work attempts to break through the imposition imposed by
the computer screen to offer a neural landscape that is deeply textured
and interactive. <a href="http://cordite.org.au/media/depth-text-and-playthings/" target="_blank">Depth: Text and Playthings</a> addresses this tension directly, by stating bluntly ‘Your screen is horribly flat’. </p>
<p>Elsewhere, Nelson’s work is playful and self-referential. <a href="http://cordite.org.au/media/branching-branch-branch/" target="_blank">Branching: branch branch</a>
is a work where the traditional branching structure of file folders
clashes comically with a goofy soundtrack that is perhaps more amenable
to a 1980s computer game. Meanwhile, <a href="http://cordite.org.au/media/with-love-from-a-failed-planet/" target="_blank">With love, from a failed planet</a> presents a phantasmagoria of late-capitalist logos. In addition to these pieces, I’m pleased to present <a href="http://cordite.org.au/features/an-interview-with-jason-nelson/" target="_blank">an interview with Jason</a> in which he reflects on his creative practices as an electronic literature artist. </p>
<p>Nelson’s work offers one possible ‘entry-point’ into the world of
e-lit. The work of Mez Breeze offers another. Sally Evans’ essay
entitled <a href="http://cordite.org.au/features/%E2%80%98the-anti-logos-weapon%E2%80%99-excesses-of-meaning-and-subjectivity-in-mezangelle-poetry/" target="_blank">‘The Anti-Logos Weapon’: Excesses of Meaning and Subjectivity in Mezangelle Poetry</a>
demonstrates that electronic literature can be just as much about
‘texts’ as traditional literature. Mez’s work is justifiably renowned in
e-lit circles as innovative and highly complex. In an online world
where more and more of us are exposed to the vagaries of computer code,
Mezangelle chews up that code, parses it with human language and spits
out art. Adam Fieled’s essay on <a href="http://cordite.org.au/features/contextualists-and-dissidents-talking-gertrude-stein%E2%80%99s-tender-buttons/" target="_blank">Gertrude Stein’s Tender Buttons</a>
(a work that is itself highly amenable to remediation as a hypertext)
shows that the worlds of literary practise and literary criticism remain
inextricably entwined. </p>
<p>In terms of my own personal experience of electronic literature,
Mez’s work was amongst the first that I viewed (scanned? played?). Over
the course of this year, working as a post-doctoral researcher on the
ELMCIP project, I’ve also been met a wide range of scholars and
practitioners working in the field of e-lit. For this reason, I’ve
included in this issue two interviews with my colleagues at Blekinge
Tekniska Högskola in Karlskrona, Sweden. Both <a href="http://cordite.org.au/features/an-interview-with-talan-memmott" target="_blank">Talan Memmott</a> and <a href="http://cordite.org.au/features/an-interview-with-maria-engberg" target="_blank">Maria Engberg</a> have inspired me to re-think my attitudes to the digital realm. </p>
<p>This brings me back to the question of Cordite’s place within that
realm. As Benjamin Laird demonstrates in his overview entitled <a href="http://cordite.org.au/features/australian-literary-journals-virtual-and-social" target="_blank">Australian Literary Journals: Virtual and social</a>,
Cordite is by no means alone in its attempts to engage with online
communities. In fact, pretty much every Australian literature journal is
undergoing a process of morphing and reinvention. I’d like to think
that, in the future, Cordite will evolve to include more works of
electronic literature that actually engage with the medium in which the
journal ‘lives’. </p>
<p>This is not to suggest that the thousand-odd poems we have published
on the site over the past decade or not ‘alive’, or that text-based
works are somehow inferior to HTML, Flash-based or interactive works.
Nevertheless, I hope that these tiny steps we have taken towards the
electr(on)ification of Cordite will inspire others to create engaging,
accessible art that takes advantage of the multitude of possibilities
made available when viewing (reading? parsing?) information using a
networked computer."</p><p><b><i>- David Prater, Cordite's Managing Editor</i></b><br></p><br><br>-- <br>Reality Engineer><br>Synthetic Environment Strategist><br>Game[r + ] Theorist.<br>::<a href="http://unhub.com/netwurker" target="_blank">http://unhub.com/netwurker</a> ::<br>
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