STRUTS added to Authoring Software

An account of the making of STRUTS, a recent work of digital literature commissioned for SFMoMA, has been added to Judy Malloy’s fantastic online new media writing resource, Authoring Software.

STRUTS || J. R. Carpenter

Pictured above: screenshot detail from STRUTS, a a rhythmic algorithmic computationally composed text collage created from a collection of fragments of facts and fictions pertaining to the Tantramar region of New Brunswick. (Canada) Read about the making of STRUTS on Authoring Software.

Begun in conjunction with the 2008 Electronic Literature Organization Conference, which took place in Vancouver, Washington, Authoring Software has become, in Malloy’s words:

A resource for teachers and students of new media writing, who are exploring what authoring tools to use, for new media writers and poets, who are interested in how their colleagues approach their work, and for readers, who want to understand how new media writers and poets create their work, the Authoring Software project is an ongoing collection of statements about authoring tools and software. It also looks at the relationship between interface and content in new media writing and at how the innovative use of authoring tools and the creation of new authoring tools have expanded digital writing/hypertext writing/net narrative practice in this vibrant contemporary creative writing field.

Judy Malloy is a pioneering new media poet, editor and arts writer. She began working toward hypertextual narrative in the 1970’s, creating experimental artist books in card catalogue and electro-mechanical structures. In 1986 she wrote and programmed the germinal hyperfiction Uncle Roger. She has been working in the field of computer-mediated literature for 25 years. In that time she has seen many authoring softwares come and go.

More information about Judy Malloy may be found on Authoring Software and on her website.

More information about Authoring Software

My contributions to Authoring Software: STRUTS, Excerpts From the Chronicles of Pookie & JR, and Entre Ville

Fight for the right to use the internet in poetic and intransigent ways #SOPA #BlackoutSOPA #J18

I got my first Unix account in 1993. I didn’t know much about computers, but the adoption of a system which I perceived to be born our long-standing collective desire and seemingly perpetually vainglorious attempts to communicate across long distances through the elusive and transitory medium of the written word didn’t seem like such a leap of faith. The Internet has developed an interface since then, a painted face to hide all manner of ignorance and nefarious activity behind. In the countless artist statements, grant applications, articles and blog posts I’ve written over the course of my nineteen years, I’ve included some version of this sentence:

The more proprietary, predatory, and puerile a place the internet becomes the committed I am to using it in poetic and intransigent ways.

This commitment compels me to urge you to join #BlackoutSOPA #J18 18 January 2012. Shut down your blogs, web pages, facebook pages and profiles and twitter accounts for 12 hrs from 8am-8pm EST and show a message opposing #SOPA and #PIPA. In the amazing amount of spare time you will suddenly have on your hands, consider a #Paperstorm during the #SOPAblackout. Go out on the streets and pass flyers to inform people that the US congress is seriously and wilfully ignorantly considering legislation that will dramatically change the Internet as we know it, putting an end to many sites we use everyday. Including this one. This blog, Lapsus Lingue, runs on WordPress. In 10 January 2012 blog post WordPress urged its 60 million users to Help Stop SOPA/PIPA. Internet experts, organizations, companies, entrepreneurs, legal experts, journalists, and individuals the world over have repeatedly expressed how dangerous this bill is.

If we — the denizens of this tangled web of our own making; the collective authors of this never-ending networked narrative; the cartographers of this map of our twisting turning yearning desire for connection, for community, for communion; the caretakers of these web sites, these stand-ins for past and future places, these repositories for our long-standing longing for belonging, for home — if we do nothing, Congress will likely pass the Protect IP Act (in the Senate) or the Stop Online Piracy Act (in the House), and then the President will probably sign it into law. Even if we do something, they might. Which does not dissuade but rather further propels me to fight for the right to use the internet by using it in poetic and intransigent ways.

For more information on #BlackoutSOPA #J18 see the 10 January 2012 reddit blog post Stopped they must be; on this all depends.