Electronic Literature

I got a review copy of Katherine Hayles's book "Electronic Literature" and skimmed through it. What immediately struck me was how out-of-touch and insular it is. The people she sees as pioneers of electronic literature are from inside a little tower where she builds her scholarly books.

It struck me: all the innovations tend to be cliche modernist innovations - ie program words to move around or you have hypertext. This is so incredibly profoundly out of touch with so much that is going on in electronic literature.

I would have included a discussion of how Tao Lin manipulates the Internet and the blog-interface. But Tao's "innovation" is not an "innovation" - that old modernist paradigm. Further the Modernist paradigm means that Hayles only sees innovation in programming skills - in form. Tao's totally unconcerned with that. And much more interesting. But I don't think Hayles would even recognize the extent to which Tao's work is conceptual electronic literature.