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Electronic Literature
ENGL 146EL - Winter 2006,  Rita Raley
Mon, 3/6 Code, Code Poetry, and Net.wurked Language

The Art of Code



Codework notes

1. Works using the syntactical interplay of surface language
2. Works in which submerged content has modified the surface language
3. Works in which the submerged code is emergent content.

In 1995, while working on an HTML document _cutting spacez,” Mez realized that actively networked communicative circuits produce mixed and entangled data streams: “jumping fromme one terminal 2 the next//running three chat-rooms at once via three different terminal [behavior]z sew as 2 opt.tim[id no lonah]ize the time d-layzm chairz blurring b-tween as the monitorz flashed fiction wurdz that [k]neededObleed.ed e.vent[ingz]ualli into the cutting spaces doccoO.”

one of her artistic aims is “2 network 2 the hilt N create de[e]pen.den[ting]cies on email lizts for the wurkz dis.purse.all.” She introduces her critically acclaimed data][h!][bleeding texts by noting that “.these t.ex][e][ts r _code wurk_ remnants d-voted to the dispersal of writing that has been n.spired and mutated according 2 the dynamics of an active network.”

"Obviously the medium of hypertext lends itself readily to the minimal…minimal in terms of a primary reliance on the most basic elements - text, screen [‘doc swapping’] and image. My laconic use of these most base.hic[!] elements [or elle-E,ments as i would say if responding via regular mez/nschine communication channels] is governed largely by the need to condense/dilute.refresh wordage and imagery meanings/established codes/cues of associative meaning/s." (“The Art of M[ez]ang.elle.ing”)

Mez’s claim is that her codework practice needs to be thought in terms of “a gradual re-educative filtration process” that will teach the reader-users “to recognize the source-modes and compile their sensory abilities along the lines of newly-produced expressions intimately related to the stuff of net.wurked life.”



 



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