Electronic Literature as a Model of Creativity and Innovation in Practice (ELMCIP): A Report from the HERA Joint Research Project

Electronic Literature Publishing Practices: Distinct Traditions and Collaborating Communities

59 CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION IN PRACTICE ELECTRONIC LITERATURE PUBLISHING PRACTICES: DISTINCT TRADITIONS AND COLLABORATING COMMUNITIES RAINE KOSKIMAA THE SURVEY OF ELECTRONIC LITERATURE PUBLISHING AND DISTRIBUTION IN EUROPE: AN INTRODUCTION I n this chapter, the findings and outcomes of the report on Electronic Literature Publishing and Distribution in Europe and related seminar, held at the University of Jyväskylä in March 2011, are summarized and discussed.2 In the survey, electronic literature refers to “works with important literary aspects that take advantage of the capabilities and contexts provided by the stand-alone or networked computer.” In this definition, it is significant that both digitized print literature and print-like digital literature—so-called e-books—are excluded. There are essential similarities in the cultural and commercial status of electronic literature in the thirty European countries3 this survey managed to cover. It is possible that some major players in the field may be missing, but it is unlikely that their forms of networked publishing practices would constitute a major counterexample to the findings presented here. This survey covers most of Europe. The three main borderline areas are Russia, the Ukraine, and some newly independent countries in the Balkans. Russia is partly covered through an additional resource (Fedorova 2012, 122-124). As there are no systematically gathered materials on the topic preexisting, the report is by necessity partly a historical account of the development of the electronic literature scene in various European countries. We are, however, concentrating here on the publication processes and procedures of electronic literature and not writing the history of European electronic literature. That would be 2 The report, authored by Markku Eskelinen and Giovanna di Rosario, is included in this volume. 3 Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. 60 ELMCIP REPORT a major task in itself, and there is an attempt at such history (or rather, histories) ongoing in the Cybertext Yearbook,4 where articles on the histories of Catalan, Croatian, German, Polish, Russian, and Slovene electronic literature have been published so far. Christopher Funkhouser’s (2007) Prehistoric Digital Poetry: An Archaeology of Forms is an important account of the early forms of electronic literature. The ELMCIP Knowledge Base, in future, may also serve to present a thorough account of the European (but also global) electronic literatures. MAIN FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS FROM THE REPORT When starting the survey on the publishing institutions and processes of electronic literature in Europe, it soon became evident that the general rule in the field is an author’s noncommercial self-publication and its somewhat more institutionalized form: publications of a literary group (such as Perfokarta in Poland or Infolipo in Switzerland) that sooner or later may find their way into more inclusive portals and occasionally to online journals as well. Multimedia literary works are sometimes commercially published on CDs and DVDs, but, beyond these, electronic literature is clearly a community and not a market-driven scene. Outside France and its history of online and offline literary journals publishing electronic literature (ever since the Minitel/teletext era and Art-Accès in the mid-1980s), we did not come across a single review or journal that was designed solely for publishing electronic literature. It is much more typical that e-lit is published together with scholarly papers, net art, or digitized literature, especially with sound, visual, and concrete poetry. There are several different patterns in e-lit publishing and distribution in Europe. In a few countries, there does not seem to be electronic literature at all (Romania, Greece, and Luxemburg). In the former Eastern Europe except Poland (Hungary, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia), in the Baltic countries (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania), and in the former Yugoslavia (Croatia, Serbia, and Slovenia), as well as in Iceland and Ireland, authors’ self-publications existed, but national portals were not found. Surprisingly, the pattern was the same in Italy, although an extensive database on Italian experimental literature including electronic literature is well on its way. In the Nordic countries (except Sweden and Iceland), we find the combination of regional and international portals and 4 . 61 CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION IN PRACTICE authors’ websites. As the scope of the regional Elinor portal covers Sweden, too, we can include it in the same pattern as its Nordic neighbors. Almost...