Electronic Literature Peer Response (250 Words Each) ✓ Solved

Electronic Literature Peer Response (250 words each)

Electronic Literature Peer Response (250 words each) = total 500 words.

Student A: Qulipos are literary pieces where “procedural efforts“ produce...a textual outcome” (Calvino, 1). As I read this description of Qulipos, I was reminded of First Screening where the author created text that glided and seemed to dance across the screen. The only difference between Qulipos and First Screening is the lack of repetition. Calvino’s line also brought to mind Pieces of Orchestra where the words produce an outcome although it is not the intended textual outcome. Raymond Querneau’s Un Contre a Votre Falcon happens to be “an application of simple algorithmic techniques” (Calvino, 1) in the same way that the prose in Pieces of Orchestra resembles code instructions and First Screening produces text on a screen.

I could easily see sentences similar to “As sleeping-bags the silent landscape pave” and “staunch pilgrims longest journey can’t depress” gliding across the screen. The difference between Querneau’s work and First Screening is that Querneau’s words seem to connect to form a coherent narrative while the words don’t seem to connect in First Screening. Querneau’s work loses some coherence by placing the line “Through snobbish growing her hemline zone” (Querneau, 13) after the line “From playboy chance the nymph no longer flees” (Querneau, 13). As a result, the two sentences are no different than the phrases featured in First Screening.

Borges' story The Library of Babel immediately brought me back to his previous work The Garden of Forking Paths. Borges’ quote “that a few miles to the right, the tongue is dialectical and that ninety floors up, it is incomprehensible” brings to mind the separate ways that one can view the labyrinth in The Garden of Forking Paths. It can extend across the past and future or even across different realities. The quote makes me think of when I am in a library with a labyrinth that leads to two different sections of the library and two different realities. For example, let’s suppose that the two sections in the library are “World Cultures” and “Programming.” The two separate realities are that I may know more about one subject than another. In one reality, I might know about Programming and go into that section. In another reality, I might know more about cultures. In speaking of cultures, I must add that this story reminded me of the Tower of Babel except that the letters and sections of the library took the place of individuals speaking different languages.

The axiom can be linked to two types of realities, similar and different realities. The interesting thing about the axiom is Godel’s assertion that “it doesn’t matter in which order you add two numbers you always get the same sum.” Unlike the labyrinth, the axiom appears to lead to the same outcome. Hilbert asserts that “one axiom might conflict with another in a way that the conflict could manifest itself in a theorem such that the theorem could be proven both true and false.” The point that axioms could conflict would be another reality.

Student B: The readings from this week definitely held similarity to the ones from last week in that they were still fairly cryptic. The Borges story, “The Library of Babel” had similar themes to “The Garden of Forking Paths” in that libraries and books were major agents for story progression, and time was heavily discussed. The one major difference that I noticed between the two stories was that “Garden” seemed more like a story. There were named characters and events that took place. “Library of Babel” definitely seemed more like a history lecture, describing an old place, how it worked in the time that it existed, and some things that happened there.

Both libraries in the stories had to do with time, rather the questioning and reasoning of it. In “Garden,” the grandfather’s process of figuring out how time worked along with alternate timelines was never described. This story felt like it could be part of the thought process that went into figuring it out. Reading Godel’s Incompleteness Theorem felt only a little easier than trying to read the source code for First Screening from last week. Somebody who knows math/logic theorems/coding would have ease making sense of those readings. However, I am not well versed in the logic behind mathematics or coding, so it did not click right away.

Oulipo is interesting as it reminds me of both Yoko Ono’s Grapefruit and First Screening from last week. Oulipo’s poems seem to be meaningless with lack of context behind the words themselves. They seem choppy and would only make sense to the writer of them. Their format is artistic and aesthetically pleasing; each block around each line seems to break up the poems and make them seem choppy, which gave it a similar feel to Grapefruit and First Screenings. Part of the choppiness adds to the charm, but the lines of Oulipo made little sense together. It was hard to piece together a story from them. At times I felt that each line was designed to be its own poem and not go with the surrounding ones. For instance, the line “From playboy Chance the nymph no longer flees” on page 159 seems to work just as well on its own as its own poem.

I find that social media allows for poems like this today, in that it can be one short cryptic sentence for the reader to interpret their own meaning. Twitter has a character limit per tweet, thus only allowing for small bits of text per post. People have taken to Instagram to make word art for short poems and inspirational phrases to post in an image there. Despite the difference in time from these poems on Oulipo and social media today, it still seems that short cryptic poems remain consistent, but perhaps it is because that is what sells. It is short and cryptic enough to allow any reader to relate to it, but it still holds meaning in itself.

Paper For Above Instructions

Electronic literature, a new form of narrative intertwined with technology, enables readers to experience stories in multifaceted ways. Two significant works in this realm are Borges’ “The Library of Babel” and Queneau’s Oulipo experiments. This response will analyze the interactions between form and content in these electronic texts and their implications for both storytelling and reader engagement.

The brilliance of Borges' “The Library of Babel” rests in its profound commentary on infinity and the limits of human comprehension. The library is a metaphor for an all-encompassing universe containing every possible book in every conceivable language and permutation. Each visitor to this library becomes a part of an intricate puzzle that both excites and frustrates. Borges creates an existential mathematics that mirrors Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem, where certain truths remain inherently unreachable within a boundless universe (Borges, 1941).

In contrast, Queneau’s approach with Oulipo produces literary works that encourage playful interaction and reader agency. Queneau’s intention embodies interactivity and choice, emphasizing the outcome of procedural constraints over linear narrative (Queneau, 1993). This format resonates deeply with the themes of “First Screening,” where text dances across the screen, compelling readers to confront the incoherence inherent in digital narratives. The lack of repetition distinguishes Oulipo, as its form relies on algorithmic processes that create variability, echoing the hypertextual nature of online storytelling (Calvino, 1972).

Both works challenge traditional narrative structures by encouraging readers to value the process of discovery. The choppy, fragmented quality in Oulipo mirrors the experience of navigating modern digital texts, where each line may not form a cohesive whole but instead invites individual interpretation. For instance, in Oulipo poetry, lines stand alone, like tweets on social media, allowing readers to find personal meaning (Ono, 1964). This reflects our contemporary interaction with literature shaped by brevity and immediacy.

Additionally, the connection between Borges’ labyrinth and the concept of alternate realities parallels the experience of reading in a digital age, prompting readers to envisage divergent paths and outcomes as they interact with text (Borges, 1941). Each visit to the Library of Babel symbolizes a quest for understanding in a world dense with information. This is encapsulated in Borges’ assertion that libraries serve as both chaos and order—an aspect equally relevant to Oulipo, where constraints create novel experiences from the chaotic arrangement of language.

Social media acts as an extension of these literary experiments, showcasing how short, cryptic poetry resonates with contemporary audiences. Platforms like Twitter and Instagram reflect the inclination toward brief expressions that can evoke larger themes, creating a digital Oulipo. This ongoing interplay between technology and creativity fuels innovation in narrative forms, similar to how Queneau redefined writing within structured limitations.

Both Borges and Queneau emphasize the relationship between narrative form and reader engagement, illustrating how literature can adapt to reflect the complexities of contemporary life. Electronic literature exemplifies these dynamics by embracing the multifaceted nature of storytelling, inviting readers into a world of exploration where meaning is not preordained but is instead forged through interaction and personal reflection.

References

• Borges, J. L. (1941). The Library of Babel. In Ficciones.
• Calvino, I. (1972). Invisible Cities. Harcourt.
• Ono, Y. (1964). Grapefruit. Something Else Press.
• Queneau, R. (1993). Exercises in Style. New York: New Directions.
• Godel, K. (1931). On Formally Undecidable Propositions of Principia Mathematica and Related Systems.
• Deleuze, G. (1990). Postscript on the Societies of Control. Negotiations, 177-182.
• Manovich, L. (2001). The Language of New Media. MIT Press.
• Hayles, N. K. (2012). How We Think: Digital Media and Contemporary Technogenesis. University of Chicago Press.
• Montfort, N. (2003). Interactive Fiction and the Future of the Book.
• Haim, M. (2020). What is electronic literature? New Media & Society.