• WEEK 1 LECTURE: DEFINING ELECTRONIC LITERATURE AND DIGITAL PERFORMANCE ART 
As we move forward in this course, it's important to understand just what it is we are talking about when we say "electronic literature" and just what it means when we say "digital performance art."  According to theorist Scott Rettberg, electronic literature consists of new forms and genres of writing that exploit the capabilities of computers and networks – literature that would not be possible without the contemporary digital sphere. Types of electronic literature include hypertext, interactive fiction (and other game-based digital literary work), kinetic and interactive poetry, and networked writing based on our collective experience of the Internet.   

 Digital performance art is performance art that uses the digital realm (the Internet) as medium and platform for performance work; it also encompasses work that crosses over into physical spaces but uses the digital realm as a source for performance material (ex. reading from a live Twitter feed at a poetry festival or in a public park).   The digital performance art we will focus on for this class uses language as a primary mode for intervention in social media spaces such as YouTube, Twitter, and Tumblr; it also looks at language interventions into online gaming realms such as World of Warcraft.   

 There are several key links between the two categories of works we will be examining. Those links are: the digital realm itself as fodder and platform, the performative aspect of the work, and the use of language as a key tool of intervention.   




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