While literature in computer-based and networked media has so far been experienced by looking at the computer screen and by using keyboard and mouse, nowadays human-machine interactions are organized by considerably more complex interfaces. Consequently, this book focuses on literary processes in interactive installations, locative narratives and immersive environments, in which active engagement and bodily interaction is required from the reader to perceive the literary text. The contributions from internationally renowned scholars analyze how literary structures, interfaces and genres change, and how transitory aesthetic experiences can be documented, archived and edited.
Peter Gendolla (Prof. Dr.) is Professor of Literature, Art, New Media and Technologies and Director of the Cultural Studies Research Center "Media Upheavals" ("Medienumbrüche") at the University of Siegen.
"An excellent and ambitious collection that attempts nothing less than a re-calibration of digital aesthetics." -- www.electronicbookreview.com, 07.11.2011
"It is a pleasure to observe that this very heavy book with numerous contributors and a wide range of topics has, nevertheless, a clear focus. In general, the reading of this volume is very rewarding. The cultural, aesthetic, and social stakes of the discussions are clearly marked, and the helpful editorial hand of Schäfer and Gendolla makes that the unusual length of this publication is never felt as a handicap [...]. The organization of the collection is clever [...]." -- Jan Baetens, www.leonardo.info, 6 (2010)