The Internet unconscious : on the subject of electronic literature / Sandy Baldwin.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Baldwin, Sandy, 1966-

Series:

International texts in critical media aesthetics ; v. 9.

International texts in critical media aesthetics ; vol. 9

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Online authorship.

Hypertext literature--History and criticism.

Hypertext literature.

Literature and the Internet.

Genre:

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Physical Description:

xi, 187 pages ; 23 cm.

Place of Publication:

New York, NY : Bloomsbury Academic, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Inc, 2015.

Summary:

"There is electronic literature that consists of works, and the authors and communities and practices around such works. This is not a book about that electronic literature. It is not a book that charts histories or genres of this emerging field, not a book setting out methods of reading and understanding. The Internet Unconscious is a book on the poetics of net writing, or more precisely on the subject of writing the net. By 'writing the net', Sandy Baldwin proposes three ways of analysis: 1) an understanding of the net as a loosely linked collocation of inscriptions, of writing practices and materials ranging from fundamental TCP/IP protocols to CAPTCHA and Facebook; 2) as a discursive field that codifies and organizes these practices and materials into text (and into textual practices of reading, archiving, etc.), and into an aesthetic institution of 'electronic literature'; and 3) as a project engaged by a subject, a commitment of the writers' body to the work of the net. The Internet Unconscious describes the poetics of the net's "becoming-literary," by employing concepts that are both technically-specific and poetically-charged, providing a coherent and persuasive theory. The incorporation and projection of sites and technical protocols produces an uncanny displacement of the writer's body onto diverse part objects, and in turn to an intense and real inhabitation of the net through writing. The fundamental poetic situation of net writing is the phenomenology of "as-if." Net writing involves construal of the world through the imaginary"-- Provided by publisher.

"The Internet Unconscious is a book on the poetics of net writing, or more precisely on the subject of writing the net. By 'writing the net', Sandy Baldwin proposes three ways of analysis: 1) an understanding of the net as a loosely linked collocation of inscriptions, of writing practices and materials ranging from fundamental TCP/IP protocols to Facebook; 2) a discursive field that codifies and organizes these practices and materials into text (and into textual practices of reading, archiving, etc.), and into an aesthetic institution of 'electronic literature'; and 3) a project engaged by a subject, a commitment of the writer' body to the work of the net. It theorizes the practices and materials of net writing as extended surfaces of bodily excitation. Bodily absence leads to delirious, frantic, ecstatic writing towards the other beyond the net. By contrast, Sandy Baldwin's book describes the poetics of the net's "becoming-literary," by employing concepts that are both technically-specific and poetically-charged, providing a coherent and persuasive theory. The incorporation and projection of sites and technical protocols produces an uncanny displacement of the writer's body onto diverse part objects, and in turn to an intense and real inhabitation of the net through writing. The fundamental poetic situation of net writing is the phenomenology of "as-if." Net writing involves construal of the world through the imaginary"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Foreword / by Francisco J. Ricardo

Introduction

I. As if I wrote the Internet

The great beyond

Weapon body

Crust

II. For example

oooo ooooooooo

OMG LOL

Leet or 1337

III. Survivable communication

Ping poetics

Traceroute

Urgent interruption

Somatolysis

IV. Lovers of literature

Handshakes

Binding the subject

Chmod

777

Read/Write/Execute

V. Consumed by the net

The Crowd of electronic writers

Debts and obligations

Axiomatics

The literary community

VI. I read my spam

PLEASE REPLY MY BELOVED

Can spam

The end of spam

End-to-end

VII. Logging in and getting off

CAPTCHA

Taking the test

The difference thought makes

VIII. Plaintext

March 11, 1968

Character and glyph

Extreme rendition

Plaintext performance

Friend Request

IX. Bodies never touch

Pervy Intimate avatars

Passion of the avatar, avatar of passion.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 176-184) and index.

ISBN:

9781628923384

1628923385

OCLC:

898334110

Online:

Cover image