first person
Language as Gameplay: toward a vocabulary for describing works of electronic literature
Just as Walter Benjamin declared that all "great works of literature either dissolve a genre or invent one," Brian Kim Stefans argues that all successful works of electronic literature are sui generis and invent their own genre. There can be a vocabulary for this invention, however, and Stefans sets out “The Holy Grails of Electronic Literature,” “Six Varieties of Crisis,” and the “Surrealist Fortune Cookie.” Through these concepts, he describes the formal challenges, reading experiences, and fundamental textual units of electronic literature.
Critical Code Studies Week Five Opener – Algorithms are thoughts, Chainsaws are tools
Stephen Ramsay introduces a short film in which he does a live reading of composer Andrew Sorensen's performance "Strange Places" and provides commentary.
Critical Code Studies Conference- Week Five Discussion
David Shepard heads off the discussion regarding Stephen Ramsay's live reading of Andrew Sorensen's "Strange Places." His initial contribution is followed with posts by Amanda French, Mark Marino, Max Feinstein, Jeremy Douglass, Daren Chapin, John Bell, Jeff Nyoff, Jennifer Lieberman, and Stephen Ramsay, as well as Andrew Sorensen himself.
Lost and Long-Term Television Narrative
David Lavery ponders the "neo-baroque" tap-dancing of TV's most playful and commercially successful serial drama.
The Unit Is in the Eye of the Beholder
Emily Short interrogates Ian Bogost's Unit Operations and finds his approach to videogame criticism too capacious in its attempt to account for a variety of expressive media, and too narrow in its focus on low-order choices in videogames.