Vol. 11 No. 1 (2024): Interweaving voices: creating and sharing electronic literature
Art and literature compulsively respond to undergoing socio-political transformations. Whether overtly committed to social causes or inevitably engulfed by waves of change, writers and artists are influenced by dramatic shifts motivated by local or global issues such as climate change, economic crisis, military conflicts, and repressive or coercive government policies. The field of electronic literature, whose continuous reconfiguration is deeply intertwined with technological advancements, is no exception to this pattern. Equipped with the pervasiveness of network technology, as well as with software that can analyze and portray reality with the utmost detail, electronic literature is harnessed with adequate tools to voice environmental and social concerns and to expose oppressive and corrupt regimes. Highly experimental and focused on an introspective journey that aims to explore the creative amplitude of emerging technologies, electronic literature’s self-reflexive nature is also frequently mobilized to defy normative perspectives over literature and art, as well as to challenge deep-rooted cultural misconceptions.
This issue of MATLIT is linked to the ELO Conference 2023, “Overcoming Divides: Electronic Literature and Social Change,” which advocated the dismantlement of economic, political, linguistic, and cultural barriers, focusing on the relation between art and society, as well as on the subversive potential of electronic literature. ELO2023 took place in the Convento São Francisco, overlooking the University of Coimbra as well as Coimbra’s Uptown and Downtown areas, thus challenging the social asymmetry represented by the uptown/downtown divide. ELO Conference 2023 Media Arts Festival offered participants, and the general public, the opportunity to attend two evenings of performances held at the Teatro Académico Gil Vicente), visit one exhibition hosted by the Convento São Francisco (Arborescent|Resistance) and one exhibition about children’s digital literature taking place at the UC Exploratório - Centro Ciência Viva (Kids e-Lit Exhibition: Read, Imagine, Play). During this conference, we explored how electronic literature uses its critical media approach, as well as its close affinity with computation, to assume a socially engaged stance. In a time when walls were being raised once again, this conference examined electronic literature’s role in the dismantlement of new and old barriers between people. The present issue is the result of the discussions led in this conference and aims to share with the reader the knowledge gathered in this event. Linked to a second issue that also presents articles written by ELO2023 participants (“Spreading the word: preserving and analysing electronic literature”), in the current issue, artists write about their own work and how they use digital media to voice their concerns about societal and environmental issues.
The editors
Daniela Côrtes Maduro
Paulo Silva Pereira
