Deena Larsen

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Deena Larsen
Deena Larsen (no frame).png
Larsen in 1999
Born1964 (age 59–60)
Denver, Colorado, U.S.
OccupationAuthor
CitizenshipUnited States
Education University of Northern Colorado (BA)
University of Colorado (MA)
Genre Electronic literature
Years active1993–present
Website
www.deenalarsen.net

Deena Larsen (born 1964) is an American new media and hypertext fiction author involved in the creative electronic writing community since the 1980s. [1] Her work has been published in online journals such as the Iowa Review Web, Cauldron and Net, frAme, inFLECT, and Blue Moon Review. [2] Since May 2007, the Deena Larsen Collection of early electronic literature has been housed at the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities. [3]

Contents

Education

In 1986, Larsen received her BA in English and Logic from the University of Northern Colorado. [4] Her undergraduate thesis, Nansense Ya Snorsted: A logical look at nonsense, received the university's 1986 Best Thesis Award. [5] In 1991, after spending time in San Francisco and Japan, she returned to Colorado and earned her MA in English from the University of Colorado where she wrote one of the first MA thesis on hypertext titled Hypertext and Hyperpossibilities. [4]

Maria Mencia and Deena Larsen teaching at the National Autonomous University in Mexico City in 2022 Deena Larsen y Maria.jpg
María Mencía and Deena Larsen teaching at the National Autonomous University in Mexico City in 2022

Career and influence

Larsen has been noted by the Electronic Literature Organization as "a pioneering influence in the electronic literature field." [2] She is described as a "new media visionary who has been active in the creative electronic writing community since its inception in the 1980s" by the Maryland Institute of Technology in the Humanities, which hosts a collection of her papers and software. [6] Larsen's experimentation with literary possibilities in new digital media has led to her work being frequently analysed and cited by scholars and critics, with works like "Carving in Possibilities" (2001) being called "canonical". [7]

Larsen has led numerous writers workshops—either online, at conferences, or universities— on the subject of hypertext, and has played a vital role in organising the electronic literature community. She hosted Hypertext Writers' Workshops at ACM Hypertext conferences in the 1990s [8] and hosted the Electronic Literature Organization online chats on electronic literature from 2000 to 2005. [9] In 2012, Larsen wrote a free textbook called Fun da mentals which serves as an introduction to the field of electronic literature. [10] She currently works as a technical writer at the Bureau of Reclamation, where she was an investigator for research granted by the Science and Technology Program in the 2015 fiscal year. [5] [11]

As of 2022, Larsen serves on the Literary Advisory Board for the Electronic Literature Organization. [12] She has also been a board member for trAce and is a past member of the board of directors for the ELO. [2]

Works

Deena Larsen's first work, Marble Springs (1993), Eastgate Systems Inc., was one of the first interactive hypertext poetry collections. [13] The work explores the lives of women in a Colorado mountain town in the 19th century. [14] Larsen's admiration for Edgar Lee Master's Spoon River Anthology inspired her to create her own world that followed connections similar to those experienced by readers of Master's book experienced. [10] Written in Hypercard, Marble Springs includes a collection of poems for the reader to explore and discover the identity of the author behind each poem. [14] Writing in Poetics Today, narratologist Marie-Laure Ryan describes Marble Springs as a "narrative of place", which is not constructed around an overarching plot or "grand narrative", but "in the 'little stories' that the user discovers in all the nooks and crannies of the fictional world." [15] This means that closure is built in, enabling "readers to pause in their reading or leave it completely". [16]

Her second work, Samplers, Eastgate Systems (1997), [2] is a series of short stories done in Storyspace and used the design of a quilt pattern to tell various stories. [17] Samplers explores allows the reader to explore different narratives and stories through hypertext. Eastgate Systems Inc. noted Larsen's work as "Finely written and intricately structured, Samplers breaks new ground for short hypertext fiction." [17]

Regarding Larsen's work, scholar Jessica Laccetti observed that, "In Larsen’s case, as in Caitlin Fisher’s These Waves of Girls , a default path is built into the narrative, suggesting both chronological sequence and plot development. While 'scholars and analysts' can travel more flexible paths through the stories, first time-readers are advised to follow thematic or character links." [18]

Selected works

This is a list of selected works by Larsen, a more comprehensive list can be seen on ELMCIP: Electronic Literature Knowledge Base. [9]
Work titlePublisherPublication typeBrief DescriptionYearRef.
Andromeda and ElizaN/AInstallationWork of interactive fiction that uses Twine hypertext to encourage readers to consider choice and agency. This work's purpose is to allow the reader to "re-imagine the woman’s journey from victim to co-author of her own fate." [19] 2017 [19]
Playing with Rose: Exploring a New Conceptual LanguageN/AExhibited at the ELO conference in 2016The Rose Language is a work of hypertext that re-imagines the basic English language by giving each letter of a word a symbol that explains the context of which the word is used in. (See external links to visit the site.)Presented in 2016 [20]
Modern Moral Fairy TalesN/AExhibited at the ELO conference 2012Dedicated to Larsen's partner, MaJe, this work includes two main storylines. One including a fairy tale story and the other set in an internet cafe dealing with a suppression of information from the state.Presented in 2012 [21]
FireflyPoems That GoPublished online in an online journalThis work of hypertext allows readers to click each stanza to reveal a different aspect of the story. President of the Electronic Literature Organization, Leonardo Flores, [22] describes Larsen's Firefly as "a speaker going out into nature and having an aesthetic and philosophical experience." [23] 2002 [23] [24]
Samplers: Nine Vicious Little HypertextsEastgate Systems, inc.Published originally on disc, CD, or DVDPresented in the form of a quilt, this work of hypertext explores narratives and point of view's from various characters in the nine different storylines.1997 [25] [17]
Marble Springs 1.0Eastgate Systems, inc.Published originally on disc, CD, or DVDWritten in Hypercard, this work of hypertext explores the lives of women in the 19th century through poems meant for the reader to explore in an abandoned church in a ghost town.1993 [14]

Related Research Articles

Digital poetry is a form of electronic literature, displaying a wide range of approaches to poetry, with a prominent and crucial use of computers. Digital poetry can be available in form of CD-ROM, DVD, as installations in art galleries, in certain cases also recorded as digital video or films, as digital holograms, on the World Wide Web or Internet, and as mobile phone apps.

Electronic literature or digital literature is a genre of literature where digital capabilities such as interactivity, multimodality or algorithmic text generation are used aesthetically. Works of electronic literature are usually intended to be read on digital devices, such as computers, tablets, and mobile phones. They cannot be easily printed, or cannot be printed at all, because elements crucial to the work cannot be carried over onto a printed version.

<i>afternoon, a story</i> Hypertext fiction by Michael Joyce

afternoon, a story, spelled with a lowercase 'a', is a work of electronic literature written in 1987 by American author Michael Joyce. It was published by Eastgate Systems in 1990 and is known as one of the first works of hypertext fiction.

Stuart Moulthrop is an innovator of electronic literature and hypertext fiction, both as a theoretician and as a writer. He is author of the hypertext fiction works Victory Garden (1992), which was on the front-page of the New York Times Book Review in 1993, Reagan Library (1999), and Hegirascope (1995), amongst many others. Moulthrop is currently a Professor of Digital Humanities in the Department of English, at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. He also became a founding board member of the Electronic Literature Organization in 1999.

Eastgate Systems is a publisher and software company headquartered in Watertown, Massachusetts, which publishes hypertext.

Judy Malloy is an American poet whose works embrace the intersection of hypernarrative, magic realism, and information art. Beginning with Uncle Roger in 1986, Malloy has composed works in both new media literature and hypertext fiction. She was an early creator of online interactive and collaborative fiction on The WELL and the website ArtsWire.

The Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities (MITH) is an international research center that works with humanities in the 21st century. A collaboration among the University of Maryland College of Arts and Humanities, Libraries, and Office of Information Technology, MITH cultivates research agendas clustered around digital tools, text mining and visualization, and the creation and preservation of electronic literature, digital games and virtual worlds.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">J. R. Carpenter</span> Canadian artist, writer

J. R. Carpenter is a British-Canadian artist, writer, and researcher working across performance, print, and digital media. She was born in Nova Scotia in 1972. She lived in Montreal from 1990 to 2009. She emigrated to England in 2010, and became a British citizen in 2019. She now lives in Southampton, England.

Marjorie Coverley Luesebrink was an American writer, scholar, and teacher. Writing hypermedia fiction under the pen name M.D. Coverley, she is best known for her epic hypertext novels Califia (2000) and Egypt: The Book of Going Forth by Day (2006). A pioneer born-digital writer, she is part of the first generation of electronic literature authors that arose in the 1987–1997 period. She was a founding board member and past president of the Electronic Literature Organization and the first winner of the Electronic Literature Organization Career Achievement Award, which was named in her honor. Lusebrink was professor emeritus, School of Humanities and Languages at Irvine Valley College (IVC).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dene Grigar</span> American digital artist and scholar

Dene (Rudyne)Grigar is a digital artist and scholar based in Vancouver, Washington. She was the President of the Electronic Literature Organization from 2013 to 2019. In 2016, Grigar received the International Digital Media and Arts Association's Lifetime Achievement Award.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Scott Rettberg</span> American-Norwegian digital culture professor and author

Scott Rettberg is an American digital artist and scholar of electronic literature based in Bergen, Norway. He is the co-founder and served as the first executive director of the Electronic Literature Organization. He leads the Center for Digital Narrative, a Norwegian Centre of Research Excellence from 2023 to 2033.

Tina Escaja, also known as Alm@ Pérez, is a Spanish-American writer, activist, feminist scholar and digital artist based in Burlington, Vermont. She is a Distinguished Professor of Romance Languages and Gender & Women's Studies, and the Director of the Gender, Sexuality and Women's Studies Program at the University of Vermont. She is the winner of the International Poetry Prize Dulce María Loynaz, and the National Latino Poetry Award for Young Adults, Isabel Campoy-Alma Flor Ada. She is considered a pioneer in the field of electronic literature in Spanish. She is a full member of the North American Academy of the Spanish Language (ANLE), and Corresponding member of the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE).

Richard Holeton is an American writer and higher-education administrator. Holeton's creative works are foundational in the hypertext and electronic literature genres. As a writer, his most notable work is the hypertext novel Figurski at Findhorn on Acid, which has been recognized as an important early work of electronic literature and is included in the hypertext canon.

<i>These Waves of Girls</i> 2001 hypermedia novella by Caitlin Fisher

These Waves of Girls is a hypermedia novella by Caitlin Fisher that won the Electronic Literature Organization's Award for Fiction in 2001. The work is frequently taught in undergraduate literature courses and is referenced in the field of electronic literature as a significant example of early multimodal web-based hypertext fiction, placing Fisher "at the forefront of digital writing".

Lexia to Perplexia is a poetic work of electronic literature published on the web by Talan Memmott in 2000. The work won the trAce/Alt-X New Media Writing Award that year.

Of day, of night is an interactive digital story by Megan Heywardwhich uses hypertext and other digital elements to tell a meaningful narrative. It was first published in 2000 by the Australian Film Commission, and then published on CD-ROM by Eastgate Systems in 2002.

Storyland is a browser-based narrative work of electronic literature. The project is included in the first Electronic Literature Collection. It was created by Nanette Wylde in 2000 and is considered a form of Combinatory Narrative or Generative Poetry which is created with the use of the computer's random function.

Caitlin Fisher is a Canadian media artist, poet, writer, and Professor of Cinema and Media Arts at York University in Toronto where she also directs the Immersive Storytelling Lab and the Augmented Reality Lab. Fisher is also a Co-founder of York’s Future Cinema Lab, former Fulbright and Canada Research Chair and an international award-winning digital storyteller. Creator of some of the world’s first AR poetry and long-from VR narratives. Fisher is also known for the 2001 hypermedia novel These Waves of Girls, and for her work creating content and software for augmented reality.

The NEXT: Museum, Library, and Preservation Space is a repository of net art, electronic literature and games. It is supported by the Electronic Literature Lab, Washington State University at Vancouver and the Electronic Literature Organization. This is a digital museum dedicated to reviving and maintaining these works to make them accessible to all. Physical artifacts are held at the Electronic Literature Lab in Washington, US.

References

  1. ↑ See the Deena Larsen Collection and Currents in Electronic Literacy 5 (Fall 2001) Archived 2009-07-24 at the Wayback Machine
  2. 1 2 3 4 "Literary Advisory Board (LAB) – Electronic Literature Organization". eliterature.org. Retrieved 2021-04-26.
  3. ↑ See the Deena Larsen Collection at MITH.
  4. 1 2 "Deena Larsen". www.eastgate.com. Retrieved 2021-05-04.
  5. 1 2 "Rebooting Electronic Literature, Volume 2: Deena Larsen's "Samplers"". Rebooting Electronic Literature, Volume 2: Documenting Pre-Web Born Digital Media. Retrieved 2021-05-04.
  6. ↑ "The Deena Larsen Collection at the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities | About the Deena Larsen Collection". archive.mith.umd.edu.
  7. ↑ Mathieson, Jolene (2018-06-01). "The Body and the Possible Soul in Digital Ekphrastic Poetry". Poetics Today. 39 (2): 359–382. doi:10.1215/03335372-4324505. ISSN   0333-5372.
  8. ↑ Simanowski, Roberto (2000-11-05). "Living for Hypertext: Interview with Deena Larsen". Dichtung Digital. Journal für Kunst und Kultur digitaler Medien. 2 (7): 1–7. doi:10.25969/mediarep/17402.
  9. 1 2 "Deena Larsen | ELMCIP". elmcip.net. Retrieved 2021-05-04.
  10. 1 2 "Deena Larsen's life, times, and works". deenalarsen.net. Retrieved 2021-04-28.
  11. ↑ "Research by Deena Larsen | Research and Development Office". www.usbr.gov. Retrieved 2021-04-26.
  12. ↑ "Literary Advisory Board (LAB) – Electronic Literature Organization" . Retrieved 2022-09-03.
  13. ↑ "Early Electronic Literature and The Deena Larsen Collection – Maryland Humanities" . Retrieved 2021-04-28.
  14. 1 2 3 "Marble Springs 1.0 | ELMCIP". elmcip.net. Retrieved 2021-05-04.
  15. ↑ Ryan, Marie-Laure (2002). "Beyond Myth and Metaphor: Narrative in Digital Media". Poetics Today. 23 (4): 598. doi: 10.1215/03335372-23-4-581 .
  16. ↑ Douglas, J. Yellowlees; Hargadon, Andrew (2001-09-01). "The pleasures of immersion and engagement: schemas, scripts and the fifth business". Digital Creativity. 12 (3): 163. doi:10.1076/digc.12.3.153.3231. ISSN   1462-6268.
  17. 1 2 3 "Samplers: Nine Vicious Little Hypertexts". www.eastgate.com. Retrieved 2021-05-04.
  18. ↑ Laccetti, Jessica. “Where to Begin? Multiple Narrative Paths in Web Fiction.” Narrative Beginnings: Theories and Practices. Ed. Brian Richardson. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2008. 182.
  19. 1 2 "Andromeda and Eliza | ELMCIP". elmcip.net. Retrieved 2021-05-04.
  20. ↑ "Playing with Rose: Exploring a New Conceptual Language | ELMCIP". elmcip.net. Retrieved 2021-05-04.
  21. ↑ "Modern Moral Fairy Tales | ELMCIP". elmcip.net. Retrieved 2021-05-04.
  22. ↑ "Board of Directors – Electronic Literature Organization". eliterature.org. Retrieved 2021-05-04.
  23. 1 2 Flores, Leonardo (2012-09-02). ""Firefly" by Deena Larsen". I ❤️ E-Poetry. Retrieved 2021-05-04.
  24. ↑ "Firefly | ELMCIP". elmcip.net. Retrieved 2021-05-04.
  25. ↑ "Samplers: Nine Vicious Little Hypertexts | ELMCIP". elmcip.net. Retrieved 2021-05-04.

Further reading

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