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Feature – Swapnadeep Hazra

Digital Era and Literature

Digital Era and Literature is a noteworthy topic to be discussed in this new millennium. As the years are passing by, the world associates itself with or gets engaged in “Limited time-extreme outcome” method because of the short space placed for every individual to grab and use with full potency for his or her self-gaining. Literature, with its form as a broad exposure amidst creative fields is the artistic representation of imagination and experience in this world through writing.In  Harper’s Magazine,  Arthur  Krystal  defines  literature  as  “a  record of one human being’s  sojourn on earth, proffered in verse or prose   that  artfully weaves together knowledge of the past with a heightened awareness of the present in ever new verbal configurations” (2014).
In the digital era, it will not be an exaggeration to relate all the connections with their digital associations (importance/status).”Social-Political-Economical lives rely on a series of concepts; those are Dematerialization, Industrialization, and Privatization etc. So, for that part of literature immersed in this intelligent digital 21st century, it is important to have digital affiliations.To stay fit in this fast-forward, interconnected, self-centred, individualistic race, we may have to take the shortest path to the goal,bigger chances that open the doors for the ‘quick’ triumph and go with continuity, challenges for [1]maintaining the balance between continuity and stability.
Sometimes, it is a complicated thing to define two things that are mingled thus,both as separate distinct spaces(fulfilled and named) and in the case about inter-connection. In the gamut of writing, two different things with different meanings within inclusion in this short space is a would-be-difficult task.So, as a amateur writer I would try to indulge myself in defining and demonstrating possibilities(emanate) in the new conception about the “strange” new as it would be a ‘never alive thing’ in the array of literary innovations(projected by some critics in their interpretations). It would not be prudent to define all the related terms as those are always being with the prevalent word-‘Interconnected’.
And now comes a part that is the digital platform to install some enhancement to the augmented manoeuvres. When it comes to ‘Literature and Developments as a form being entangled within the digital connotation of this modern society(5.0)’, how literature(as a part) plays its constructed role within its own engagements (Subjective and Objective) to bolster the newly conceived notion(In the digital arena)- is a question surely related.
Literature as a whole plays its own part to express the ambiguous meaning within the expression of the visible and invisible reality. Any type of literary purpose desires to entertain and provide aesthetic pleasure. Digital Literature or Electronic Literature is a newest genre that is amongst mediums of artistic representation. In this globalised world, the word “Digital” presents or denotes (newly) a cultural colloquium. It defines the estrangement within the whole cultural mixture that is embedded in newly digital contour characterizes the spirit of the age.
“Like  all  literature,  hypertext  has  a  body  (or  rather  many  bodies), and  the  rich  connections  between  its  physical  properties  and  the  processes  that  constitute  it  as something  to  be  read  make  up  together  that  elusive  object  we  call  a  “text”— and  that  I  want  now  to  call instead  a  codex  book  or  stitched  pamphlet  or  CD-ROM  or  Web  site.”(Katherine Hayles)³. In digital text Hypertext is interlinked text but there is a prior difference between these two.
Hayles remarks: “Just as Mother Nature was seen in past centuries as the source  of  both  human  behavior and  physical  reality,  so  now  the  Universal Computer is envisioned as the Motherboard of us all” (2005, 3). The ‘Internet’ becomes a must need daily-utility for today’s modern society because when we turn on the network connection, it connects us to everything through World Wide Web(www) that fulfilled the daily needs within a blink of an eye to be well-suited (Knowledgeable) in this cruel harsh competitive modern world.
“Technological ubiquity is arguably the most extreme iteration of this phenomenon, but it is more remarkable than it is novel—the universality of technology in modern society is no  different—and yet, very different—to the prevalence of the coffee houses and halls, the inhabitants are simply drawn from a wider pool.”(Sullivan,Towards a Digital Poetics) Mostly of the external workouts, Technology gives us the chances of re-emphasizing on the older aspects with a different approach.”Digital Culture” is not a misinterpretation but a result of Cultural transformation.
“Technology rejuvenates modernization ad infinitum— modernizationhas heralded anew modernity, or more precisely, another new modernity, that is manifested as digital culture, which has given rise to new modes of art, new cultural practices that have appropriated both scientific terminologies and methodologies. If we want to define the digital age and its culture, we simply need to offer a description of the now, not the new.”(Sullivan,2018) So, it is all about now, because supposedly the thinking about all the further developments (future) cannot interpret the importance of the strategic development for the whole world.In this Cyber-World one click is enough to change the outset. So,the importance of ‘now’ is always prevalent with cautions in this modern intelligent digital society.
“Electronic literature tests the boundaries of the literary and challenges us to re-think our assumptions of what literature can do and be.”
                                                 —N. Katherine Hayles .
So in a dynamic society it is always a good thing to re-examine our assumptions for its re-evaluation within the changing strata. Élika Ortega writes about Electronic Literature and a part related is given below-
               ” This material configuration, along with it the many media protocols and communication  structures it touches, evidences the diverse  layers of reading and mediation that depend on all of the actors – human and object, individual and social – that stand out in the creation of new and unique items in our complex media ecology.” (2017)
In the section of readership, itis blissful to watch them the real intruders to be active in reading and participating in the construction of the meaning. “Electronic literature offers readingcomplexities which aredictated by the various layers of interpretation that oneencounters in screen-based works. This is not to say that print literature is not complex or layered, but rather, that the significance of digital materiality is such that these aspects are further complicated by the presence of the electronic.” (Sullivan, Towards a Digital Poetics)
As a reader; through (Digital) screening of literary text, can be a participant but nothing has been changed because at the end he/she is impotent and little.Digital media is a type,where the mode has been revitalized through digitally screening.Viewing through Tech-centred developments, Electronic Literature or Digital Literature is a different form through which we are reviewing and at the same time creating comments critically of the digital age. Inter-mingle and yield a new form of conscience is not the only job but in Practice and Thinking, it should be applied. “In many respects, electronic literature is about lines of sight.  It is amorphous and transient, almost Fluxus. Depending on your line of sight—the gateway with which you choose to enter a work, be that form or content—your reception of a piece will be altered accordingly. Lines of sight are also context dependent: our cognition, our appreciation of technical systems, these are all connected to notions of the posthuman. As  electronic  literature  continues  to  define  itself  and  find  a  place  in  the catalogue of conduits through which human beings tell their stories and express their creativity, it will be continuously re-envisioned as a result of its malleability, the potential for different critics and practitioners to view it through a variety of different lenses.”(Sullivan, Towards a Digital Poetics)
Literature and its intervention through the form of Digital textual presentation express new edges of interpretation with (not following conventions) different lenses.Withthe new environmental atmosphere, it has been commented upon critically with Digit(al) lingering minds.

Sources:

  • James,Sullivan Towards a Digital Poetics
  • Hayles,Katherine My mother is a computer
  • Salgues,Bruno Society 5.0 Industry of the future, Technologies, Methods and Tools

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