MCD #66 Writing machines
English / French, 132 pages, 9€ > Buy it online !
EDITO by Anne-Cécile Worms
New machines / new forms of writing
In December 2010, at the ZKM, a robot copied the Bible on rolls of paper, using a fountain pen to write Gothic letters, complete with decorative capitals at the beginning of each chapter, day and night. This installation by the collective Robotlab entitled bios [bible], is a very impressive writing machine*.
Indeed, the history of writing and reading is directly linked to the history of ad hoc devices. Show an old typewriter to any preteen today, and she’ll tell you that it’s a computer with an integrated printer!
Today, there are machines for writing in the future, machines for generating poetry or screenplays, even machines for making friends (!). Thanks to digital technology, 20% of the world’s population now shares their writing: “Today, the planet writes more than ever before. In just five years, it has become ridiculous to ask ourselves if we are experiencing an evolution and if writing itself is evolving.” Such is the observation of our guest editor for this issue, Emmanuel Guez, theorist, online author and leader of the #sondes project at La Chartreuse de Villeneuve-lez-Avignon from 2009 to 2012.
At a time when copyright is an especially hot topic in online debates, this issue of MCD offers in-depth insight by inviting authors, writers and new media artists to share their thoughts on literature, theater and new forms of writing, be it for audiovisual media or mobile devices…
Up to you, dear reader, to do whatever you please with this magazine. “A text to read, to film, to play or to discard, as you like…” (Marguerite Duras on Destroy, She Said).
*see mcd#58, article by Dominique Moulon
CONTENTS
Writing, media and technology
_ Writing machines : literature in all its media
_ Friedrich Kittler: is there anyone in the machine?
_ Understanding McLuhan : between technology and art
_ I would like to be able to read N. Katherine Hayles in French…
_ The age of possibilities: short history of radiophonic times
_ Shattering timelines… of literary narratives
Writing, code and literature
_ Code and scripting languages: unreadable literature?
_ Exploring (de-)coherency: the dream life of digital letters
_ 10 takes on digital literature
_ SMS, QRcode… where does literature come in?
_ Writing for smartphones: about Fréquences – project for iPhone
_ Interview with Jean-Pierre Balpe
Writing and performance
_ The work of Annie Abrahams
_ Immediate auto-archiving as artwork
_ Kom.post: process, flow and sampling
_ Theater : between evolution and sanctification
_ Writing bugs
_ Breaking, a play written with Twitter
_ How did authorship die – and is it being resuscitated?
_ F.A.(A.)Q.: on the writing machines that are Facebook, Twitter, etc.
_ When filing becomes counter-writing
Writing and publishing
_ New formats for new forms of reading
_ Interview with François Bon
_ Web documentaries: a new form of multimedia writing?
_ New audiovisual writing: the « I » of the viewer
_ Do screenwriting machines exist?
_ Manipulations: the Web experience
_ Webography: 15 years of writing machines
_ Bibliography: 20 theory books on writing machines
_ Subscription / Distribution
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