1st assignment for ENG 344

I have to do a couple assignments for a digital writing class that I'm taking; it's the reason I started this blog. I hope to expand this to include reviews on video games, movies, random things I find interesting, and just general commentary, but first things first, I needed to look at the Electronic Literature Collection Volume One.

"So, what do you think of the ELC? Choose a work which you find appealing, irritating, engaging, confusing, whatever. Post a few paragraphs to your class blog for this week:

What did you like?
Why?
What did you expect electronic literature to be?
What genre is the piece you choose (poetry? fiction? other?)"

There are a lot of really cool links on this site, and a lot of really weird links. I didn't click them all; there were too many of them to go through in one week. Then there was a couple that were just insanely frustrating, or confusing... On Lionel Kearns was a cross between confusing and frustrating. At first, it seems kind of cool, and interesting, even if you're not positive at what Jim Andrews is trying to do. The ending though, was a bit frustrating. I wasn't sure if the ending was the ending, so that's where it frustrated me.

A couple stood out to me, including Nio, which is kind of fun, because you can fuck around with it and end up getting different music depending on what selections you have. The only weird thing about this, and others, is the question of how this is "electronic literature." I understand that there are some weird letters in this little example, but when I think of literature, I guess I think of poetry and prose, fiction and non-fiction. A couple of the pieces make sense as say, a poem, or a combination of fiction and prose, or non-fiction poetry, but theres a lot of these pieces that I think would really fall under the "digital art" category.

Urbanalities seems a little more like literature - there are parts in it where you see things that seem like poetry, but there is still a lot of things that I don't know if I would consider literature. Out of all the links, I think that I like Urbanalities the most; it's interesting to say the least. However, throughout a lot of the different links, I kept wondering what the difference is between electronic literature and digital art... I can't really point out why I like this one so much, other than it's varied enough that even if I didn't like one part, I might really enjoy another part.