
The Internet Unconscious
On the Subject of Electronic Literature
Sandy Baldwin(Author)
Bloomsbury Academic USA (Publisher)
Published on 25. August 2016
Book
Paperback/Softback
200 pages
978-1-5013-2001-9 (ISBN)
Description
Winner of the N. Katherine Hayles Award for Criticism of Electronic Literature from the Electronic Literature Organization
There is electronic literature that consists of works, and the authors and communities and practices around such works. This is not a book about that electronic literature. It is not a book that charts histories or genres of this emerging field, not a book setting out methods of reading and understanding. The Internet Unconscious is a book on the poetics of net writing, or more precisely on the subject of writing the net. By 'writing the net', Sandy Baldwin proposes three ways of analysis: 1) an understanding of the net as a loosely linked collocation of inscriptions, of writing practices and materials ranging from fundamental TCP/IP protocols to CAPTCHA and Facebook; 2) as a discursive field that codifies and organizes these practices and materials into text (and into textual practices of reading, archiving, etc.), and into an aesthetic institution of 'electronic literature'; and 3) as a project engaged by a subject, a commitment of the writers' body to the work of the net.
The Internet Unconscious describes the poetics of the net's "becoming-literary," by employing concepts that are both technically-specific and poetically-charged, providing a coherent and persuasive theory. The incorporation and projection of sites and technical protocols produces an uncanny displacement of the writer's body onto diverse part objects, and in turn to an intense and real inhabitation of the net through writing. The fundamental poetic situation of net writing is the phenomenology of "as-if." Net writing involves construal of the world through the imaginary.
There is electronic literature that consists of works, and the authors and communities and practices around such works. This is not a book about that electronic literature. It is not a book that charts histories or genres of this emerging field, not a book setting out methods of reading and understanding. The Internet Unconscious is a book on the poetics of net writing, or more precisely on the subject of writing the net. By 'writing the net', Sandy Baldwin proposes three ways of analysis: 1) an understanding of the net as a loosely linked collocation of inscriptions, of writing practices and materials ranging from fundamental TCP/IP protocols to CAPTCHA and Facebook; 2) as a discursive field that codifies and organizes these practices and materials into text (and into textual practices of reading, archiving, etc.), and into an aesthetic institution of 'electronic literature'; and 3) as a project engaged by a subject, a commitment of the writers' body to the work of the net.
The Internet Unconscious describes the poetics of the net's "becoming-literary," by employing concepts that are both technically-specific and poetically-charged, providing a coherent and persuasive theory. The incorporation and projection of sites and technical protocols produces an uncanny displacement of the writer's body onto diverse part objects, and in turn to an intense and real inhabitation of the net through writing. The fundamental poetic situation of net writing is the phenomenology of "as-if." Net writing involves construal of the world through the imaginary.
Reviews / Votes
Departing from all prior models of academic writing, Sandy Baldwin's The Internet Unconscious is the first book of digital criticism to meet its object on its own terrain. Written on the border of fiction, Baldwin's book enacts the phantasmagoric electronic text of scrambled authorship and algorithmic flirtation whose claim to the label literature is only the repetitive intonation of the impossible status of the literary in the digital age. Underpinned by an encyclopedic purview that stretches across philosophy, engineering, poetics, and fanboy familiarity with the forms and contents of digital production, this book is both unassailably expert and unabashedly experimental. I wish I had written it, though if Baldwin's premises about the ambiguity of electronic authorship are to be taken seriously, perhaps I did. * Aden Evens, Associate Professor of English, Dartmouth College, USA * Sandy Baldwin's compelling book implicitly asks you to read it aloud to capture its rhythm. This poetic and probing analysis rewrites how the computer constantly writes, while at once performing a phenomenological account of how we are constantly tuning into the various demands--and permissions--of the machine and the network. We operate in the imperatives of this milieu of media. * Jussi Parikka, Professor of Technological Culture & Aesthetics, Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton, UK, and author of Digital Contagions *More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Publishing group
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Target group
College/higher education
Dimensions
Height: 216 mm
Width: 140 mm
Thickness: 11 mm
Weight
259 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-5013-2001-9 (9781501320019)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
02/2015
1st Edition
Bloomsbury Academic USA
€43.49
Available for download

E-Book
02/2015
1st Edition
Bloomsbury Academic USA
€43.49
Available for download
Person
Sandy Baldwin is Associate Professor of English at the Rochester Institute of Technology, USA. He is a teacher, critic, theorist, and artist working with electronic literature and new media. He has edited five volumes of essays on electronic literature. He regularly performs and stages interventions in virtual environments and computer games.
Content
Introduction
Foreword by Francisco J. Ricardo
I
As if I wrote the Internet.
The Great Beyond
Weapon body
Crust
II
For example
oooo ooooooooo
OMG LOL
Leet or 1337
III
Survivable Communication
Ping Poetics
Traceroute
Urgent interruption
Somatolysis
IV
Lovers of Literature
Handshakes
Binding the Subject
Chmod -777
Read/Write/Execute
V
Consumed by the net
The Crowd of Electronic Writers
Debts and Obligations
Axiomatics
The Literary Community
VI
I read my spam
PLEASE REPLY MY BELOVED
CAN SPAM
The End of Spam
End-to-End
VII
Logging in and getting off
CAPTCHA
Taking the Test
The difference thought makes
VIII
Plaintext
March 11, 1968.
Character and Glyph
Extreme Rendition
Plaintext Performance
One Time Pad
Friend Request
IX
Bodies never touch
Pervy Intimate Avatars
Passion of the Avatar, Avatar of Passion
Bibliography
Notes
Index
Foreword by Francisco J. Ricardo
I
As if I wrote the Internet.
The Great Beyond
Weapon body
Crust
II
For example
oooo ooooooooo
OMG LOL
Leet or 1337
III
Survivable Communication
Ping Poetics
Traceroute
Urgent interruption
Somatolysis
IV
Lovers of Literature
Handshakes
Binding the Subject
Chmod -777
Read/Write/Execute
V
Consumed by the net
The Crowd of Electronic Writers
Debts and Obligations
Axiomatics
The Literary Community
VI
I read my spam
PLEASE REPLY MY BELOVED
CAN SPAM
The End of Spam
End-to-End
VII
Logging in and getting off
CAPTCHA
Taking the Test
The difference thought makes
VIII
Plaintext
March 11, 1968.
Character and Glyph
Extreme Rendition
Plaintext Performance
One Time Pad
Friend Request
IX
Bodies never touch
Pervy Intimate Avatars
Passion of the Avatar, Avatar of Passion
Bibliography
Notes
Index