Explore innovative digital literature sites. What did you enjoy most? Is there anything about these types of works that really stand out for you in regard to being forms of literature?

When reading digital forms, I tend to seek out poetic works, experimental novels, and other artistic forms, as I find the digital affordances enhance my experience in aesthetic ways that print-born literature cannot. Therefore, when exploring the innovative digital literature sites provided in Module 3, I gravitated towards narrative and poetic works (perhaps because I also studied these forms within my Graduate Diploma). I did, however, find that I enjoyed the immersive journalistic multimedia – especially Into the Cave, Firestorm, and A Game of Shark and Minnow.

I really enjoyed the experimental narrative found within Mary Rose. I especially liked how the disjointed, poetic, and multilayered narrative is reliant on reader control to make sense of the vignette styled snapshots. The digital affordances are simple yet poignant, enabling the reader to sense the hopelessness and tumultuous that Mary-Rose has experiences. Additionally, the transitions of white to black backgrounds shifts the mood to the story being woven. The ending is challenging, as it encourages the reader to reflect on what has been read and make either an empathetic or unsympathetic choice (I couldn’t make myself look at the negative option, the story was too emotional, and I didn’t want suffering to continue – even for a fictional character).

Tehani questioned whether Campbell’s (n.d.) ‘The Flat’ is literature? Personally, I don’t have an answer (yet). I found this work disturbing yet utterly engaging. The immersive loops of static, vignette styled images made me think that perhaps this is multimedia art; however, the user interfacing, sound details, and non-linear narratives “left behind” make me wonder if this is a digital text? In my Graduate Diploma of Creative Writing, we would have classified this as an experimental form of narrative that works with chunking and layering of techniques. Yet, from a TL perspective I am unsure. What do others think?

Campbell, A. (n.d.). The Flat. http://anthology.elmcip.net/works/the-flat.html

Nunn, N. ( 2017/2018). Mary Rose. http://mary-rose.ca/index.html