Infinite Limits

Hayles Network Art

           N. Katherine Hayles in her book, Electronic Literature discusses many different examples of how electronic literature is important and helpful to literature today. One example she uses that relates to Calvino’s views on lightness is that of creative imagination by Ian Bogost. Creative imagination of the human writer and the constraints and possibilities of software is the topic of Ian Bogost’s Unit Operations. He develops an extended analogy between the unit operations of object oriented programming and a literary approach that explores the open flexible and reconfigurable systems that emerge from the relations between units. Bogost’s approach suggests that taking programming languages and practices into account can open productive approaches to electronic literature.

            This e-lit example connects with Nanette Wylde’s Storyland because both discuss literature that uses open flexibility and reconfigurable systems using the creative imagination of the writer while showing the endless possibilities of the software in Wylde’s new stories. Each example of electronic literature portrays the imaginative side of writing while showing the relations between units. In Storyland, even though each story is never identical, there is a definite relationship between certain words that are continually used. Bogost describes how electronic literature works emphasize their connection with print texts. In addition, both authors portray lightness of language by using imagination and the flexibility of writing.