[-empyre-] Digital Writing is the inscribing of characters on an interface

[marcus bastos <bastos.marcus@gmail.com>]

hi all,

now that we are done with introductions, it´s time to kick out the jam!

A good start would be the the concept of "Digital Writing". The use of
the word "Digital" as an adjective of "Writing" signals that the
concept is changing due to external action, in a process that shakes
the assumption that writing is stable. Besides that, digital
technologies are more and more oriented into collaborative processes,
wich allow collective and recombinant procedures that are very
different from those wich we have been used to call "Writing".
Recently, Chris Joseph published, at the trAce Online Writing Center,
an article wich attempts to provide an "overview of the 'state of the
art' of digital writing"
(http://trace.ntu.ac.uk/Process/index.cfm?article=131). He reconigzes,
at the beginning of his text, that "attempting to summarise a field as
heterogeneous and inventive as digital writing is foolhardy, at best".
Since this month´s guests come from very different backgrounds, we
could start by discussing if the concept of digital writing is
appropriate or not to describe how digital media changes the way
people produce texts. Also, it would be nice if we could share some
examples.

---> definition: Digital Writing is the inscribing of characters on an
interface, with the intention of moving concepts from mind to mind,
through a network of coded variations of elements once understood as
text, image, sound and video, etc.

---> example: http://container.zkm.de:81/code_up/

best,
Marcus