[-empyre-] cultural geography and dispersed

[Jeremy Douglass]

I'm not sure about the travel writing comparison to distributed  
fiction, though I'd love to hear more. I don't think of travel  
writings when it is read (both the travel writings we read at home and  
the kind we take with us on trips) as writing embedded in geography in  
the way, say, signage is. It floats apart.

A web point of comparison to travel writing for me would be  
experiments in elit and net.art with frames, where the writing opens  
up windows to its contexts, but they remain loosely coupled (like a  
tourist's guidebook to an airport, transient) rather than 'embedded',  
graffiti-like or flyer-like. I think this is how we began describing  
distributed writing.

On the other hand, travel writing does suggest a comparison to me with  
feeds and embeddable content writing (delicious bookmarks, YouTube  
videos, blogs themselves rather than their comments) - all of these  
things "float free" and appear in many contexts, both as a way of  
'being-there' and simultaneously as a way of overcoming digital  
distance.

  -- Jeremy

On Jun 26, 2008, at 6:13, Jason Nelson <heliopod at yahoo.com> wrote:

> all,
>
> My last post mentioned cultural geography (I spent some time
> as a city planner and travel writer). And I was thinking of how
> this dispersed fiction idea was somewhat inspired by those cultural
> geography leanings.
>
> In many ways I see it as travel writing for the web. Any ideas?
>
> cheers, Jason
>
>
>
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