I was recently interviewed by Daniele Giampà for his blog Electronic Literature Review. The interview format consisted of five substantial questions and he was generous in providing me abundant time to answer them. Here are the questions:
- Leonardo Flores you are running a project called I ♥ E-Poetry and in the year 2010 you wrote your phd dissertation titled “Typing the Dancing Signifier: Jim Andrews’ (Vis)Poetics.” When and why did you start studying e-poetry?
- Writing poetry with digital tools sets completely new paradigms for both poets and readers. Where do you see the main differences between authors of printed texts and digital born works and, with regard to the reader, how do new media tools change the aesthetics of literature?
- Would you say that e-poetry and electronic literature in general are literary experiments?
- What could you tell us about the actual status of the science of electronic literature? Is there a literature canon, a defined terminology or methodology? And how important is it for a scientist to have an institution?
- On your webpage you can read: “His research areas are electronic literature, poetry, and digital preservation of first generation electronic objects.” What would you say are the main issues regarding the preservation of electronic/digital literature works?
Read the interview to learn about what led me to e-poetry, my thoughts on electronic literature, research methods for its study, Digital Humanities projects around e-lit, and digital preservation of born-digital literature.