Digital Writing as Speech Act

Fletcher, Jerome (2016) Digital Writing as Speech Act. In: Wortwechsel - Ecrire en dialoguant - Writing as Dialogue, 24th - 26th November 2016, University of the Arts, Bern. Biel/Bienne. Switzerland.

Text Digital Writing as Speech Act.docx Download (31kB)

Abstract / Summary

The purpose of this paper is to explore notions of editing and dialogue in relation to the compositional process of digital literature. It will argue that the digital writer only ever produces a text of radical incompleteness. To complete the text, to make it perform, requires a series of dialogues between various elements of the digital apparatus (machine, codes, etc.) and often an ‘editorial intervention’ on the part of the digital reader/user.
This paper will also argue that, even so, given the performativity of digital text, it only exists as text for the duration of its performance. Beyond that it can only ever constitute a dispersed potential. In other words, where digital literature is concerned, writing will by definition be processual, dialogic and, primarily, editorial.

View Record (staff only)