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Special Events
08 Nov, 2017

Combinatory Digital Poetics in Electronic Literature and Film

Aleatory and combinatory poetic methods have been an ongoing concern of the avant-garde stretching back to the early 20th century, and have crystallised as one of the main threads of practice in electronic literature. Scott Rettberg will discuss how an interest in combinatory poetics reflected first in projects such as the poetry generators “Frequency,” “Tokyo Garage,” and “After Parthenope” emerged in collaborations with Roderick Coover and Nick Montfort in the combinatory film “Three Rails Live” and subsequently with Coover the feature-length combinatory film “Toxi*City” and the new work-in-progress (recently filmed in Ireland) “Circe.”

About Scott Rettberg


Scott Rettberg is Professor of Digital Culture in the department of linguistic, literary, and aesthetic studies at the University of Bergen, Norway. Rettberg is the author or coauthor of novel-length works of electronic literature, combinatory poetry, and films including The Unknown, Kind of Blue, Implementation, Frequency, The Catastrophe Trilogy, Three Rails Live, Toxi•City, Hearts and Minds: The Interrogations Project and others. His creative work has been exhibited both online and at art venues, including the Venice Biennale, Inova Gallery, Rom 8, the Chemical Heritage Foundation Museum, Palazzo dell Arti Napoli, Beall Center, the Slought Foundation, The Krannert Art Museum, and elsewhere. Rettberg was the project leader of ELMCIP (Electronic Literature as a Model of Creativity and Innovation in Practice), a HERA-funded collaborative research project, from 2010-2013. Rettberg is leader of the Bergen Electronic Literature Research Group and director of the ELMCIP Electronic Literature Knowledge Base. Rettberg was the conference chair of the 2015 Electronic Literature Organization international conference and festival in Bergen. Rettberg is the cofounder and served as the first executive director of the nonprofit Electronic Literature Organization, where he directed major projects funded by the Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation. He holds degrees from the University of Cincinnati (PhD 2002), Illinois State University (MA 1995), and Coe College (1992).

Peder Sather Grant


This lecture is sponsored by the Peder Sather Grant. The Peder Sather Center for Advanced Study supports projects carried out by researchers at UC Berkeley in collaboration with researchers from nine Norwegian universities. The Center offers grants of between $10K and $25K. Funds are made available for one academic year. Grants can support activities such as workshops, mini-conferences, virtual intellectual exchanges, the undertaking of exploratory and pilot studies, activities such as PhD student exchanges, longer-term stays for Principal Investigators, the collection and analysis of data, and other core research activities.

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