SPINNING YARNS: SPECULATIVE PASTS OF ELECTRONIC LITERATURE

SPINNING YARNS: SPECULATIVE PASTS OF ELECTRONIC LITERATURE (2023), Anne Sullivan and Anastasia Salter 

Spinning Yarns is an imagined collective of text, technology, and textile authors active from 1991-1998, combining digital and material artifacts (created in part with assistance by ChatGPT and Stable Diffusion), and inspired by the missing and vanishing histories of feminist electronic literature. This project is a tribute to that imaginary remembrance: a speculative design of the past, envisioning potential early experiments in spinning electronic literature. This speculative history is inspired by the real works of Deena Larsen (Larsen, 1996), Judy Malloy (Malloy, 1991), and Shelley Jackson (Jackson, 1997), but imagines stories that could have intersected with their works and traditions. Through this act of imagining and memorializing, we seek to draw attention to the histories and futures we have lost, and the lines we draw when we envision histories of electronic literature through a predominantly computational lens. Our methods combine the computational and generative with the feminist and material, and envision an extension of early, often overlooked, experiments with textiles and technology, such as the computerized loom and Nintendo’s knitting machine. The results are filled with gaps and glitches and present an incomplete portrait of a collective that could have been, telling a story through fragments, patterns, and impossible code.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES

Anne Sullivan is an Assistant Professor in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication at Georgia Tech University and Director of the StoryCraft Research Lab. Dr. Sullivan’s award-winning writing in feminist analysis of games and game design, educational interactive experiences, and AI-assisted tools for craft and narratives has appeared in over 35 conferences and journals. Her creative work has been featured in 8 international exhibits, including her loom-controlled game Loominary, which was exhibited at the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Anastasia Salter is the Director of Graduate Programs and Texts & Technology for the College of Arts and Humanities at the University of Central Florida, and author most recently of Twining: Critical and Creative Approaches to Hypertext Narratives (Amherst College Press, with Stuart Moulthrop, 2021) and Playful Pedagogy in the Pandemic: Pivoting to Game-Based Learning (Routledge, with Emily K. Johnson, 2022). Currently, Dr. Salter serves on the Electronic Literature Organization Board of Directors as Vice President.