riverIsland

Most of the works I have made by writing digital media are now dated with a year, normally indicating the year of first release, followed by a hyphen. The hyphen indicates that they are always in process or still, at least, works-in-progress. After all, they are composed in programmable media and as such they are, all-but-inevitably, subject to revision, reversion, further development, and so on. In some circles of critical thinking, this is a value in itself. These works are composed in programmable media and these media are also themselves composed (by myself and/or others) in programmable media which, in turn (at this point they may be referred to as ‘platforms’) are composed in programmable media which are composed in programmable media which ... Mise en abyme. However, at a certain point in the all but endless recession abyss- and hardware-wards, I drop out as an authorial, compositional agency and a number of proprietors (usually with little interest in literary art) establish developmental control of the media. They can and they do, quite easily and casually, ‘break’ and effectively destroy work I did earlier. I should’ve known better. Thank goodness “a new archivist is in town.” [1]

riverIsland has been around for some time. In my dating system (which I am revising as I write) I might note it thus: “riverIsland 1999- ; 2007- , 2008- .” The semicolon indicates a major break, a change of platform. This occurs in 2007. ‘2008’ after the comma indicates the present publication of the work by The Iowa Review Web in riverIsland’s ‘new’ QuickTime version. In these brief remarks, I am not going to go into the details of the piece’s technical and compositional history. One of the reasons I offered riverIsland in this context - when asked for work by Stuart Moulthrop - was precisely to take the opportunity to highlight certain problems with the ‘publication’ of (literary) work in these media. The work is not new. It dates back to 1999, but it was never ‘published.’ It is writing in digital media (I claim), but it has been treated simply as something I once made and/or have been making, like an artwork perhaps, one that sits in my open ‘studio’ (downloadable from the web) where it can be viewed? or borrowed? or installed? or whatever? ever since I first announced its existence. Then, after its original underlying technologies finally became obsolete and unrunnable on contemporary equipment, I reengineered it in 2007. Is it a new thing? Shall I now publish it as, in some sense, new? Is it a ‘new edition’ even? (There are substantive, cosmetic, possibly critically significant differences, but no major differences.) In any case, this is the first ‘publication’ of the work. It has been installed and exhibited and performed a number of times previously, but now, here, I accept and acknowledge the fact that a reputable literary publisher, an institution, has given it a public forum.

I am not going to attempt to answer any of the explicit or implicit questions that I have just raised.

Instead I’d like to end with a few remarks about play, playable media, instruments. Although Stuart Moulthrop has occasionally credited me with having, early on, put forward the idea that certain works of writing in digital media might be better understood as (playable) instruments, I have not yet produced any sort of substantial, essay-length, statement of my position. Even after what I write here, my remarks will remain occasional, responsive, part of the dialogue.

I am not going to attempt to address the question of games (implicit in the word ‘play’) as cultural and aesthetic object/event/performances and how such games may or may not relate to the ‘the literary.’ Suffice it to say that games must be playable, more or less by definition, and if I were a ludologist, I would play out that hand. But are games ‘instruments?’ When would we even think to ask the question? Is Guitar Hero an ‘instrument?’ Is the Guitar Hero ‘controller’ an ‘instrument?’ It certainly isn’t a guitar.

Restart from the work before you. Do I ask you to ‘play’ riverIsland? Do I think that riverIsland is an instrument? It isn’t as easy for me to answer as you might think. I do believe that you can ‘play’ and ‘play with’ riverIsland as if it were an instrument (but not as if it were a game). If you agree that what you do is ‘play’ then I would also suggest that you can play riverIsland either well or badly. But I would prefer not to elaborate some scheme for learning to play well. I wouldn’t, that is, want to give you ‘riverIsland lessons’ so that you could then play well at your next (or first) public recital, of what? some ‘piece’ (of what?) that you ‘wrote’ for riverIsland?

The ‘instrument’-triggered analogy is compelling and suggestive but leads to problems and complexities. These problems and complexities are precisely indicative of those regions of expressive potential which programmable media compel us to explore, in our particular case, within certain overarching concerns for ‘the literary.’ Our anxieties are generated chiefly by the extent and indeterminacy of this potentiality. There are, now, a fast-growing myriad of literary object/event/performances that are like games, like instruments, like automata, like simulations, like mirrors, like environments, and not only do we not quite know how to deal with them - read or play? watch or participate? - we are not sure that giving them the requisite close attention would ever allow us to get back as much (significance and affect) as we get back from more familiar games and instruments and existing cultural (literary) forms. Perhaps riverIsland is an instrument, but is it as pleasurable or rewarding to learn to play as a guitar? What about Guitar Hero?

But wait. It is as rewarding. As its maker I must, in all seriousness, claim that riverIsland is as pleasurable and rewarding (for some people at least) as Guitar Hero. It’s more difficult for me, personally, to claim that it might be more rewarding than the guitar. But then, it isn’t a guitar; it’s a work of literary art. Some of you will get more out of it more quickly and easily than you will ever get out of a guitar (unless you are guitarists, in which case: let me know).

Guitar Hero isn’t a guitar and neither is riverIsland. One is configured - grammatically structured - as a game, the other is configured - grammatically structured - as work of literature.[2] To play Guitar Hero as an instrument would have ambiguous significance. Would you be playing to win or just playing ‘well?’ To play riverIsland like an instrument generates corresponding ambiguities. Playing well might well yield pleasure in your skill as well as some excess of significance and affect, beyond that which is already inscribed within the system of the work, but your playing might also distract you from the underlying configuration of riverIsland as something that was composed to be read and appreciated as poetic writing.

We see that within these object/event/performances there is a layer of structured configuration, relatively persistent form, grammar, and that, for something to be an instrument (as we currently understand it) this grammar must be open enough to allow a (vast) range of possible expression, commensurate with a plenitude: the whole human culture of significance and affect. Whereas before the advent of programmable media, this grammar of form was predetermined or slow and difficult to evolve, now - because of programmable media - it is subject to configuration and composition. I can program my own ‘guitar’ so that it becomes a ‘game’ (no longer an instrument) that I may herald as ‘Guitar Hero.’ I can configure a poetic environment until it becomes playable, like an instrument, but it will not by dint of this potential become an ‘instrument’ as we currently know them. Its range of expression will be constrained within an extended (and playably extensible) but limited field that is determined by the significance and affect already inscribed within the work, within the poetic environment in this case. What’s at stake is this. If they prove to be worth playing then the mere existence of ‘instruments’ such as riverIsland demands that we explore all their properties and methods, all their problems and complexities.

NOTES

1. Gilles Deleuze, Foucault (Paris: Éditions de Minuit, 1986) 11. “Un nouvel archiviste est nommé dans la ville.” In all seriousness and pragmatism I believe that Foucault’s elaboration of the ‘statement’ will be necessary for our better understanding and archiving of work in programmable media such that we can deal with the (provisional) identification of work-as-statement in conditions of medial flux, uncertainty, and also, to be more specific, platform obsolesence. ‘New archivists’ will have to be proactive in their determinations of what the statement of a work is (and, of course, all of its subordinate statements and (cross)references to other statements, etc., etc.)

2. In thinking, separately, about how such works relate to games, one might compare these remarks on configuration with Markku Eskelinen’s suggestive notion that games ‘interpret for the sake of configuration’ while (digital) works that are presented as art or literature ‘configure for the sake of interpretation.’ See: Markku Eskelinen, "The Gaming Situation," Game Studies 1.1 (2001). And also my related remarks in: John Cayley, "Response to Stuart Moulthrop's 'from Work to Play'," Electronic Book Review electropoetics (2004

REFERENCES

Cayley, John. "Response to Stuart Moulthrop's 'from Work to Play'." Electronic Book Review electropoetics (2004): [website, http://www.electronicbookreview.com/thread/firstperson/manovichian].

Deleuze, Gilles. Foucault. Paris: Éditions de Minuit, 1986.

Eskelinen, Markku. "The Gaming Situation." Game Studies 1.1 (2001): [website: http://www.gamestudies.org/0101/eskelinen].

Bio

John Cayley writes digital media, particularly in the domain of poetry and poetics. Three recent and ongoing projects are imposition, riverIsland, and what we will ... Information on these and other works may be consulted at http://programmatology.shadoof.net. Cayley is a Visiting Professor at Brown University, Literary Arts Program.