Opera aperta: Italian Electronic Literature from the 1960s to the Present

The convergence of electronic media and literary forms during the digital revolution has produced a variety of hybrid genres which in the present day are often labelled as “electronic literature”. In order to represent the inherent resistance of these practices to the “law of genre” (Derrida 56), the actual definition provided by the Electronic Literature Organisation in 2004 accommodates such flexibility: “electronic literature” refers to “works with an important literary aspect that takes advantage of the capabilities and contexts provided by the stand-alone or networked computer”. In keeping with Todorov’s definition of “a new genre”—that is, “the transformation of one or several old genres: by inversion, by displacement, by combination” — and Rick Altman’s theory that new genres are born of the marriage between a pre-existing form and a new technology, “electronic literature” is inevitably marked by hybridity and, perhaps, by monstrosity, as suggested by Katherine N. Hayles.

In Italy, electronic literature has a rich history. It was born in the cultural milieu of the Neoavanguardia in the early 1960s and, since then, it has produced a significant number of experimental works and practices which can be generally grouped as follows: ‘combinatory literature’, ‘kinetic and interactive poetry’, ‘hypertext fiction’, and ‘network writing’. Under these umbrella categories, a number of genres have emerged, including Nanni Balestrini’s computer poetry, Gianni Toti’s video poetry, Luigi Longo, Luisa Lux and Fabrizio Venerandi’s kinetic poetry, Caterina Davinio’s net-poetry, Enrico Colombini’s interactive fiction, and the various forms of network writing by Wu Ming (distributed narratives), Kai Zen (hypertext novel), Michela Murgia and Francesco Pecoraro (blooks), Tommaso Pincio (social network novel), and Scrittura Industriale Collettiva (wiki novel), to mention just a few. These hybrid genres tend to be multimodal and mostly employ, as well as question, technological processes such as coding, networking, hypertextuality, interactivity, virtuality, and simulation. In spite of the richness and international significance of Italian electronic literature, a systematic reconstruction of its historical phases, along with its milestones, protagonists, key genres, and the critical issues they raised, has not yet been undertaken globally. Similarly, the social, political, ideological, moral, linguistic, and educational functions of electronic literature have barely received any attention.

Opera aperta. Italian electronic literature from the 1960s to the present (2022) provides a full reconstruction of the history of Italian electronic literature from 1961 to the present day, introducing the cultural milieu in which it originated and examining how it developed across decades. In my book, I argue that Opera aperta does not only coincide with the birth of the first Italian electronic literary work, namely Nanni Balestrini’s Tape Mark I, but also provides a theoretical and methodological framework to analyse Italian electronic literature across decades from both an aesthetic and critical perspective. Umberto Eco reflects on a number of artistic questions that lie at the intersection of different social and technological theories, such as cybernetics, system theory, pragmatism, and Marxism, showing how formal experimentation and political intention are strictly intertwined and critically address some important questions about our relationship with technologies, such as automation and alienation. Ultimately, the modern concept of ‘opera aperta’ proves to be an effective methodological tool for exploring the ‘open textuality’ of electronic literature and how artists have come to terms with the novel forms of expression offered by new media.

Opera aperta. Italian electronic literature from the 1960s to the present (2022) is the runner-up of the N.Katherine Hayles Award for Criticism of Electronic Literature 2023, a prestigious award given for the best work of criticism, of any length, on the topic of electronic literature. Bestowed by the Electronic Literature Organization and funded through a generous donation from N. Katherine Hayles and others, this annual prize recognizes excellence in the field. The Prize for 1st Place comes with a $1000 award, with a plaque showing the name of the winner and an acknowledgement of the achievement, and a one-year membership in the Electronic Literature Organization at the Associate Level. One prize for Honorable Mention is awarded and consists of a plaque showing the name of the winner and an acknowledgement of the achievement, and a one-year membership in the Electronic Literature Organization at the Associate Level.