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"The Internet Unconscious is a book on the poetics of net writing, or more precisely on the subject of writing the net. By 'writing the net', Sandy Baldwin proposes three ways of analysis: 1) an understanding of the net as a loosely linked collocation of inscriptions, of writing practices and materials ranging from fundamental TCP/IP protocols to Facebook; 2) a discursive field that codifies and organizes these practices and materials into text (and into textual practices of reading, archiving, etc.), and into an aesthetic institution of 'electronic literature'; and 3) a project engaged by a subject, a commitment of the writer' body to the work of the net. It theorizes the practices and materials of net writing as extended surfaces of bodily excitation. Bodily absence leads to delirious, frantic, ecstatic writing towards the other beyond the net. By contrast, Sandy Baldwin's book describes the poetics of the net's "becoming-literary," by employing concepts that are both technically-specific and poetically-charged, providing a coherent and persuasive theory. The incorporation and projection of sites and technical protocols produces an uncanny displacement of the writer's body onto diverse part objects, and in turn to an intense and real inhabitation of the net through writing. The fundamental poetic situation of net writing is the phenomenology of "as-if." Net writing involves construal of the world through the imaginary"-- "There is electronic literature that consists of works, and the authors and communities and practices around such works. This is not a book about that electronic literature. It is not a book that charts histories or genres of this emerging field, not a book setting out methods of reading and understanding. The Internet Unconscious is a book on the poetics of net writing, or more precisely on the subject of writing the net. By 'writing the net', Sandy Baldwin proposes three ways of analysis: 1) an understanding of the net as a loosely linked collocation of inscriptions, of writing practices and materials ranging from fundamental TCP/IP protocols to CAPTCHA and Facebook; 2) as a discursive field that codifies and organizes these practices and materials into text (and into textual practices of reading, archiving, etc.), and into an aesthetic institution of 'electronic literature'; and 3) as a project engaged by a subject, a commitment of the writers' body to the work of the net. The Internet Unconscious describes the poetics of the net's "becoming-literary," by employing concepts that are both technically-specific and poetically-charged, providing a coherent and persuasive theory. The incorporation and projection of sites and technical protocols produces an uncanny displacement of the writer's body onto diverse part objects, and in turn to an intense and real inhabitation of the net through writing. The fundamental poetic situation of net writing is the phenomenology of "as-if." Net writing involves construal of the world through the imaginary."-- Machine generated contents note: Introduction -- Foreword by Francisco J. Ricardo -- I. As if I wrote the Internet ; The Great Beyond ; Weapon body ; Crust -- II. For example ; oooo ooooooooo ; OMG LOL ; Leet or 1337 -- III. Survivable Communication ; Ping Poetics ; Traceroute ; Urgent interruption ; Somatolysis -- IV. Lovers of Literature ; Handshakes ; Binding the Subject ;Chmod - 777 ; Read/Write/Execute -- V. Consumed by the net ; The Crowd of Electronic Writers ; Debts and Obligations ; Axiomatics ; The Literary Community -- VI. I read my spam ; PLEASE REPLY MY BELOVED ; CAN SPAM ; The End of Spam ; End-to-End -- VII. Logging in and getting off ; CAPTCHA ; Taking the Test ; The difference thought makes -- VIII. Plaintext ; March 11, 1968 ; Character and Glyph ; Extreme Rendition ; Plaintext Performance ; One Time Pad ; Friend Request -- IX. Bodies never touch ; Pervy Intimate Avatars ; Passion of the Avatar, Avatar of Passion.
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