Search Images Maps Play Gmail Drive Calendar Translate More »
My library | Help | Advanced Book Search | Web History | Sign in

Books

Writing machines

Front Cover
7 Reviews
MIT Press, 2002 - 144 pages

Tracing a journey from the 1950s through the 1990s, N. Katherine Hayles uses the autobiographical persona of Kaye to explore how literature has transformed itself from inscriptions rendered as the flat durable marks of print to the dynamic images of CRT screens, from verbal texts to the diverse sensory modalities of multimedia works, from books to technotexts.Weaving together Kaye's pseudo-autobiographical narrative with a theorization of contemporary literature in media-specific terms, Hayles examines the ways in which literary texts in every genre and period mutate as they are reconceived and rewritten for electronic formats. As electronic documents become more pervasive, print appears not as the sea in which we swim, transparent because we are so accustomed to its conventions, but rather as a medium with its own assumptions, specificities, and inscription practices. Hayles explores works that focus on the very inscription technologies that produce them, examining three writing machines in depth: Talan Memmott's groundbreaking electronic work Lexia to Perplexia, Mark Z. Danielewski's cult postprint novel House of Leaves, and Tom Phillips's artist's book A Humument. Hayles concludes by speculating on how technotexts affect the development of contemporary subjectivity.Writing Machines is the second volume in the Mediawork Pamphlets series.

  

What people are saying - Write a review

User ratings

5 stars
1
4 stars
5
3 stars
1
2 stars
0
1 star
0

Review: Writing Machines

User Review  - Chris - Goodreads

Wish it had been longer. Critical concepts: technotexts and media-specific analysis. An enjoyable short exploration with some fascinating examples. Read full review

Review: Writing Machines

User Review  - Michael - Goodreads

In Writing Machines (2002), Katherine Hayles argues for understanding materiality as a way to discuss representation and simulation and to explore what texts enable and constrain (6). Hayles argues ... Read full review

All 7 reviews »

Related books

Electronic literature: new horizons for the literary
Electronic literature: new horizons for the literary
N. Katherine Hayles
Snippet view - 2008
My Mother Was a Computer: Digital Subjects and Literary Texts
My Mother Was a Computer: Digital Subjects and Literary Texts
N. Katherine Hayles
Limited preview - 2010
How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and ...
How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and ...
N. Katherine Hayles
Limited preview - 2008
All related books »

Contents

I
8
II
18
III
34
IV
46
V
64
VI
76
VII
100
VIII
108
IX
138
X
140
XI
142
Copyright

Other editions - View all

Writing machines
Writing machines
Katherine Hayles
No preview available - 2002
Writing machines
Writing machines
Katherine Hayles
No preview available - 2002

Common terms and phrases

artist's book artists become body camera clicking communification complex construct create creole cybernetic database distributed cognitive dynamic editor electronic hypertext electronic literature electronic texts electronic textuality emerges environment Espen Aarseth fiction film function House of Leaves human Humument hypertextual profusion I-terminal inscription technologies inside instantiated interactions interface interior interplay Johnny Johnny Truant Karen Katherine Hayles Kaye layers Lexia to Perplexia literary criticism literary studies literary texts Mallock's text Mark material metaphors medial ecology Mediawork medium Memmott Michael Joyce move narration narrative Navidson Record object perspective Peter Lunenfeld Phillips physical artifact Posthuman print book print novel processes PROPRIOCEPTION reader remediation representation Robert Coover screen semiotic Shrek signifiers simulation space story strategies suggests technotext theory thought tion Toge Toge's transformed verbal visual word and image Writing Machines Zampano's

References to this book

From other books

Writing new media: theory and applications for expanding the teaching of ...
Writing new media: theory and applications for expanding the teaching of ...
Anne Frances Wysocki
Snippet view - 2004
The State of Rhetoric of Science And Technology: A Special Issue of ...
The State of Rhetoric of Science And Technology: A Special Issue of ...
Alan G. Gross,Laura J. Gurak
No preview available - 2005
All Book Search results »

From Google Scholar

From shoebox to performative agent: the computer as personal ...
JOSE VAN DIJCK - New Media & Society
Composing the Self: Of Diaries and Lifelogs
José van Dijck
Designing New Media Education Research: The Materiality of Data ...
Rick Voithofer - Educational Researcher
Admirável mundo cíbrido
Por Giselle Beiguelman
All Scholar search results »

References from web pages

Hayles' Writing Machines
N. Katherine Hayles' Writing Machines is a beautiful little book. Thanks to the innovative spirit of MIT Press' Peter Lunenfeld, the graphic design prowess ...
reconstruction.eserver.org/ BReviews/ revWriting.htm

Mediawork: Writing Machines
Hayles explores works that focus on the very inscription technologies that produce them, examining three writing machines in depth: Talan Memmott's ...
mitpress.mit.edu/ e-books/ mediawork/ titles/ writing/ writing_book.html

Dissarray: Hayles, Writing Machines
The gist, if I can be so hasty in reducing Writing Machines to something tidy, is that while digital texts have foregrounded materiality, books too have a ...
eris.earthwidemoth.com/ archives/ 001307.html

GEOFFREY STACKS N.Katherine Hayles. Writing Machines . Cambridge ...
ning Writing Machines are the material properties of the book itself. ... is impossible to engage Writing Machines without performing a me- ...
muse.jhu.edu/ journals/ modern_fiction_studies/ v050/ 50.2raley.pdf

Writing Machines
Katherine Hayles new book Writing Machines with design by Anne Burdick, MIT Press, 2002, will be out in November. fotb had a preview and, like the Stephan ...
futureofthebook.com/ stories/ storyReader$442

N. Katherine Hayles -- Writing Machines
Writing Machines. N. Katherine Hayles. Designed by Anne Burdick. 2002. 144 pages. Complementary Texts. N. Katherine Hayles (How We Became Posthuman) ...
www.ryerson.ca/ ~ipederse/ Hayles2.htm

review2
In addition to this fictionalized theoretical initiation, the most compelling argument of and for Writing Machines is the book’s art design. ...
culturemachine.tees.ac.uk/ Reviews/ rev38.htm

Interview with N. Katherine Hayles
Writing Machines argues that literary criticism has for much too long tended to regard ... In Writing Machines I discuss three texts as case studies in the ...
www.uiowa.edu/ ~iareview/ tirweb/ feature/ hayles/ interview.htm

Pervaded by Epistemology
Introductory descriptions about Writing Machines are not included. ... In Writing Machines, Hayles wants to create a literary approach which is 'alert to ...
www.electronicbookreview.com/ thread/ electropoetics/ blogstyle

Paul Skinner Literary Materiality and Embodiment In her book ...
In her book, Writing Machines (2002), N. Katherine Hayles asks: `Why have we not heard more .... Sue Thomas (2002) Writing Machines Review ...
www.pixelcrypt.com/ dat/ LiteraryMaterialityandEmbodiment.pdf

About the author (2002)

Anne Burdick is the design editor of ebr -- The Electronic Book Review.

Bibliographic information

QR code for Writing machines
TitleWriting machines
Mediaworks pamphlets
AuthorKatherine Hayles
Editionillustrated
PublisherMIT Press, 2002
ISBN0262582155, 9780262582155
Length144 pages
  
Export CitationBiBTeX EndNote RefMan