Project Description:

The Electronic Literature Organization’s The NEXT is a virtual space, a multimedial museum, library, and preservation environment, created to assure long-term accessibility to the cultural history of experimental writing that developed from the mid 1980s when computers were becoming modes of artistic expression, to the contemporary time, across the globe.

Such a mission means that The NEXT’s archives contain a wide array of physical and digital media relating to hypertext novels, poetry, and essays; kinetic poetry; animated text; Interactive Fiction; net art; literary games; virtual and augmented reality narratives; interactive novels; mobile narratives, and many other forms, as well as artist’s notes, promotional materials associated with the works, and scholarship about born-digital literary art in the scholar’s original language as well as in translation, when available. The NEXT does not attempt to act as gate-keeper that defines value of a work of art but rather to document a broad swath of human expression at a time, which in comparison to print culture, is still in its early stage of development. We recognize that in this endeavor we cannot archive everything, but we can provide a robust representation of born-digital literary output from the late 20th century onward by a diverse collection of art and accompanying materials.

I served the project’s Copyeditor, Copywriter, and Research Assistant. I collaborated with our project manager and each production team to edit copy for their specific project components. I created a copy style guide to incorporate with the Design Team’s Brand Book, worked with the Video Team to create accessible video captions archival documents for 26 different videos, edited copy from Dr. Dene Grigar that was eventually implemented by the Web Team, and helped edit dozens of posts with the Promotions Team to maintain a consistent voice. Additionally, I assisted the Design and Promotions Teams conduct a rigorous quality control check for 2555 images they produced during the project.

Additional Information:

http://dtc-wsuv.org/projects/spring2021-gig-site