Ergodic Literature.pptx

ergodic

1. Ergodic Literature Something Different

2. What is it? Coined by Norwegian academic Espen J. Aarseth , a professor in video game studies and cybertext . Refers to a genre or classification of literature in which the reader must use ‘nontrivial effort’ in order to understand and work through the text. Nonergodic literature is any text that requires no further responsibility for the reader other than to move their eyes, read the words, and turn the pages. Ergodic literature also includes cybertext , EG. The chat bot ELIZA calculates textual responses based on the reader typing sentences. The ancient Chinese text, the I Ching , contains rules that governs how it needs to be read, and is used to predict the future.

3. The genre is broad and includes literature that is ‘experimental’-looking, literature that requires some sort of effort to read, electronic/interactive texts or books written in pseudo-languages.

4. Examples House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski concerns itself with a haunted house, and the fractured and difficult nature of the text forces the reader to piece the narrative together as they read. Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban is set in a distant, post-apocalyptic wasteland where the English language has disintegrated and changed with the times. The Raw Shark Texts is made up of 36 chapters arranged in unique textual shapes and 36 ‘un-chapters’ not found in the book (these have been found online and in the real world piece by piece since the book’s release in 2007). The narrative concerns an amnesiac who is trying to piece his identity back together via a series of clues he has left himself.