9:00 - Workshop > open to the public

List Art Building 512 Multimedia Lab
Damon Loren Baker - Implementation, detailed
Deena Larsen - Elit 101

11:00 - Workshop > open to the public

List Art Building 512 Multimedia Lab
Daniel C. Howe - Experimental writing with the RiTa toolkit
John Cayley & Daniel C. Howe - nLLF: a (natural) Language Liberation Front

2:00 - Workshop > open to the public

List Art Building 512 Multimedia Lab
Jeremy Douglass - Live typing

Live Typing

Live Typing" is the creation of Electronic Literature in front of a live audience. The enabling software tools can be as simple as a text editor, or as complex as audio-visual mixers that process live text through filters and special effects. In this public workshop session, participants learn hands-on how to incorporate live typing into their electronic literature arts practice through exposure to practical techniques and tools.


  1. "What is Live Typing?" (15 mins): Brief summary of live typing examples as seen in the wild (installations, VJ performances, YouTube videos) e.g. "Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us" (
  2. "Hands on the Keyboard" (15 mins): Simple tricks for smooth, keyboard based non-linear editing of live text (e.g. undo/redo, search-and-replace). Brief examples of the history of such forms (e.g. emacs / vi) and the present and future of such spectacles (e.g. IM and Twitter streams, Google Wave). Hands on-in a text-editor.
  3. "The Whole System's a Stage" (15 mins): Almost every application is also a live typing performance space: word processors, spreadsheets, outliners, screen savers, graphers, etc. Hands-on with live typing in an OS file-system browser ( Finder / Explorer / Nautilus ) to create stretch-text and folding poetry compositions. Discussion of screen recording (e.g. Quicktime X).
  4. "Elit Remixing" (15 mins): Hands-on in Quartz Composer with provided live software systems that pay homage to existing works of eLiterature, while allowing a user to type text at runtime. Available programs include: Dakota Remixed - Readies Remixed - Tachistoscope Remixed - Talking Cure Remixed.
  5. "Rolling Your Own" (30 mins): Hands-on assembling software components into original live-typing software environments with new topologies and aesthetics, and extend control of these compositions to new interfaces. A framework of pre-made Quartz Composer patches is available as building blocks for these quick compositions.
  6. "Controlling, Projecting, Performing" (30 mins): Demonstration of how to incorporate MIDI and OSC controllers into electronic literature (e.g. faders for fonts, knobs for kerning, sliders for synonyms). Demonstration of how to use a roll-your-own setup to project live text across a 3D object, creating the illusion of complex faceted screens. Discussion of how to incorporate simple live typing patches into full, professional VJ software applications such as VDMX and other frameworks such as MAX/MSP, PD, VVVV etc.