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oa A Pandemic Crisis Seen from the Screen: A Reflection on Pandemic Imagination

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Since the COVID-19 pandemic faded in early 2022, the agenda has been overtaken by other major issues, such as the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, and this has led to a certain tiredness if not bare repression of the pandemic experience. However, we believe it is important to revisit the cultural experience of the pandemic not only to reflect on how it challenged us and our societies but also to point out alternatives that are still relevant now, even if other problems have occurred (see figure 12.1). In fact, the very experience of the pandemic as a hyperobject might be worth reflecting on, as we will attempt to do below, in order to understand and deal with other continuing hyperobject crises such as racism, inequality and climate destruction (Morton 2013). Our focus in the following will be on our research on electronic literature, digital artists and the pandemic, which we will present below, including a focus on our chosen work by the artist Ben Grosser The Endless Doomscroller, which will be put in relation to other works from our exhibition, collection and documentary.

Keywords: Covid 19 pandemic ; digital aesthetics ; digital narrative ; electronic literature ; electronic poetry ; hyperobject ; memory studies ; metainterface ; net art ; platform culture

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A Pandemic Crisis Seen from the Screen: A Reflection on Pandemic Imagination
Intellect , 193 (2024); https://doi.org/10.1386/9781789389869_13
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References

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  2. Andersen, Christian Ulrik and Pold, Søren (2018), The Metainterface: The Art of Platforms, Cities and Clouds, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
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  3. Beiguelman, Giselle (2021), Zoom interview with Anna Nacher, Søren Bro Pold, Scott Rettberg & Ashleigh Steele, 22 March.
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  4. Benjamin, Walter (1999), ‘Little history of photography’, in M. W. Jennings, H. Eiland and G. Smith (eds), Selected Writings, vol. 2, p. 2, Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press.
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  7. Daniel, Sharon and Loyer, Erik (2021), Zoom interview with Anna Nacher, Søren Bro Pold, Scott Rettberg & Ashleigh Steele, 22 March.
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  9. Erll, Astrid (2020b), ‘Will Covid-19 become part of collective memory’, in M. Gerlof and R. Rittgerodt (eds), 13 Perspectives on the Pandemic Thinking in a State of Exception, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, pp. 45–50. https://blog.degruyter.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/DG_13perspectives_humanities.pdf. Accessed 19 March 2023.
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  11. Grosser, Ben (2021a), ‘On reading and being read in the pandemic: Software, interface, and The Endless Doomscroller’, Electronic Book Review, 6 March 2022, https://doi.org/10.7273/7smg-bz36.
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  13. Hayles, N. Katherine (2021), ‘Novel Corona: Posthuman virus’, Critical Inquiry, 47:S2, pp. S68–S72, https://doi.org/10.1086/711439.
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     [Google Scholar]
  15. Leavy, Patricia and Brinkmann, Svend (2014), ‘Unstructured and semi-structured interviewing’, in P. Leavy (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Qualitative Research, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 276–99, https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199811755.013.030.
     [Google Scholar]
  16. Lynteris, Christos (2019), Human Extinction and Pandemic Imaginary, London and New York: Routledge.
     [Google Scholar]
  17. Marked by Covid, https://www.markedbycovid.com. Accessed 21 April 2023.
  18. Marino, Mark and family (2021), Zoom interview with Anna Nacher, Søren Bro Pold, Scott Rettberg & Ashleigh Steele, 16 March.
     [Google Scholar]
  19. Markham, Annette N., Harris, Anne and Luka, Mary Elizabeth (2020), ‘Massive and microscopic sensemaking during Covid-19 times’, Qualitative Inquiry, 27:7, pp. 759–66, https://doi.org/10.1177/1077800420962477.
     [Google Scholar]
  20. Marques, Diogo and Gago, Ana (2021), ‘Language |h|as a virus: From figure of thought to experimental laboratory’. Platform (Post?) Pandemic – Electronic Literature Organization 2021 Conference and Festival, Aarhus University, 24–28 May, https://conferences.au.dk/fileadmin/conferences/2021/ELO2021/Full_papers/Diogo_Marques_and_Ana_Gago_Language__H_as_a_Virus__from_figure_of_thought_to_experimental_laboratory__168.pdf. Accessed 19 March 2023.
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  22. Mooallem, Jon (2023), ‘What happened to us’, The New York Times Magazine, 22 February, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/02/22/magazine/covid-pandemic-oral-history.html?te=1&nl=the-new-york-times-magazine&emc=edit_ma_20230224. Accessed 21 April 2023.
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     [Google Scholar]
  24. Morton, Timothy (2013), ‘Poisoned ground: Art and philosophy in the time of hyperobjects’, symploke, 21:1, pp. 37–50, https://muse.jhu.edu/article/532809. Accessed 19 March 2023.
     [Google Scholar]
  25. Nacher, Anna (2021), ‘Afterword: As we may enact’, in A. Klobucar (ed.), The Community and the Algorithm: A Digital Interactive Poetics, Wilmington, DE: Vernon Press, 155–64.
     [Google Scholar]
  26. Nacher, Anna, Pold, Søren Bro, Rettberg, Scott and Steele, Ashleigh (2022), Covid E-lit – Digital Art During the Pandemic, https://retts.net/covid_elit/. Accessed 11 April 2023.213
     [Google Scholar]
  27. Nossiter, Adam (2020), ‘Atget's Paris, 100 years later’, The New York Times, 27 May, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/27/world/europe/paris-atget-coronavirus.html. Accessed 19 March 2023.
     [Google Scholar]
  28. Piringer, Jörg (2021), Zoom interview with Anna Nacher, Søren Bro Pold, Scott Rettberg & Ashleigh Steele, 9 April.
     [Google Scholar]
  29. Rettberg, Scott (2019), Electronic Literature, Oxford: Polity Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  30. Saum-Pascual, Alex (2021), Zoom interview with Anna Nacher, Søren Bro Pold, Scott Rettberg & Ashleigh Steele, 7 March.
     [Google Scholar]
  31. Senk, Sarah (2023), ‘COVID-19 Memorials: Aesthetics and Politics’, Presentation at the MLA Convention 2023, 7 January, San Francisco.
  32. Singh, Juliette (2017), Unthinking Mastery: Humanism and Decolonial Entanglements, Durham: Duke University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  33. Taussig, Michael (2021), ‘Would a Shaman help?’ Critical Inquiry, 47:S2, pp. S33–S36, https://doi.org/10.1086/711430.
     [Google Scholar]
  34. The Covid-19 Visual Project, https://covid19visualproject.org/en/. Accessed 21 April 2023.
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