Digital Literary Creative Practice and COVID-19

Abstract

ABSTRACT The COVID-19 pandemic caused great upheaval to working artists, with performance venues and public exhibitions having to close. Yet despite these new restrictions, digital literature has thrived during this time. Digital literature refers to works that are ‘native to the digital environment’ [Rettberg, S., 2019. Electronic Literature. Cambridge: Polity Press: 6]. In this sense, digital literature is distinguished from works that are simply digitally disseminated (for example, e-books) in that they require a computer/code to exist, and cannot be represented by traditional print. This dependence on a digital environment made digital literature exhibitions and festivals better able to adapt to restrictions imposed by COVID-19. In this article I examine the relationship between digital literary creative practice and COVID-19. From these interrogations, I reveal unique qualities of digital literary creative practice and practice-led research [Smith, H., and Dean, R., 2009. Practice-led Research, Research-led Practice in the Creative Arts. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press], with a particular focus on the immediacy and urgency with which these works have been produced and disseminated, as opposed to other artistic practice and media.