Álvaro Seiça

• Seiça, Álvaro (2023). Poesia a abater na década de 1950: Os casos de “Cancioneiro Geral”, Egito Gonçalves e Bernardo Santareno. Revista de Estudos Literários. ISSN 2182-1526. 13, s. 325–362. doi: 10.14195/2183-847x_13_12. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Este artigo aborda a poesia portuguesa censurada na década de 1950, tendo em conta um estudo preliminar sobre a biblioteca de referência dos Serviços de Censura da ditadura salazarista. Desta biblioteca, resgataram-se logo em 1974 cerca de 1 000 exemplares com carimbos, selos e cortes. Contudo, estes livros foram revelados ao público apenas em 2022, na exposição inédita Obras Proibidas e Censuradas no Estado Novo, na Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal. Deste modo, a análise parte de uma seleção de 10 livros recuperados para se focar na coleção “Cancioneiro Geral” (1950-58), com a qual o Centro Bibliográfico moldou a segunda vaga neorrealista; no penúltimo livro desta coleção, A viagem com o teu rosto (1958), de Egito Gonçalves; e noutra obra que também sofreu cortes severos, Romances do mar (1955), de Bernardo Santareno. Consideram-se questões de memória literária, impacto e legado censório, investigando se houve alterações provocadas pela atuação dos Serviços de Censura, ou mesmo reescrita, nas edições posteriores de Gonçalves e Santareno durante e após a ditadura.

• Seiça, Álvaro (2023). The Erasing Impulse: Veiling and Unveiling the Poetic and the Political. I Ghosal, Torsa (Red.), Global Perspectives on Digital Literature. Routledge. ISSN 9781003214915. s. 109–123. doi: 10.4324/9781003214915-11. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Erasure is a set of material, literary, and visual composition techniques that has gained global momentum in the past two decades, amid the post-Internet context. This impulse to erase is a result, in part, of the contemporary social and technological context—the abundance of online information, databases and digital archives that host creative works, and social network sites—, as well as of the creative practices fostered by this overflow of sources: appropriation, copying, reuse, and remix. Erasure is often employed with formalist, rewriting, and poetic purposes, but also with political concerns that tie it to social inequality and silenced individuals, censorship, state and corporate surveillance, and obfuscation. This chapter overviews these aspects by contrasting works from non-Anglophone authors from Chile, China, Germany, Italy, Portugal, and Taiwan, with Anglophone authors who have dual cultural background.

• Seiça, Álvaro (2021). Depending or Transgressing? Kinetic Writing that Belongs and Breaks Away. Interférences littéraires. 25, s. 283–305. doi: 10.5281/zenodo.5596402. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  This essay explores the relation between the avant-garde and the popular in kinetic writing. To do so, it draws on Alberto Pimenta’s argument on the degrees of “dependence” and “transgression” in literary art. It questions whether specific examples of kinetic writing seem to depend on or transgress, or whether they belong to a previous tradition while, at the same time, breaking from it with innovative aspects. First, it provides a working definition of the terms “avant-garde” and “popular”, since they generate multiple interpretations. Second, it discusses possible ways of going beyond the notion that the arts are based on the distinct zones of the “avant-garde” and “popular”, by shifting attention to the coexistence of various streams of influence between the two. The debate around popular forms of kinetic writing across such a wide spectrum as literature, art, cinema, and design entails an understanding of function, the pragmatics of language, artistic expression, communication, and commercial constraints. By zooming in on works of early animation film as well as film titles, this essay then proposes a complementary narrative to how kinetic poetry by avant-garde artists and experimental poets coevolved with other forms of kinetic writing during the twentieth century.

• Seiça, Álvaro (2021). Kinetic Poetry. I Grigar, Dene & O'Sullivan, James (Red.), Electronic Literature as Digital Humanities Contexts, Forms, and Practices. Bloomsbury Academic. ISSN 9781501363504. s. 173–202. doi: 10.5040/9781501363474.ch-015. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  This chapter proposes a brief history of kinetic poetry as a transmedia and cross-artistic form. It connects the most relevant threads of a possible historiographic narrative of how kinetic poetry has been evolving since the beginning of the twentieth century at the intersection of literature, visual arts, cinema, animation, and technology, across various media. It argues for a transmedia approach because it does not place kinetic poetry at the heart of computational media and as a digital literature-specific genre, but rather as a temporal form that is media and language-specific, but also culturally and politically situated. Kinetic poetry is a form of poetry that relies on spatiotemporal transitions with expressive literary, visual and aural layers. Throughout the twentieth century, authors composed kinetic poems with varied media, such as motorized sculptures, celluloid film, video, holography, and computers. As it is unveiled, the origins of kinetic art and kinetic poetry can be traced back to the Constructivists’ Realisticheskii Manifest and the Dadaists’ praxis. When Marcel Duchamp staged puns via rotoreliefs in the 35 mm film Anémic Cinéma (1926), he opened up the way for hybrid works that can be experienced through the lenses of cinema, textual art in motion, and kinetic poetry. Later on, language went from projection to interaction, first with the investigations by the experimental poets in the 1950s-80s and then with the explorations by the digital poets from the 1980s onwards. Therefore, the discussion of kinetic poetry’s cultural and technological history goes back to early abstract films, mechanical poetry, film poetry, videopoetry, holopoetry, to finally present algorithmically programmed animation. Because this narrative is heavily Euro- and American-centric, this chapter invites readers to contest the following historiographic version of kinetic poetry’s trajectory, and to share knowledge about works created in other latitudes, especially by women and non-white authors.

• Seiça, Álvaro (2020). A Critique of Control and Black Boxes: Lit Mods of Ian Hatcher’s ‘⌰ (Total Runout)’. Poetics Today. ISSN 0333-5372. 41(4), s. 503–537. doi: 10.1215/03335372-8720043. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  This article analyzes Ian Hatcher’s online and kinetic poem “⌰ (Total Runout)” (2015) from a point of view of a critique of corporate and governmental black boxing, at the level of its code, text, visual output, sound, and live performance. The multimodal poem is part of the Drone Pilot suite, and it is presented in different versions: as a web-based work, sound piece, and performance. It remixes appropriated text from a WikiLeaked manual by the UK Ministry of Defence, essays on artificial intelligence, and Hatcher’s own text. The overall versions of the work, understood as variable events, boldly problematize communication and cognitive processes in networks—whether they are implemented in computer systems by secret agencies or corporations. Hatcher’s critique of black boxes entails recreating issues of security, control and surveillance, as digital systems are increasingly paving the way for less privacy and less knowledge about their inner workings. As a result, the poem questions the essence of privacy, redaction, and systemic violence, when access is a privileged asset of agents with security clearances or those with a deep knowledge of programming. This article presents “⌰ (Total Runout)” in the scope of the poet’s aesthetic program. Then, it analyzes its Web version’s interface and source code. The kinetic poem’s spatial and temporal dimensions are discussed via experiments that modify the source code. The methods here presented deform the poem’s temporal display, by means of modifications, or what I call "lit mods." Thus, the article proposes an approach for a more informed reading and understanding of digital kinetic poems, since they are ever-changing events. Finally, it locates the work’s aural and performative versions in cultural and political context.

• Seiça, Álvaro (2020). Lit Mods. Electronic Book Review (EBR). doi: 10.7273/hphy-bs66. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Seiça describes modification as an art practice meant to subvert and divert from what we—as readers, spectators, and also consumers—expect from technological apparati and platforms. He extends the study of mods to “lit mods”—including art, games, and literature. In particular, Seiça notes that the learning curve for modding has changed: where in the past, it may have taken a certain amount of user knowledge, modification may now be automated (for instance, through Instagram filters). More importantly, he asks what lit mods show us about literary practice and literary criticism. Where fast-moving content—fast-moving e-literature and e-poetry included—may defy interpretation, so analysis is strengthened by breaking down their mechanisms.

• Karhio, Anne Sofia & Seiça, Álvaro (2019). Other Codes / Cóid Eile: Re-thinking Context in Digital Literature. Hyperrhiz: New Media Culture. 20. doi: 10.20415/hyp/020.i01. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Introduction to Hyperrhiz 20 special issue: "Other Codes / Cóid Eile," edited by Anne Karhio and Álvaro Seiça.

• Seiça, Álvaro (2018). Presenting the Po-ex.net: The Digital Archive of Portuguese Experimental Literature. OEI. ISSN 1404-5095. 80-81, s. 505–507. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Seiça, Álvaro (2017). A Literatura como Eco: House of Leaves de Mark Z. Danielewski. I Lima, Maria Antónia (Red.), Gótico Americano: Alguns Percursos. Edições Húmus. ISSN 9789897552410. s. 195–211. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Seiça, Álvaro (2017). The Freedom Adventure of Portuguese Experimentalism and Kinetic Poetry. I Tabbi, Joseph (Red.), The Bloomsbury Handbook of Electronic Literature. Bloomsbury Academic. ISSN 9781474230254. s. 165–180. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Seiça, Álvaro (2016). Digital Poetry and Critical Discourse: A Network of Self-References? MatLit (Centro de Literatura Portuguesa da Universidade de Coimbra). 4(1), s. 95–123. doi: 10.14195/2182-8830_4-1_6. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  This article emerges from macroanalysis of several works of critical writing in the field of digital poetry, which have been documented in the ELMCIP Knowledge Base. The problems addressed in this context are the self-referentiality exhibited by authors who are both practitioners and theoreticians, and the need for a wider selection of digital poems in critical discourse. The dataset consists of monographs and Ph.D. dissertations on digital poetry (1995-2015), which have been exported into visualization software. Macro and network analyses enable new debate concerning the outlined problems and new findings. My findings suggest that criticism in this domain is chiefly endogenous and that a limited number of poems is being canonized. Therefore, a meta-discourse perspective can pave the way for an external view of the field, concerning its epistemology and evolution. The dataset is available online for download and can be tested and reconsidered by other researchers.

• Seiça, Álvaro & Torres, Rui (2016). O Experimentalismo como Invenção, Transgressão e Metamorfose: A PO.EX Revisitada Através de Po-ex.net. Colóquio. Letras. ISSN 0010-1451. 193, s. 9–17. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  O experimentalismo português iniciou-se na década de 1960, com um propósito comum de conferir ao acto poético valores artísticos, políticos e sociológicos assentes numa ruptura de vanguarda. O presente ensaio situa a intervenção experimental como invenção, transgressão e metamorfose, visto que perpassa as obras dos autores de "Poesia Experimental" e, mais tarde, de um novo conjunto de autores que exploraram a poesia visual, sonora, digital e a performance. Através do arquivo Po-ex.net, que documenta e dissemina o seu estudo, traçam-se dois itinerários, revisitando algumas das obras com carácter interventivo e transformativo, desde os anos 1960 até à actualidade.

• Seiça, Álvaro (2016). who emigrates departs with #words in their pockets @ aimisola.net/hymiwo.po. Cibertextualidades. ISSN 1646-4435. 8, s. 41–56. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Acting as a background and log to the writing and artistic research process, this essay presents some of the inner poetological, systemic, networked, gender, sociopolitical and ludic workings of aimisola.net/hymiwo.po, a collaborative online poemgame written and developed by Álvaro Seiça and Sindre Sørensen.

• Seiça, Álvaro (2015). Um Feixe Luminoso: Uma Leitura da Coleção de Literatura Electrônica Portuguesa. Texto Digital. 11(1), s. 387–419. doi: 10.5007/1807-9288.2015v11n1p387. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  A Coleção de Literatura Eletrónica Portuguesa (CLEP), na base de dados ELMCIP, pretende abordar e recolher as obras criativas e teóricas mais relevantes produzidas por autores portugueses no campo da literatura eletrónica, durante os últimos quarenta e cinco anos. A coleção agrega também autores, eventos, organizações, editoras, periódicos, publicações, conferências, performances, instalações e exposições que estejam relacionadas com o contexto português. O presente ensaio analisa criticamente a CLEP, em torno de elementos literários, políticos, históricos, estéticos e tecnológicos, através de um fio condutor representado por um “feixe luminoso”, que pretende dar conta da transição e continuidade temática e medial, mas também da transgressão e ruptura, produzidas pela vanguarda do movimento de Poesia Experimental dos anos 1960 até aos ambientes computacionais de criação literária do século 21. Ao longo desta leitura, analisa-se igualmente várias obras de Pedro Barbosa, E. M. de Melo e Castro, Silvestre Pestana, Manuel Portela e Rui Torres.

• Seiça, Álvaro (2015). The Digital Diasthima: Time-Lapse Reading Digital Poetry. I Armstrong, Kate (Red.), ISEA2015 Proceedings. ISEA International. ISSN 9781910172001. s. 315–318. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  In moving texts, such as digital kinetic poetry, the reader-user might no longer control the duration of their reading, unlike the traditional and static nature of printed texts. The user deals with readable time versus executable time, the human time-line versus the machine time-line. By having an imposed and fixed number of milliseconds to perceive the text on the screen, the user might find themselves completing or imagining the unread text, following the dynamic forms with an imposed dynamic content. Yet, to understand the shifting reading patterns of digital poems, one has to consider another methods or tools that may complement traditional models. Therefore, performing a critical approach solely based in close reading methods might not accomplish a fully comprehensible reading of digital poetry. In this sense, following upon methods taken from other areas, e.g. time-lapse photography and R. Luke DuBois’s concept of “time-lapse phonography” (2011), I introduce the notion of time-lapse reading as a complementary layer in order to close read disruptions in reading processes that demand a set ‘experiencing’ time when letters, words, lines or stanzas are replaced, with a case study on Philippe Castellin’s çacocophonie (2013).

• Seiça, Álvaro (2015). The Digital Diasthima: Time-Lapse Reading Digital Poetry. Proceedings of the International Symposium on Electronic Art. s. 315–318. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  In moving texts, such as digital kinetic poetry, the reader-user might no longer control the duration of their reading, unlike the traditional and static nature of printed texts. The user deals with readable time versus executable time, the human time-line versus the machine time-line. By having an imposed and fixed number of milliseconds to perceive the text on the screen, the user might find themselves completing or imagining the unread text, following the dynamic forms with an imposed dynamic content. Yet, to understand the shifting reading patterns of digital poems, one has to consider another methods or tools that may complement traditional models. Therefore, performing a critical approach solely based in close reading methods might not accomplish a fully comprehensible reading of digital poetry. In this sense, following upon methods taken from other areas, e.g. time-lapse photography and R. Luke DuBois’s concept of “time-lapse phonography” (2011), I introduce the notion of time-lapse reading as a complementary layer in order to close read disruptions in reading processes that demand a set ‘experiencing’ time when letters, words, lines or stanzas are replaced, with a case study on Philippe Castellin’s 'çacocophonie' (2013).

• Seiça, Álvaro (2014). Electronic Literature and Online Literary Databases: The PO.EX and ELMCIP Cases. RISS : magasin for studentar og tilsette ved Institutt for nordistikk og litteraturvitskap, Universitetet i Trondheim. ISSN 0806-5063. 14(1), s. 89–102. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  This essay reflects on the shift of user interaction operated by online literary archives and databases. One can easily recognize a change of scenery happening in the current networked world, given the way authors and general public produce, catalog, tag, access, research, analyze, preserve and share knowledge. In the field of electronic literature, the creation of several collaborative and open access databases attests this trend. For this purpose, I review two of them: the PO.EX Digital Archive of Portuguese Experimental Literature and the ELMCIP Electronic Literature Knowledge Base. My aim is to contribute to an informed view on how these online literary databases are shaped and are shaping the field: What is their scope? How do they operate? What kind of navigation and user input exists? Why should they really matter? Finally, I use these insights to develop some considerations concerning the relations between memory and archive, and different perspectives on electronic literature preservation.

• Seica, Alvaro (2013). A Literatura Factorial [l!]. Cibertextualidades. ISSN 1646-4435. 5, s. 97–113. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Centrando-se na hiperficção, este ensaio apresenta algumas proto-hiperficções, preocupadas com as temáticas combinatórias da literatura, ars combinatoria, e com a sua composição permutacional, num movimento que ainda hoje decorre, embora usando técnicas e efeitos diferentes – que designo literatura factorial [l!]. Pretende-se introduzir o conceito de literatura factorial como género transtemporal, que se tem intensificado no âmbito da literatura electrónica. na análise da hiperficção, retomam-se as definições de hipertexto em Theodor Holm Nelson (1965) e Gérard Genette (1982). Juntamente com os ensaios de Italo Calvino (1967) sobre literatura, cibernética e matemática e com os artigos de Robert Coover (1992, 1993) sobre as novas práticas literárias nos ambientes computacionais, forjam-se as coordenadas para reavaliar a recente história da hiperficção e os seus softwares associados – o conceito transitório de constante recomeço, associado ao novo papel do leitor, tornado utilizador. Este conceito é catalisado pela obra como potencial de reescrita e pela crítica parasitada pela mesma função: a obra e a crítica em progresso.

• Seica, Alvaro (2012). E-Borges: Stuart Moulthrop’s Victory Garden. Op. Cit.. ISSN 0874-1409. II(1), s. 130–141. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  This essay analyses Stuart Moulthrop’s Victory Garden (1991), a singular hyperfiction within the context of hypertextual narratives released during the 90s. Taking into consideration the campus novel and anti-war novel themes, I focus my reading on the technological mediation of war and the intertextualization of Jorge Luis Borges’ short story “El Jardín de Senderos que se Bifurcan” (1941). Therefore, I argue that Victory Garden is an appropriation and recreation, via a digital medium, of several Borgesian motifs and his beloved metaliterary theme: the labyrinth.

• Seica, Alvaro (2012). Anti-Spam: Reinventing Data. Visual Communication. ISSN 1470-3572. 4(1), s. 1–13. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Today, where information is continually transferred in the form of data, the word “information” has all but been exchanged for the word “data.” This shift of terms has aided in effectively transforming the world into a network-world of data. In many areas, and for many professionals, condensing information has become an almost exclusive preoccupation. This need to condense information through selecting and summarizing events—via the use of statistics, infography, visualization software, reports, databases, and animations—has dominated our mental landscape; it dominates the way we structure our perception of reality. Therefore, it is important to rethink what this phenomenon represents and how artists are responding to it. In this network-world of data spam (which is unsolicited e-mail or electronic data sent en mass) has become one of the symbols representing the flux of disinformation, and/or unsolicited, information. Anti-spam is, therefore, a method of eliminating and screening the source data, a tool I call impedance. If we apply this point of view to contemporary art, we could consider the works of Pavel Braila, R. Luke DuBois and André Sier as anti-spam filters that allow the detection, screening, elimination, and subsequent reinvention of existing or non-existent data. In this essay, I propose considering the fundamental aspects of data mining, data visualization, projection mapping. From such considerations emerges the ability to generate, process, and recreate data from the work of these three artists. Finally, I introduce the perspective of the artist as a data miner, this reinvents its source in the new visual, social and political datascape.

• Seica, Alvaro (2012). The Transducer Function: An Introduction to a Theoretical Typology in Electronic Literature and Digital Art. Journal of Science and Technology of the Arts. ISSN 1646-9798. 4(1), s. 71–79. doi: 10.7559/citarj.v4i1.69. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  In this essay I introduce the notion of transducer function in the fields of electronic literature and digital art. Firstly, I survey the transduction concept throughout its history in such domains as physics, genetics, microbiology, biochemistry, physiology, psychology, philosophy, logic and computer science. Secondly, I discuss the relevance of a transduction theory versus the advantage of a transducer function. I migrate the transduction concept into the fields of electronic literature and digital art, showcasing the contexts of application, and several transfer processes and functions. Finally, I apply the transducer function as a theoretical typology and a recognizable system, highlighting some artworks by R. Luke DuBois, André Sier and Scott Rettberg that can be read within this framework. Thus, it means taking into account a set of transfer and conversion processes: information, patterns and data among mechanisms, technologies, themes, creative and theoretical guidelines. In this sense, I develop a critical framework that operates as a method for analyzing and comprehend further digital artworks.

• Seica, Alvaro (2010). Literature as Echo: Mark Z. Danielewski's House of Leaves. Op. Cit.. ISSN 0874-1409. 12, s. 241–255. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  This essay is an in-depth analysis of Mark Z. Danielewski’s novel House of Leaves (2000). The novel, marked by digital textuality, is an encompassing multilayering system fictionally constructed by different authors and several narratives. Thus, these narratives form a major work that reveals and parodies aspects of the gothic novel, as well as other genres and modes. Nevertheless, its structure is formally connected as a hypertextual narrative. Therefore, it would be inexact to categorize House of Leaves as being either one or other literary object. I propose approaching this novel as “participating” in all these categorizations. Finally, I read the concept of ‘echo,’ which is presented by Danielewski on Chapter V, as an essential notion to understand the characters' progression through the narrative. This perspective concludes that literature reaches its potential when there is a singular production of echo, or an unpredictable lack of echo, meaning discomfort and strangeness (ostranenie) in the reader’s consciousness.

Se alle arbeider i NVA

• Seiça, Álvaro (2026). Com a Força que as Palavras na Matéria Exercem. Contracapa. 7 s. doi: 10.5281/ZENODO.17669689. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Este ensaio constitui o posfácio à edição de "Toda a Violência", de Abraham Guerrero Tenorio, um livro de poesia contemporânea espanhola traduzido do castelhado para o português por Álvaro Seiça e publicado pela Contracapa em 2026.

• Seiça, Álvaro; Sá, Luís & Rêgo, Manuela (2022). Obras proibidas e censuradas no Estado Novo: Biblioteca dos Serviços de Censura e «Obras Proibidas» na Biblioteca Nacional. Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal. ISBN 9789725657003. 484 s. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Que livros não se podiam ler durante o Estado Novo? Entre 1934 e 1974, os censores redigiram mais de 10 000 relatórios de leitura a livros de autores portugueses e estrangeiros. Acusados de serem «imorais, pornográficos, comunistas, irreligiosos, subversivos, maus, antissociais, anarquistas ou revolucionários», os livros censurados abrangem todas as áreas do saber. O presente catálogo testemunha o modo como a ditadura amputou e desfigurou a vida cultural, o desenvolvimento das mentalidades e afetou as gerações vindouras. O catálogo compila, pela primeira vez, os livros resgatados da Biblioteca dos Serviços de Censura e as «Obras Proibidas» de ir à leitura na Biblioteca Nacional. É complementado por imagens de capas e de páginas com cortes, pela transcrição de relatórios de leitura e por ensaios introdutórios de Álvaro Seiça e José Pedro Castanheira.

• Seiça, Álvaro (2021). 365 vorhergesagte Gedichte. Parasitenpresse. ISBN 9783947676729. 96 s. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  In 365 vorhergesagte Gedichte [original: Previsão para 365 poemas, não (edições), 2018] von Álvaro Seiça finden die portugiesischen Gedichte, die den Corso eines ganzen Jahres beschreiten, ihre tagesgenauen Entsprechungen in den deutschen Übertragungen von Mathias Traxler. Für die Übersetzungsvorgänge dieses kalendarisch angelegten Buches wurde ein weiter Fächer an Varianten und Übersetzungs-Methoden angewendet, deren Bestandteile auch Missverständnisse, Vermutungen und eigene Weiterschreibungen sind. Aber wie ein Wanderer, in Gebirgen und an Stränden gleichermassen unterwegs, einmal sagte: „Die Stringenz jedes Weges erfordert ein Gleiches an Genauigkeit und Hingabe. So können wir den Wind immer noch vielschichtiger erfassen.“ Parallel zum Buch erscheint auf Bandcamp eine Sammlung von Audioaufnahmen, welche eine der Grundlagen für die Übersetzungen bildeten; sowie auch eine Reihe von Aufnahmen, die den Übersetzungshergang dokumentieren: traxlerseica.bandcamp.com

• Seiça, Álvaro (2019). Supressão. Urutau. ISBN 9788571050860. 270 s. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  A questão da autenticidade não se coloca na esfera da poesia. Muito menos, a da veracidade. E, ainda menos, a da verdade, do absoluto. Coloca-se, sim, a questão da falsidade. Da verosimilhança. Da relação, das estruturas e das personagens na esfera ficcional. Não é a poesia uma não-ficção tão ficcional quanto a ficção? Não é a poesia, desde sempre, uma construção, muitas vezes através de várias vozes, de várias personagens? E, mesmo quando autobiográfica, não é a autobiografia uma ficção não-ficcional? Não é a literatura a expansão das possibilidades do real? Mas, também, o próprio real?

• Seiça, Álvaro (2018). Ö (English translation). Publication Studio Malmö. ISBN 9789187577345. 40 s. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Ö is a letter and word that means “island” in Swedish. In Seiça’s long poem, Ö departs from Thomas Bernhard’s novel Concrete (1982), by creating a poetic conversation between two characters: one from Bernhard’s novel, and the other as Bernhard’s fictional self, who is running around an island in the South of Portugal. In this autobiographical journey, Bernhard oscillates between a house in the outskirts of Vienna and a deserted island in Ria Formosa. Ö invites the audience to partake in a physical and psychological journey through an island, language, poetry, memory, and layers of space and time. English translation by Ana Hudson. Published by Publication Studio Malmö in Sweden, 2018. Design and production: Ola Ståhl and Terje Östling. 10 copies artist's book + 200 regular copies

• Seiça, Álvaro (2018). Previsão para 365 Poemas. não (edições). ISBN 9789899995055. 72 s. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Previsão para 365 poemas começou como um exercício de escrita diarística: escrever um poema por dia, durante um ano. Gorado o exercício diário, os poemas tornaram-se previsões. As previsões encontram-se simultaneamente no presente, no futuro e no passado. Apesar de se presentificarem na leitura, as previsões são esquissos de poemas, mas são também previsões para possíveis futuros. Ao mesmo tempo, a sua forma imita a convenção prosaica ao citar poesia. Escritas em diálogo indirecto com previsões meteorológicas, as previsões poéticas registam um ano de transições em Malmö, na Suécia, e em locais imaginários. Há alusões e críticas sobre o quotidiano, a viagem, a política, a mudança, o absurdo, a memória e o testemunho, os costumes, a injustiça, a infância, a linguagem, a escrita, as aves, as árvores e tudo o mais que quisermos ler.

• Seiça, Álvaro (2017). Ensinando o Espaço. não (edições). ISBN 9789899967793. 70 s. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  ensinando o espaço é um livro de poesia dividido em três partes: poemas alfa, beta e gama. As três partes foram escritas para uma hipotética máquina, um hipotético adulto e uma hipotética criança. O processo de escrita partiu de fontes diversas, como o livro para crianças de Malin Wedsberg, Adress Vintergatan (Estocolmo: Almqvist & Wiksell/Liber, 2003), tradução automática da língua sueca para a língua portuguesa, reorganização de palavras fornecidas na língua-alvo e resultados de imagens num motor de pesquisa em linha.

• Seiça, Álvaro (2017). Transdução: Processos de Transferência na Literatura Electrónica e Arte Digital. Edições Húmus. ISBN 9789897552410. 160 s. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Em Transdução: Processos de Transferência na Literatura Electrónica e Arte Digital explora-se a diluição de fronteiras entre os domínios da literatura electrónica e da arte digital, através de um enquadramento transversal – a função transdutora – que permite extrair fenómenos e preocupações resultantes da produção criativa no âmbito da cultura digital. Dentro dos géneros do romance, da hiperficção, da poesia digital, da net.art e da instalação híbrida digital, analisam-se obras de Mark Z. Danielewski, Stuart Moulthrop, William Poundstone, Scott Rettberg, Pavel Braila, R. Luke DuBois e André Sier.

• Seiça, Álvaro (2014). Ö. Self-published. ISBN 9789729911910. 40 s. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Ö é um poema circular. O título sueco indica parte do significado e representa a forma, impulsionando o poema. Thomas Bernhard, a personagem, corre em torno de uma ilha deserta, interagindo com o romance de Bernhard, Betão (Beton, 1982). Ö é uma conversa poética entre duas personagens e dois locais: uma pequena casa na periferia de Viena, no Inverno, e uma pequena ilha na Ria Formosa, no Verão. Bernhard empreende uma viagem poética, física e psicológica sobre a memória.

• Seiça, Álvaro (2012). Permafrost: 20+1 Zeptopoemas SMS. Bypass Editions. ISBN 9789899718920. 24 s. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  permafrost: 20+1 zeptopoemas sms é um livro de poesia de Álvaro Seiça que inaugura a colecção The Proposal Series, um projecto editorial colaborativo da Bypass Editions e da Flatland Design. Em 15 de Setembro de 2008, o jornal Público imprimiu um artigo sobre a cidade mais setentrional do mundo, Longyearbyen, na Noruega. O artigo relatava a vida peculiar e alguns dos hábitos insólitos dos investigadores que têm vindo a estudar, naquele local, o árctico e o permafrost – o subsolo permanentemente gelado. A partir da leitura deste artigo, Álvaro Seiça escreveu uma série de poemas sms, mensagens de 140 caracteres, que desafiam não só as fronteiras entre texto informativo e texto ficcional, mas também o que se entende por texto poético, poema, matéria-prima poética e quebra de verso. Publicado pela Bypass Editions em Lisboa e Malmö em 2012. Design e produção: Paulo Freitas/Flatland Design. Contém um poster A4 impresso F/V. O poster é um fac-símile do artigo "No Grande Norte: Termómetro do Planeta" (15.09.2008), de José Manuel Fernandes, publicado no Público. 15 x 21 cm, 1 cor, impresso numa Riso. Capa mole, cosida por Célia Conceição.

Se alle arbeider i NVA

• Tenorio, Abraham Guerrero; Seiça, Álvaro & Ferreira, Daniel (2026). Toda a violência. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Abraham Guerrero Tenorio's "Toda a Violência" is a book of contemporary Spanish poetry translated from Spanish to Portuguese by Álvaro Seiça and published by Contracapa in 2026.

• Seiça, Álvaro (2025). Contra a extinção na terra. doi: 10.21747/21828954/ely25p9. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Contribution on the topic of extinction to eLyra's issue 25, which is dedicated to "Instruções Poéticas, Modos de Usar" [Poetic Instructions, How to Use It].

• Seiça, Álvaro (2025). Introducing DESCENSURA. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Seiça, Álvaro (2022). Imoral, Comunista e Pornográfica: a Biblioteca dos Serviços de Censura do Estado Novo. doi: 10.5281/ZENODO.13342381. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Que livros não se podiam ler durante o Estado Novo? Entre 1934 e 1974, os censores redigiram mais de 10.000 relatórios de leitura livros de autores portugueses e estrangeiros. Acusados de serem “imorais, pornográficos, comunistas, irreligiosos, subversivos, maus antissociais, anarquistas ou revolucionários”, os livros censurados abrangem todas as áreas do saber. O presente catálogo testemunha o modo como a ditadura amputou e desfigurou a vida cultural, o desenvolvimento das mentalidades e afetou as gerações vindouras. O catálogo acompanha a exposição "Obras Proibidas e Censuradas no Estado Novo", comissariada por Álvaro Seiça, Luís Sá e Manuela Rêgo, na Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal entre 3 de março e 16 de setembro de 2022. O catálogo compila, pela primeira vez, os livros resgatados da Biblioteca dos Serviços de Censura e as “obras proibidas” de ir à leitura na Biblioteca Nacional, sendo completado por imagens das capas dos livros e de páginas cortadas, pela transcrição dos relatórios de leitura e por dois ensaios introdutórios de Álvaro Seiça e José Pedro Castanheira. O ensaio de Seiça está disponível neste repositório ou através da livraria da BNP.

• Seiça, Álvaro (2021). Poesia Cinética: O Caso da Censura a "Roda Lume" de E. M. de Melo e Castro. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Em 1969, a RTP difundiu o poema cinético Roda Lume de E. M. de Melo e Castro no programa cultural “Convergência.” Meio século depois, a obra continua a desafiar os seus observadores. A diferença, hoje, é que a podemos observar num clima de liberdade. Mas em 1969 a censura não a poupou. Esta comunicação conta essa história.

• Seiça, Álvaro (2020). E. M. de Melo e Castro: A Palavra Inovada. Cibertextualidades. ISSN 1646-4435. doi: 10.5281/zenodo.4048925. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Seiça, Álvaro (2020). The Art of Deleting: On Poetry and Erasure. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  The talk presents recent outcomes connected to the research and book project “The Art of Deleting” (ARTDEL). ARTDEL is a 3-year project (2018-21) funded by the European Commission’s Marie Skłodowska-Curie Global Fellowship and the Norwegian Research Council, at the University of Bergen, the University of California, Los Angeles, and the University of Coimbra. The use of material and graphic erasure in the composition and formal display of poems has a varied tradition during the 20th century and, most prominently, in the early 21st century. Marks of erasure in literary works can be traced back at least to Heinrich Heine’s poetical narrative Reisebilder (1827), in which the author denounces and parodies state censorship by mimicking the censors’ cuts. Yet, since then, are all writers, artists, and poets using erasure in the same way? An overview of this expanding visual and literary form suggests that there are often formalist or conceptual concerns with no political aims, but that a great number of poets and artists also highlight themes and practices of resistance and activism, by connecting erasure with censorship and surveillance. While the first part of the talk will contrast clusters of erasure poetics, the second part will present archival research related to how book censorship and erasure unfolded under the New State, the Portuguese corporatist and fascist regime of 1933-74. By searching the archives of the political police PIDE/DGS and the Censorship Commission, by inventorying, for the first time ever, the full card index of the Censorship Commission, and by unearthing part of the original books censored by the regime, it is now possible to better understand practices, motives, and objectives of material erasure that served the propaganda of Salazar and Caetano’s regime. Having the knowledge of legal and political documents, it is appropriate to ask whether contemporary poets are using erasure or not in relation to history via documentary forms. While that does not seem to be the case in Portugal, in the United States there has been an erasing impulse, especially after the 2000s, to use declassified documents and redaction as found material for new creative work. The talk concludes with reflections on how different ideologic regimes in the post-Second World War in the US, Portugal and China seek to identify common threats among writers on the grounds of national security, patriotism, political subversion, pornography, gender roles or morals.

• Seiça, Álvaro (2019). A Poesia como Ficção Não-Ficcional, Supressão. Urutau. ISSN 9788571050860. s. 7–14. doi: 10.5281/zenodo.4555749. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  A questão da autenticidade não se coloca na esfera da poesia. Muito menos, a da veracidade. E, ainda menos, a da verdade, do absoluto. Coloca-se, sim, a questão da falsidade. Da verosimilhança. Da relação, das estruturas e das personagens na esfera ficcional. Não é a poesia uma não-ficção tão ficcional quanto a ficção? Não é a poesia, desde sempre, uma construção, muitas vezes através de várias vozes, de várias personagens? E, mesmo quando autobiográfica, não é a autobiografia uma ficção não-ficcional? Não é a literatura a expansão das possibilidades do real? Mas, também, o próprio real?

• Seiça, Álvaro (2019). Poesia e Rasura. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Karhio, Anne Sofia & Seiça, Álvaro (2019). Hyperrhiz 20. Hyperrhiz: New Media Culture. 20. doi: 10.20415/hyp/020. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Seiça, Álvaro (2019). Erasure Poetry: Introduction and Visualization. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Seiça, Álvaro (2019). upoesia v0.1 [demo]. I Kozak, Claudia & Torres, Rui (Red.), Fobias - Fonias - Fagias. Escritas Experimentais e Eletrónicas Ibero-Afro-Latinoamericanas. Edições Universidade Fernando Pessoa. ISSN 9789896431556. s. 292–321. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Seiça, Álvaro (2018). Kinetic Poetry: From Screening to Running Interactive Language. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Kinetic poetry is a form of poetry that relies on spatiotemporal transitions as expressive literary and visual layers. Throughout the twentieth-century, kinetic poems have been composed with varied media, such as celluloid film, video, holography, and computers. This unified and untold history of kinetic poetry is presented for the first time in Álvaro Seiça’s PhD study setInterval: Time-Based Readings of Kinetic Poetry (2017). As it is unveiled, the origins of kinetic poetry can be traced back to the Dadaists. When Marcel Duchamp staged rotoreliefs in the 35mm film Anémic Cinéma (1926), he arguably set a precedent for questioning the role of documentary film, textual art in motion, and poetry. This lecture presents this rich history of kinetic poetry, by addressing the areas of experimental and digital poetry, as language goes from projected to interactive media. The lecture is a screening session, as well as a discussion of modes of kinetic writing. First, it discusses kinetic poetry’s cultural and technological history, by putting forward the argument that digital poetics is deeply influenced by the 1950-80s experimental practices and transmedia approaches, which included film, video, and computers. Second, it presents other timelines of kinetic writing, such as those of animation film and movie titles. Finally, it presents practical methods for reading digital kinetic poems, by elaborating on the notion of “deformance” and the methods of modification. The lecture draws from Seiça’s 2017 PhD study, which goes beyond techno-positivistic discourses on digital poetry by discussing the larger intersections of literature with technology, politics, and society.

• Seiça, Álvaro (2018). Literature Mods. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  This paper presents a critical framework about literature mods—modifications of source code and surface of literary works—and a set of new empirical methods—modifying deformances—as a way of reading and analyzing the behavior of digital kinetic poems, since they move in time and space. How to simply read poems behaving as changing events? How to read poems that display at extremely high speed? How to critically analyze surfaces of inscription that may be impossible to be read? What methods of criticism can be set in practice in order to read kinetic poems? The problem of how to read digital poems, how to interpret them, and how to write criticism about them is closely tied to what kind of methods the reader and scholar use. Some of these methods can, and should require practical engagement with the creative works, a point that C. T. Funkhouser (2014) highlights. In fact, that is the type of “computational poetics” methodology that, in “operating” the code and interface, Stephanie Strickland and Nick Montfort (2013) call for. Thus, this paper contributes to an analysis of digital kinetic poems with an exploratory reading and modding of their code and display. Its key finding is the development of a method that blends critical inquiry with experiments of modifications of the poems’ output in terms of spatiotemporal transitions. These modifications of time-based parameters are built within a framework of open source software, remix culture, and draw from intervening practices of altering video games as mods. In addition, they are discussed against the backdrop of Lisa Samuels and Jerome McGann’s (1999) notion of “deformative criticism.” Samuels and McGann’s “deformance” approach employs analyses through alteration of creative works, but at the print textual level, in order to isolate and alter content that expands the practices of reading and interpretation. Contrarily, modification and versioning is a set of methods used in software development that can be adapted to reading kinetic poetry. Reading kinetic text and kinetic poetry presents a challenge because it demands interdisciplinary approaches and critical openness to engage with artifacts that are complex and difficult to be read. In addition to analyzing the different components of a literary work by using traditional humanities models, literary criticism at the level of praxis with programming languages and processes must develop new methods. Because spatiotemporal dimensions such as onscreen speed and textual behavior are topical concerns that affect the reading experience, this paper presents modifications of kinetic poems in order to discuss them. What I call a modifying deformance is no less than a method that emerges out of modding practice and theory of literature. The main achievement is the awareness of how coding affects display, process, and event, rather than modifying works for purposes of development, improvement, conversion, remake, technical support, or artistic creation. Finally, I argue that literature mods can pave the way to resituate assumptions in the field of digital literature, regarding literary and aesthetic criticism.

• Seiça, Álvaro (2017). as valas abertas ++ des fossés ouverts ++ open ditches. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Seiça, Álvaro (2015). Digital Poetry and Meta-Discourse: A Network of Self-References? Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  This paper spins from an analysis of several works of critical writing in the field of digital poetry, which have been documented at the ELMCIP Knowledge Base. The first stage of the research process has been trying to understand which tags have higher frequency, as one observes how the field has evolved in terms of theoretical analysis (content type: critical writing) and its correspondent classification in ELMCIP. Secondly, the database has been filtered in terms of critical writing tagged with the taxonomy “digital poetry” (higher frequency, 109 records). From here onwards, a period for analysis, 1995-2015, was selected, as it signals the twenty-year span of Web-based digital poems. Hence, the publication types selected were monographs and PhD dissertations tagged with “digital poetry” or having “poetry” in their title. This process created a smaller corpus for data analysis, mining and visualization. The selected works of critical writing include Hartman (1996), Barbosa (1996), Glazier (2002), Stefans (2003), Engberg (2007), Funkhouser (2007, 2012), Emerson (2008), Johnston (2011), Rosario (2011), Dupej (2012), Emerson (2014) and Carpenter (2014). The two questions I posed then were: 1) Is there a prevalence of self-referenced creative works in critical writing? 2) Is there a set of digital poems being more referenced than other? By exporting the tables of cross-references from the ELMCIP KB into visualization software, I try to better understand and debate, by means of macro analytical visualizations and network analysis, these questions, following Franco Moretti’s notion of “distant reading” (2005) and application methodology in the field of electronic literature such as those developed by Jill Walker Rettberg (2012, 2013) and Scott Rettberg (2013).

• Seiça, Álvaro (2015). The Digital Diasthima: Time-Lapse Reading as Critical and Creative Performance. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  In moving texts, such as digital kinetic poetry, the reader-user might no longer control the duration of their reading, unlike the traditional and static nature of printed texts. The user deals with readable time versus executable time, the human time-line versus the machine time-line. By having an imposed and fixed number of milliseconds to perceive the text on the screen, the user might find themselves completing or imagining the unread text, following the dynamic forms with an imposed dynamic content. Yet, to understand the shifting reading patterns of digital poems, one has to consider another methods or tools that may complement traditional models. Therefore, performing a critical approach solely based in close reading methods might not accomplish a fully comprehensible reading of digital poetry. In this sense, following upon methods taken from other areas, e.g. time-lapse photography and R. Luke DuBois’s concept of “time-lapse phonography” (2011), I introduce the notion of time-lapse reading as a complementary layer in order to close read disruptions in reading processes that demand a set ‘experiencing’ time when letters, words, lines or stanzas are replaced, with a case study on Philippe Castellin’s çacocophonie (2013).

• Seiça, Álvaro & Marecki, Piotr (2015). p2p: Polish-Portuguese E-Lit. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  The p2p exhibition brings to the public different digital literary works produced by Polish and Portuguese authors in the past four decades. Polish and Portuguese literary, artistic, social, political, and even religious contexts are quite similar, even if geographically distant, and still quit divergent. It has been a fascinating surprise to find evidence of several common threads in works of experimental and generative literature from Poland and Portugal, including Spectrum-based animated poetry/Demoscene, and ActionScript-based digital poetry and fiction. The exhibition will therefore be constructed around three nuclei: experimentalism, activism and animation. For this purpose, the p2p exhibition proposes to present, face-to-face, works by authors such as Pedro Barbosa, Silvestre Pestana, E. M. de Melo e Castro, Rui Torres, André Sier, Manuel Portela, Luís Lucas Pereira, Józef Żuk Piwkowski, Marek Pampuch, Michał Rudolf, Kaz, Piotr Puldzian Płucienniczak, Leszek Onak and Andrzej Głowacki. A part of the ELO 2015 exhibition “Decentering: Global Electronic Literature” at 3,14 gallery in Bergen, Norway (August 4-23, 2015).

• Seiça, Álvaro (2014). Time-Lapse Reading as Critical Performance. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  In moving texts, such as digital kinetic poetry, the reader-user might no longer control the duration of their reading, unlike the traditional and static nature of printed texts. The user deals with readable time versus executable time, the human time-line versus the machine time-line. By having an imposed and fixed number of milliseconds to perceive the text on the screen, the user might find themselves completing or imagining the unread text, following the dynamic forms with an imposed dynamic content. Yet, to understand the shifting reading patterns of digital poems, one has to consider another methods or tools that may complement traditional models. Therefore, performing a critical approach solely based in close reading methods might not accomplish a fully comprehensible reading of digital poetry. In this sense, following upon methods taken from other areas, e.g. time-lapse photography and R. Luke DuBois’s concept of “time-lapse phonography” (2011), I introduce the notion of time-lapse reading as a complementary layer to close reading.

• Seiça, Álvaro (2014). Finding No Object: A Traversal through Processes in Digital Poetry. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Although Mieke Bal’s “travelling concepts” (2002) framework is widely used, even if not always acknowledged, as a migration function within the humanities, arts and architecture, there is still a prevalence of researching a unique and unchangeable object. Thus, even if Bal calls for a critical object, which ought to be analyzed, meaning that a “theoretical object” entails different views on what a text or a work of art might signify, these approaches do not accurately perform when dealing with digital artworks. In fact, if one undertakes a critical position towards generative, time-based or distributed media artworks, one needs to adopt a reading and analytical perspective that disregards objects, but considers data, process(es), instantiations and manifestations. As Philippe Bootz et al. (2009) assert, our reception of digital literary works cannot comply with an objectual view, as the work/artifact is no longer a consistent and identifiable element, since it is constituted by several process(es) and variables, e.g. code, network, surface, text, image, sound, input, output, that can operate on different levels of performative presentation and, being machine-dependent, behave differently over time. Moreover, if one considers generative works, the on-screen output might be always different from view to view. In time-based works, the output varies according to time parameters, as studying Philippe Castellin’s çacocophonie (2013), as a time-lapse experience, shows. Therefore, the emphasis cannot be placed so much in a sole output as a unique object, but more in the underlying processes that create diverse output instantiations. As such, the term object becomes as obsolete as the affected and unstable character of any given text, sound or image in a precise spatio-temporal instance.

• Seiça, Álvaro (2014). A Beam of Light: Reading the Portuguese Electronic Literature Collection. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  This intervention presents an analysis of the Portuguese Electronic Literature Collection (PELC) I have been curating since August 2013 in the ELMCIP Electronic Literature Knowledge Base. By aggregating and expanding existing records in the database and creating new ones, I have been developing a research collection that addresses the Portuguese creative and theoretical production since the 1960s in the broader field of electronic literature. The PELC uses resources from ELMCIP and PO.EX, the Digital Archive of Portuguese Experimental Literature, led by Rui Torres at the Fernando Pessoa University. The standard format of a research collection within the ELMCIP KB enabled me not only to gather creative works and critical writing, but also other content types such as people, organizations, publishers (publishing houses and journals), databases and archives, and events (e.g. conferences, festivals, performances and exhibitions). As an extra media contribution, the collection contains a video interview to Manuel Portela and Rui Torres recorded during the ELO 2013 conference in Paris, bringing into question some of the important characteristics, influences and future directions of Portuguese E-Lit. The Portuguese avant-garde from the past fifty years was marked by the PO.EX movement, a movement of experimental writers gathered around two main anthologies – Poesia Experimental 1 [Experimental Poetry] (1964) and 2 (1966) – exposing concrete poetry, conceptual literature, sound poetry, “object-poetry,” performances and happenings. From the 1960s until the late 80s, this heterogeneous movement increased and expanded the notion of media experimentation, from videopoetry to computer-generated literature, computer poetry and infopoetry. In this sense, E.M. de Melo e Castro’s videopoem Roda Lume (1968) is a pioneer example of combined text, sound and moving image, forerunning the WWW’s hypermedia poems. In the 1980s, besides his theoretical production, Melo e Castro developed a series of electronic videopoems called Signagens (1985-89) and gave rise to infopoetry (1979-onwards). In the same period, Silvestre Pestana developed his Computer Poetry series (1981-83), programming three visual animated poems in a Spectrum. However, it was Pedro Barbosa who introduced computer-generated literature in Portugal with two theoretical volumes of cybernetic literature, A Literatura Cibernética 1 (1977) and 2 (1980), which also contained a selection of the output texts (poetry and fiction) generated in a mainframe computer with FORTRAN and BASIC languages. Moreover, Barbosa created the text generator “Sintext” (1992-99), published various monographs such as A Ciberliteratura: Criação Literária e Computador (1996) and launched the electronic opera AlletSator (2001). Since the WWW, the panorama of Portuguese e-lit has been growing, mainly through the activity of Antero de Alda, Manuel Portela and Rui Torres. Torres has been creating several digital poems remixing appropriated literary databases and directing the journal Cibertextualidades. My analysis of the PELC is therefore based on previous critical writing and reads Portuguese creative works using light not only as a poetic unifier element in the dematerialization of word and image in electronic media, but also as the symbolic beam of a corpus that ought to expand our horizon.

• Seiça, Álvaro (2014). Um Feixe Luminoso: Uma Leitura da Colecção de Literatura Electrónica Portuguesa. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  A Colecção de Literatura Electrónica Portuguesa, na base de dados ELMCIP, pretende abordar e recolher as obras criativas e teóricas mais relevantes produzidas por autores portugueses no campo da literatura electrónica, durante os últimos quarenta e cinco anos. A colecção agrega também autores, eventos, organizações, editoras, periódicos, publicações, conferências, performances, instalações e exposições que estejam relacionadas com o contexto português. Álvaro Seiça fez uma palestra no dia 25 de junho de 2014, pelas 15h00, na Sala Ferreira Lima (6º piso, Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Coimbra), intitulada «Um Feixe Luminoso: Uma Leitura da Colecção de Literatura Electrónica Portuguesa». Nesta palestra foi apresentada a Colecção de Literatura Electrónica Portuguesa que integra a base de dados ELMCIP (Electronic Literature as a Model of Creativity and Innovation in Practice, projecto coordenado por Scott Rettberg). Esta iniciativa é uma organização do Programa de Doutoramento em Materialidades da Literatura (Programa Doutoral FCT), em colaboração com o Programa de Cultura Digital da Universidade de Bergen.

• Seica, Alvaro; Portela, Manuel & Torres, Rui (2013). Manuel Portela and Rui Torres on the Portuguese E-Lit Collection at ELMCIP.net. [Internet]. https://vimeo.com/77139619. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Álvaro Seiça interviews Manuel Portela and Rui Torres on the Portuguese Electronic Literature Collection at ELMCIP.net. The conversation brings into question some of the important characteristics, influences and future directions of Portuguese E-Lit. For more info: http://elmcip.net/research-collection/portuguese-electronic-literature-collection Video recorded on September 26, 2013, during the ELO 2013 conference "Chercher le Texte" at the ENSAD, Paris.

• Seiça, Álvaro (2018). setInterval(): Time-Based Readings of Kinetic Poetry. Universitetet i Bergen. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  setInterval() is a study of digital kinetic poetry by English, French, and Portuguesespeaking poets whose work defies the very act of writing and reading. It places an emphasis on the historical, cultural, and technological contextualization of kinetic poetry written in diverse media. A wider study of kinetic poetry has been missing, because the field has been relatively undocumented until now. Thus, setInterval() contributes to existing literature with new research, and develops innovative methodology for reading and analyzing poems that literally move. The forms of kinetic poetry surveyed include film poetry, videopoetry, holography poetry, and digital poetry, which are all dependent on spatiotemporal elements. Therefore, there is a focus on the temporal and spatial dimensions of poems that are time-based and animated. Poems written and read with computational media require interdisciplinary expertise, because they are scripted with code and often integrate text, sound, image, and interactive functions. The creative works that are analyzed in full-depth in this study are Stephanie Strickland and Cynthia Lawson Jaramillo’s Flash poem slippingglimpse (2007), and Ian Hatcher’s JavaScript and JQuery’s ⌰ [Total Runout] (2015). Other reviewed works include poems by E. M. de Melo e Castro, Marc Adrian, Ana Hatherly, Silvestre Pestana, bpNichol, Nick Montfort, John Cayley, Philippe Bootz, María Mencía, Philippe Castellin, Rui Torres, Jörg Piringer, J. R. Carpenter, and Jhave. This selection aims to engage with a polyglot perspective, as these works demonstrate diverse linguistic, literary, cultural, and artistic traditions. Even though these authors work within similar production and reception contexts—a global community framework, shared networked, and programmable settings—there are rich differences among them at the level of language, local and national topics, themes, and sociopolitical concerns. The case studies presented throughout the dissertation intend not only to provide a sample of different practices within the field, but also to extract practices that are common to kinetic poetry specifically developed and published in digital systems. This thesis is an article-based dissertation organized around six articles. The articles situate kinetic poetry and experimental poetics in cultural and technological context. They analyze poems by Strickland and Hatcher in detail, and address issues of canonization and self-referentiality in the field of digital poetry, between 1995 and 2015, via network and visualization analyses. Poets create kinetic poems with computers, via networks, and compose them by scripting code with timers that influence modes of presentation and reception. The tempo set in programming for screens and media output—which allows for text to move—can determine whether a poem can be read and viewed, only viewed, or whether it is illegible. This fact poses the guiding question: How can the critic analyze surfaces of inscription that can be on the verge of unreadability? The research addresses three levels of analysis that I call ‘micro-,’ ‘meso-,’ and ‘macro-reading.’ These levels investigate modes of reading kinetic poems, their literary and artistic context, and their reception context. Why is the history of kinetic poetry embedded in literary and artistic movements? How does it affect contemporary practices? A relocation of the entanglement of literature with technology and media proves that 1950s-60s experimentalist authors played a crucial role in anteceding an approach to art as a quest for transgression, invention, and recreation that was shaped by multiple media. The attitude of facing the creative act as research, and as a synthesis process, meant that all types of media could be used to materialize and expand the literary field. These notions would echo in the process of experimental poets in the late twentieth century and, it is my claim, continue in digital poetics. A comprehensive section presents a literature review of digital poetry. It debates different taxonomies of kinetic poetry and digital poetry, and it defines the terms ‘timer,’ ‘time-based,’ ‘setInterval(),’ and ‘diastêma.’ Another section discusses frequent practices, processes, and techniques employed by poets: spatiotemporal dimensions; multidirectional reading; typologies of timers and textual motion; multilayer, superimposition, juxtaposition, and palimpsest; methods of appropriation, anthropophagy, and remix; coding, authoring software, and interface; randomization and aleatory processes; and finally, the notion of kinetic poems as performative events. In order to analyze the kinetic poems’ behavior, the theoretical methodology used in this study combines perspectives from literary criticism (Samuels and McGann 1999) with digital literary studies (Funkhouser 2007, 2012; Jhave Johnston 2016). It takes insights from materiality and media-specific analysis (Glazier 2001, Hayles 2002, 2004, 2008, and Pressman 2014), critical code studies (Marino 2006), media archaeology and interface studies (Emerson 2014), collaborative, and multiapproach studies (Pressman, Marino, and Douglass 2015). At the level of praxis, the methodology engages with the notion of “deformative criticism” (Samuels and McGann 1999) and “operation” of works (Strickland and Montfort 2013). Furthermore, empirical methodology involves code forensics and transcripts, the emulation of Silvestre Pestana’s Computer Poetry (1981-83), modifications of source code and surface, interviews with poets and scholars, research collections developed in the ELMCIP database, and curating exhibitions of digital literary works. The study’s main contribution to the field is the historical overview of kinetic poetry, and the critique of links between experimental poetry and digital poetry. The key finding is the development of a method to read kinetic poetry that blends critical inquiry with modifications of kinetic poems. It contributes to the analysis of digital poetry with exploratory readings, by manipulating code, interface, and the display of creative works. The modification of works constitutes a practice-based strategy that entails altering their output in order to analyze their kinetic behavior. This intervening practice engages with experimental criticism theorized and practiced by Lisa Samuels and Jerome McGann (1999). Therefore, I propose a new method for enriching the analyses of digital literary works, by considering the poem as a perceived event, since it is composed by spatiotemporal, rhythmic, conceptual, and semiotic dimensions. What I call a ‘modifying deformance’ is no less than a method that emerges out of coding practices and theory of literature. Finally, I argue that modifying deformances can pave the way to resituate assumptions in the field of digital poetry, regarding literary and aesthetic criticism of works that move across time and space.

• Seiça, Álvaro (2014). The PO.EX Digital Archive of Portuguese Experimental Literature: A Review. Electronic Literature Directory. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  PO.EX (http://po-ex.net) is a digital archive of Portuguese Experimental Literature that began in 2005. This literary database is coordinated by Rui Torres, at the University Fernando Pessoa, in Oporto, Portugal, and was funded by the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia [Foundation for Science and Technology] (FCT) and the European Union, under two main research projects: “CD-ROM da PO.EX: Poesia Experimental Portuguesa, Cadernos e Catálogos” [The PO.EX CD-ROM: Portuguese Experimental Poetry, Notebooks and Catalogues] (2005-2008) and “PO.EX’70-80: Arquivo Digital da Literatura Experimental Portuguesa” [PO.EX’70-80: Digital Archive of Portuguese Experimental Literature] (2010-2013).

• Seiça, Álvaro (2014). The ELMCIP Electronic Literature Knowledge Base: A Review. Electronic Literature Directory. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Electronic Literature as a Model of Creativity and Innovation in Practice (ELMCIP) is a research project (2010-2013) that gathered several European academic partners from Norway, Sweden, Finland, the Netherlands, Scotland, England, Slovenia, and a non-academic institution, New Media Scotland. Funded by the HERA Joint Research Programme and by the Socio-economic Sciences and Humanities Programme from the European Commission, the project is led by Scott Rettberg (University of Bergen, Norway). In addition to conferences, exhibitions, workshops, seminars, anthologies (e.g. European Electronic Literature), videos and numerous publication, the project’s main outcome was the development of the ELMCIP Knowledge Base (http://elmcip.net).

• Seiça, Álvaro (2014). O PO.EX, Arquivo Digital da Literatura Experimental Portuguesa: Uma Recensão. University Fernando Pessoa/PO.EX. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  O PO.EX (http://po-ex.net) é um arquivo digital de literatura experimental portuguesa que se iniciou em 2005. Coordenada por Rui Torres, da Universidade Fernando Pessoa, no Porto, em Portugal, esta base de dados literária foi financiada pela Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT) e pela União Europeia, no âmbito de dois projectos principais: “CD-ROM da PO.EX: Poesia Experimental Portuguesa, Cadernos e Catálogos” (2005-2008) e “PO.EX’70-80: Arquivo Digital da Literatura Experimental Portuguesa” (2010-2013).

• Seica, Alvaro & Lima, Maria Antónia (2011). Transduction: Transfer Processes in Digital Literature and Art. University of Évora. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Electronic Literature and Digital Art share many processes, themes, creative and theoretical guidelines. In this sense, I developed a critical framework that could resist to a hyperdisciplinary analysis and include one of the characteristics of this sharing pattern: the transfer and transformation processes. In order to recognize these processes I have done an approach of the transduction concept that could perform a theoretical migration on these aspects: the transducer function. Thus, the transducer function appears in the critical analysis of the works by Mark Z. Danielewski, Stuart Moulthrop, R. Luke DuBois and André Sier. The selected works are representative of the following genres: novel, hyperfiction, net.art and digital installation, drawing on phenomena and concerns resulting from the creative production within the digital culture. In this research I have enhanced mechanisms, patterns, languages and common grounds: authorship, user, cybertext, surface, hypertext, infoduct, interactivity, pixel, algorithm, code, programming, network, software and data.

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