The Virtual Disappearance of Miriam
| Author | Martyn Bedford |
|---|---|
| Publication date | 2000 |
| Publication place | United Kingdom |
| Media type | Adobe Flash |
The Virtual Disappearance of Miriam, created in 2000 by Martyn Bedford and Andy Campbell as part of the Ilkley Literature Festival, is an example of electronic literature with a linear narrative that uses the digital medium, to aid the process of storytelling.[1] It was first published on the Dreaming Methods website, then in the journal The New River in 2010, and it is now archived in The NEXT Museum.[2]
About the work
The reader interacts with the narrative through the use of links and the four different segments of the narrative, "Missing You Already", "House of Sam", "Playing the Male Lead", and "Miriam". The reader moves through these linear stories following Luther's experience to find his missing girlfriend, Miriam. In each of the stories, Luther is faced with a digital environment, for example a computer game and Quentin Tarantino's movie set. These digital environments correspond to the digital medium of the text itself, and convey Miriam as a character who has disappeared virtually.
There are many different physical and material elements that make up the materiality of the narrative, such as images, design, colour, font, and audio.
In 2012 the work was experimentally converted to HTML5 by Andy Campbell using Google Swiffy allowing it to be viewed on devices which do not support the Adobe Flash Player plug-in.[3]
Reception
This short visual piece has been analysed in several scholarly works.[4][5][6][7][8]
References
- ↑ http://www.dreamingmethods.com/miriam/ The Virtual Disappearance of Miriam (Flash version)
- ↑ "The Virtual Disappearance of Miriam". The NEXT. Retrieved 4 April 2026.
- ↑ http://labs.dreamingmethods.com/miriam/ The Virtual Disappearance of Miriam (HTML5 version)
- ↑ Saemmer, Alexandra (2009). "Reading Guidelines For Electronic Literature". In Sanz, Amelia; Romero, Dolores (eds.). Literatures in the Digital Era: Theory and Praxis. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. pp. 152–165. ISBN 9781847182913.
- ↑ Pope, James (2006). "A Future for Hypertext Fiction". Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies. 12 (4): 447–465. doi:10.1177/1354856506068368. ISSN 1354-8565.
- ↑ Tuan, Lydia (9 December 2016). "Virtual Playgrounds: Electronic Literature's Challenge to Authorship". FORUM: University of Edinburgh Postgraduate Journal of Culture & the Arts (23). doi:10.2218/forum.23.1712. ISSN 1749-9771.
- ↑ Jordan, Spencer (2020). Postdigital storytelling: poetics, praxis, research. Digital research in the arts and humanities. London; New York: Routledge. ISBN 978-1-138-08350-9.
- ↑ Simanowski, Roberto; Schäfer, Jörgen; Gendolla, Peter (15 July 2015). Reading Moving Letters: Digital Literature in Research and Teaching. A Handbook. transcript Verlag. ISBN 978-3-8394-1130-8.