Ambient Literature

This project explores what might happen when data aspires to literary form. It asks how can situated literary experiences delivered through pervasive media systems produce new forms of literary experience? The research looks at the history of the book to establish how the physical situation of the reader has effected the nature of the writing itself, it will then apply this historical understanding to thinking about how the reading situation is changing through pervasive and ubiquitous computing. The development of travel, urbanity and mobility through the 19th & early 20th Centuries produced a mobile reading market supplied in the UK for instance by the WH Smith bookstall chain (1792) and later by the Penguin imprint for the easily affordable but literary, pocket sized paperback (1935). Texts and reading practices have been an increasingly dense feature of urban life for the past three hundred years. The 'solitary reading' paradigm of the private collection or university library is actually a comparatively minor part of the history of reading. Coffee houses, newspapers, handbills, fly posters, letters, and signage have all been part of the daily experience of the city. We have extended this range in the past thirty years, first with the Walkman (and the potential not only for mobile music but also for literary text to be delivered on the move), and now with portable screens (plus audio) extending this range of tools once more. Experiences of text interweave themselves into our daily lives with a bewildering promiscuity. Despite the dominance of the solitary reading model, the city has always been a text-mediated experience. Since 2012, these literary modes have been available in the seamless continuity of Amazon's Whisper sync Kindle service that makes it possible for the user to switch between text reading and voice narration in over 45000 titles that have now been recorded. Our reading may now occur in the context of urban information systems that are dynamic, responding to what people do; they integrate embodied and imaginary experiences, material and mediating objects. In short they increase our opportunities for new forms of reading and listening experience. The research draws upon performance, audio walks, and creative writing to commission three new works by contemporary authors that will demonstrate the power of situated literary experience. The Ambient Literature author has the potential to produce work becomes a part of the unscripted shared material world. They can produce an encounter between the reader and their environment where the immediate surroundings become the stage on which the story plays out.

Our Pathways to impact document lays out how the research will be conducted in dialogue with a) a small team of industry professionals committed to digital innovation b) a wider general public of interested creative businesses, authors and publishers. Through this approach we expect to produce a number of impacts. Firstly establishing a network of researchers, writers, publishers and designers working alongside one another and networking their ideas with a wider public; our experience in the REACT Creative Economy hub is that an appropriately curated network of committed partners will produce unforeseen impacts, it will have its own emergent projects and outcomes. A second kind of impact will be in the publishing sector by changing the terms of the discussion and therefore creating the potential for market innovation, this would be evidenced by the idea of Ambient Literature taking root as a description for the field of situated literary practices. This level of impact would also be evidenced by the adoption of the framework, principles and platform which are at the heart of the project's outputs by industry professionals in their commissioning process, specifically by Hachette, Random House and the Literary Platform our advisory partners. A third kind of impact will be for the readers/users of the new work that we make, the end users of the practice based part of the research. We will then liaise with University partner business development units to identify potential new business partnerships to carry the outcomes of the work forward, we would be looking at the potential for new start ups that would offer situated literary experiences as part of heritage, museum, transport and restaurant sectors.