INTRE:FACE conference archives: Jörg Piringer presenting his publishing app

The INTRE:FACE Digital Conference (06.02.2016-07.02.2016), organized by Katharina Deloglu and Tom Bresemann, hosted by Andreas Bülhoff, tackled many important questions regarding digital literature. In a series of articles we bring you the speeches and discussions held at the INTRE:FACE Digital Conference, dealing with problems regarding digital literature and different tools used to construct it, for example how can digital tools be used to offer new approaches to production, what digital tools already exist and how are they structured, to more applied problems, such as how can literary activists use digital means to connect with one another, how we can make most of digital material and many other interesting topics.

Jörg Piringer joined us digitally to talk about his publishing app and the development of literature in customizable applications. Watch the presentation here:


Have you developed this app for your own poetry, or can you imagine it being used for a broader audience?

Jörg Piringer: Primarily it was developed for my poetry, but I also have intentions to make it available more broadly. At this stage it’s still being developed and once it is prepared I would like to make it open source, so people can change, edit and add new things, making it more appealing to a broader audience. But in the first phase, I have only added things that are interesting for me, so I can use it with my poetry.

Do you feel that a creation of such software is in itself a literary creation, is the author of today a creator of environments of texts, which can be used by authors but readers as well? Does the reader then also become an author?

Jörg Piringer: Programing is kind of a literary practice, because you do write text. It is however not used by humans, but by computers. I was also very interested in creating my own tools or even media, so for the practice of my own literature I would say it is crucial.

Can you imagine a way in which users could use your software, maybe also some new ways of distributing it?

Jörg Piringer: For now it has been developed for iPhones, but what do we know how we will distribute such software in 10 years, I’m sure new ways will arise, because we will continue using these products. Because of our rapid development I do think there will be new ways to distribute it.

Max Höfler: Do you intend to publish the code as well?

Jörg Piringer: At the moment no, because it’s very experimental, but it’s an option. I’d want it to remain interesting, so other people could develop it further, for that it would be crucial to make the code open source.

Andreas Bülhoff: Because right now it works very much for your poetry, but I can’t imagine creating my poem, because it would feel like a Piringer poem.

Jörg Piringer: Yes, because I developed it for myself, and I don’t have any interest to having people make poems like mine, as I’m sure they don’t. However, after the app is out of the experimental stage, I could imagine other people could develop it further, to make it work for their style of writing.


Jörg Piringer, M.A. in computer science, was born in 1974 and is currently living in Vienna, Austria.

He is member of the institute for transacoustic research and member of the vegetable orchestra. He works as a freelance artist and researcher in the fields of electronic music, radio art, sound and visual electronic poetry, interactive collaborative systems, online communities, live performance, sound installation, computer games and video art.

 

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