Spoken screens: the gap between presence and performance. One of the challenging issues with e-literature has been the relationship between reading a work and watching it performed. Some time-based or video work discourages the performative reading aspect altogether. Pacific Surfliner suggests a new approach – a text-rich, time-based piece that can be performed (or read silently).

Tools at hand/gaps in the field: The rapid turnover of software has changed the nature of e-lit production. On the one hand, large universities and labs with extensive resources allow for experimenting with expensive, cutting-edge technology. The “cottage-industry” artist, working at home [once a staple of emerging e-lit work], is pushed, more and more, into the need to use mass-produced, widely available tools. Whatever is at hand, whenever one starts to work…. Pacific Surfliner is made from smart phone videos and images, off-the-shelf video editing tools, recycled and re-edited audio tracks, and published with Vimeo.