Narrating the sociality of the database: A digital hermeneutic reading of the atlaS group archive and haiku

Abstract

In this paper, I investigate the database characteristics of electronic literature that makes them into social forms. Database structures are both fragmented and relational, displaying hypertext characteristics. I approach The Atlas Group Archive [15] and haikU [24], two works of electronic literature, as examples of material and conceptual databases in order to explore the database function so saturated in our daily life. Both works highlight a database aesthetics [19], although the ways they do so are polar opposites. I analyze the works within the framework of digital hermeneutics [18], continuously considering the relationship between text and context, between parts and whole. I demonstrate how AGA is an explicit database, supposedly showing a complete archive, whereas haikU is an implicit database that hides the corpus of sentences. I show the sociality of the databases, thematizing both the human process behind database formation as a whole, as well as how the individual elements influence the perception of the overall database. Finally, I take my findings to a broader perspective and consider what AGA and haikU can teach us about the materiality, conceptuality, and sociality of the omnipresent structure of the database.