Digital fiction and reading cartographers of urbanity [articol]

Abstract

The interface between literary fiction and digital technologies is creating new forms of cultural phenomena and enabling new channels of interaction between the text and the reader. This paper deals with locative digital fiction and, more particularly, James Attlee’s 2017 awardwinning work titled The Cartographer’s Confession, produced as a smartphone application. The work is considered within the context of urban communication and the framework of Walter Benjamin’s writings concerning the urban stroller, Robert Tally’s literary cartography, and readerresponse criticism (Wolfgang Iser). The paper addresses the issue of gaps, both cartographic and narrative, and examines the potential of digital fiction to overcome them and thus facilitate communication between the text (as map) and its reader, participant in the process of urban communication.