By Guy Redden

Ian Irvine, co-editor of The Animist,
http://theanimist.netgazer.net.au>

Guy: The Animist, the journal you co-edit with Sue King-Smith, is one of Australia's most active and best-organised electronic journals of the arts. How did it all start and why?

Ian: We often ask ourselves this question! We're into our 6th edition now and when we think of the distance we've come over the past two years, the general broadening of horizons that has accompanied publishing (and being published) in this medium it sometimes amazes us that we didn't actually intend to start up a literary ezine to begin with. We were quite a long way into what became our first edition before we realised what was happening. Originally the idea was simply to provide a kind of writing/ideas forum for ourselves and a couple of other Central Victorian writers and poets (mostly friends). The original idea (which came to us in Nepal late in 1997 of all places) was simply to learn about the medium -- you know explore it and mess around with it and perhaps advertise ourselves as writers through it -- put a little of our work on the Web, some poems, a story or two, academic essays etc. At the time we knew we needed a swish computer to get started. The computer eventually arrived as a gift from Sue's father and thus by early 1998 there wasn't really much else to do but get on with the job.

The form of the journal only came later -- once we began to master some of the programmes and, more importantly, adapt our imaginations to the full potential of the medium. I think the potential of the medium struck us for the first time when we received our first email submission from the American poet David Hunter Sutherland. After some enlightening email exchanges with various Australian writers -- Carmel Bird, Sara Douglass, Beth Spencer and Sherry Ann-Jakobs were particularly encouraging -- we began to realise that we'd like to make our little publication into a serious Australian based literary ezine. People were taking us seriously and it was obviously time to get serious ourselves.

Guy: So why exactly do you publish on the Web?

Ian: Sue and I are quite eclectic in our interests. At the time we began publishing there was no other forum where we felt we could explore all the intellectual and artistic issues that interested us. As a consequence, there are probably two sides to The Animist. We are a fairly conventional literary ezine in many respects. In this sense we publish poetry, short stories, book reviews and essays about literature. We have, however, expanded upon the conventional print journal in a number of ways. We've included Java scripted/interactive poetry, animated Gifs (short film/animation clips), Real Audio/MPEG recordings of poets and musicians and also background Midi music to some text pages. Though new artistic forms have been exhibited in The Animist the main theme is still literary/artistic and thus the task of developing an aesthetic sense appropriate to the new forms has been something of an experience -- not always successful we admit! This to our mind is the core of the journal, it is certainly the area where we look primarily for quality rather than message. Art speaks in its own tongue and our only role as editors is to recognise and publish material that truly moves people, that has something worthwhile and original to say.

However, my own background in cultural studies and our shared (Sue, John and myself) interest in non-Westernised countries and the mythopoetic globalising sides to postmodernism meant that early on we included many essays on society, culture, alternative psychology etc. I suppose we are putting forward a certain kind of position toward the world through these particular pages of the journal -- it is a position peculiarly representative of the globalising strain one finds on the Internet. If we had to summarise it I'd say that rather than pay mere lip service to the kinds of understandings of the world rising out of post-colonial discourses, we feel that philosophers, radical thinkers, academics, theorists etc. should be using the Web to formulate a new, inclusivist canon which in a sense replaces the more oppressive aspects to the hierarchies of knowledge which have dominated Western discourses -- cultural as well as scientific -- since the Enlightenment. It is not enough to preach tolerance of different traditions under the flimsy umbrella of deconstructive thinking. On the global stage, once you accept that modernity has its limits, that evolution and progress are mere stories we've told ourselves in order to justify all manner of atrocities against man and nature we are confronted, once again, with a very old problem -- that of spirituality. The fact that we think this is still a problem, despite Nietzsche, existentialism, etc., explains our apparent unfashionability in relation to the kinds of cultural discourses which dominate most, dare I say it, ethnocentric, Western literary/cultural journals. We did not want to become one of those soulless academic journals designed, more or less, to give humanities and social science academics publishing credits. To understand the Animist project a glance at a few editions of The New Internationalist or the film Baraka is the best place to start.

Guy: And how has the project gone technically? Any specific challenges and triumphs?

Ian: Learning the various programmes required to produce an ezine was certainly and intensive process. We were, however, aided by the fact that literary ezines are still, more or less, text-based. If you go too far in emphasising visuals you end up with television. The 'literary' form revolution on the Web is occurring in relation to non-linear text, text and image, interactive text, sound accompaniments to text and Websites as accompaniments to live performances. This is the stuff that has to be mastered by literary ezine editors. A difficult mission for most established literary print journals since they now require the services of not only artists but sound and multimedia experts as well -- and an expansion in aesthetic understanding into new creative areas (oral poetry, by the way, has benefited greatly from this aesthetic expansion). My own experiences in recording music over the years helped us in this area. We know we're not computer experts -- writing and ideas is our main passion, however, we've managed to avoid, for a time, some of the programming complexities faced by those who are trying to provide a Web spectacle similar to that of television. When we received our first Java poetry piece we knew how people must have felt when they first set eyes on the printing press! Other tech triumphs? Well we worked with a marvellous bunch of people in the archive section of the Australian National Library. The process of archiving editions of the The Animist, which happened quite early in the piece, was simultaneously frustrating and exciting. The archiving people knew e-text preservation was a totally new area and we felt quite honoured to be included in the project. I should point out that our national library's archiving programme is the envy of many overseas literary editors.

Guy: It's interesting to see that you are not 'techies' then. You are, according to your stated philosophy, "suspicious of technology without a soul". Could you elaborate on this a little?

Ian: Many writers and artists are suspicious of the way in which our society overvalues the scientific way of thinking. We confess we're on the Humanities/Arts side of the great divide that has characterised Western society since the end of the 18th century. The scientific method tells us very little about the things which are most important to our interior lives. I suppose the scientific juggernaught (in tandem with the 'rationality' juggernaught) is a major cause of a global instability everywhere apparent. We're with Coleridge and Blake: science must once again be subservient to morality (human rights). It should not attempt to overstep its bounds and colonise other areas of the life world. However, I'm grateful to the people who invented 21 speed bikes, computers and bread machines.

Guy: As I understand it, The Animist is a journal with a mission. In your publishing philosophy you state your belief that we live at a crucial moment in history, one which will require the formation of new forms of understanding for the benefit of humankind. You believe this can be achieved by engaging with a wide range of philosophies. Does the Web as a medium have a specific role to play in this?

Ian: We've had to think about this question a great deal. A confrontation with the full possibilities of this medium in itself requires a radical restructuring of one's ideas about culture, the canon, literature, etc. (a very postmodern and postcolonial enterprise I suppose). Serious literature and academic debate in Australia has, for a long time, existed between the somewhat musty covers of the printed literary or academic journal. Our canonical understandings and sense of an Australian literary tradition have emerged out of such publications. The journal's way of expressing ideas, telling stories and gaining browny points (and hard cash) from Arts Councils and academic boards has dominated. Of late our academics and even segments of our literary culture have generally played lip service to the democratic aspects of cultural postmodernism (and postcolonialism) -- they've undergone an intellectual conversion to cultural globalism rather than an emotional conversion. Once faced with a medium (the World Wide Web as it now stands) which makes globalism an everyday reality, and which threatens to overturn Western society's long obsession with 'words on the page' (through new literary and artistic forms) -- some of our cultural élite understandably get cold feet. However, the new reality for Australian poets, writers, artists, academics and literary editors alike is inevitably that of a more emotional and immediate day to day engagement/interaction with the representatives of other literary/cultural traditions. The days of insularity and Euro-American cultural ethnocentricity are fast coming to a close. If you want to see the form Australian literature's engagement with cultural globalisation is taking, Jacket e-magazine edited by John Tranter is probably your first stop-over. NB: This is not to overidealise the democratic levelling aspects to the Web's literary culture. Most Web users are predominantly Middle Class white people from Western nations and with disposable income at present.

Guy: Is then your aim to build a new kind of community of thinkers? The Web clearly manages to get messages out to people in various places, from anywhere that is online. What kind of readership/community do you think e-publishing creates in general and how has the e-format influenced The Animist's readership?

Ian: The goal is not so much to build a new community of thinkers as to link up people who have something important to say or who want to access important material/ideas etc. unavailable to them by other means. In part the idea is to allow people to develop their interests in specific certain issues/topics etc. by facilitating their exposure to the most up-to-date research/thinking etc. in their field. Web-publishing works in tandem with email lists here. The process of instantaneous global linking is obviously of importance to both academics and artists. This phenomenon represents both benefits and challenges to society as a whole.

Guy: I know you're involved in the Internet Literary Editors Fellowship (ILEF), which seeks to promote the concept of quality online arts publishing that is relevant to the public. Can you tell us a little bit about ILEF's rationale and work?

Ian: ILEF was founded by myself and four other US Internet literary editors -- Jennifer Ley of Riding the Meridian & The Astrophysicist's Tango Partner Speaks, C.K. Tower of Conspire (also poetry editor for Recursive Angel), John Carle of Gravity and Dennis Gaughan of Poetry Café, to help raise the profile of quality literary publications on the Web. As an international organisation its full membership is composed of the editors of many different literary ezines from all around the globe. Various boards have been set up which allow editors to discuss a wide range of issues relevant to Internet publishing. I suppose the organisation is both practical and theoretical and I'd point out that many of the issues I've been discussing in this article have been discussed by the founding members of ILEF during the last 8 months or so.

Guy: How would you reply to stock criticisms of e-publishing, such as that not being constrained by paper and other variable publication costs leads to the publication of rubbish, or that reading screens is uncomfortable and encourages shorter pieces that don't allow sustained arguments or themes?

Ian: Well of course there are various stereotypes applied to those who publish (or publish others) on the Web. We've copped some of them ourselves: "But it can't be a really serious literary/academic site if it's on the Web?", "Ah, you publish a zine -- isn't that like a fanzine?", "Are you fanatics of some sort -- there are all sorts of fanatics on the Web?", "Publication in printed journals still carries more weight than publication in an ezine", "But what about copyright -- isn't it easy to steel my work?", and so forth. Such comments don't bother us overly. We've done several touch screen presentations related to online literary publishing. A world tour of literary ezines usually fixes the scoffers. Similarly, though we don't particularly go in for number crunching ourselves, it is now clear that literary ezines already command a much larger readership and distribution than your average print journal. Likewise, the old high cultural position summarised as "the medium is corrupt! All that low grade writing in such close proximity to serious literature and debate, it demeans writing of the better sort!" is, in my opinion, unsustainable. Don't we all have to search through popularist magazines to snare our copy of Meanjin or Southerly? With the expansion of the Web to virtually every corner of the globe that readership will only increase. ILEF was specifically formed to combat both the misinformation and genuine concerns which are voiced in the kinds of comments listed above. Very real concerns about the medium have been voiced by writers, audiences and editors alike. In my opinion, however, most of these concerns can be corrected easily enough. The real issues are not so much to do with the quality of literature to be found on the Web (a lot of it is truly first rate), but to do with finding ways to funnel some of the money currently siphoned off by computer and telecommunications people in the direction of editors, writers, poets, midi musicians, digital artists etc.. When people access The Animist, Jacket, Conspire, etc. they currently pay computer people according to the time they spend online ... none of that money goes to editors, writers, musicians, etc. The great challenge as this new medium gets established is to make sure creative people receive some kind of reward for their efforts -- difficult to do when people are paying at the browser end of the cultural transaction.

Guy: To what extent do you think it's possible to separate the medium from the message? I mean do you think that people are ultimately able to say what they want to say through any medium or do we have to speak in the 'idiom' of the medium? Does publishing electronically affect the types of knowledge and communication available to people? Are there things you can do or say in The Animist that wouldn't be so easy to do or say on paper?

Ian: Well of course we inevitably speak in the idiom of the medium, and McLuhan was certainly onto something when he pointed out that 'the medium is the message'. But writers and artists know that it isn't all of the message. I'd point out, in regard to the Web, that it is an amazingly complex and broad spectrum medium, in a sense it is the aggregation of a range of other media (hence multimedia). The biggest limitations on this medium for writers, the group I know best, currently centre around the problem that audiences are faced with infinite choices -- which turns into a kind of postmodern flitting (or refusal to engage for prolonged periods of time) of people who access the Web. I think we suffer less from this than other types of sites, however. Likewise, as you point out there is the problem of reading material off an electronic screen -- something that may be rectified in the not too distant future. We know that few people read stories over 3,000 words off the Web -- a real problem for practitioners of extended literary forms, however, a bonus for poets who are easily read and who can now supplement their text with sound, colour and interactivity -- as well as that old chap book favourite, black and white images.

Guy: Is there a politics to e-publishing for you? I mean does the Web allow a forum for voices that wouldn't otherwise find outlets? Does it allow people already involved in the 'world of letters' to bypass a publishing arena that is ever more dominated by big players and the dollar? Who does it enfranchise? Disenfranchise?

Ian: Yes, another very important question. Certainly, many people are able to speak and develop their artistic talents in this domain who would otherwise have lost heart and fallen by the wayside. I'm a firm believer in the idea that practice and exposure to the best makes for professionalism and excellence in any arena. I learnt this as a youngster in Auckland watching the working class kids turn up to representative cricket trials to compete with private school rivals. The private schoolboys had the best bats, the best sports shoes, the best private training and, of course, the ears of the selectors -- who were often teachers at the same private schools! They inevitably got opportunities the poorer kids were never offered. Part of the anxiety toward e-publishing expressed by some of Australia's literary canon makers (the print journals and the big publishers) is undoubtably related to perceived threats to current print based economic and ideological hegemonies.

Having said that, however, the day to day grind of editing makes one aware of the other side of the coin. Quality literature is quality literature, there is something unmistakeable about it. The best material will sooner or later find its way to the top of an editor's or publisher's pile. The Internet is no alternative to learning the trade of writing. It can help someone get an audience, and it is certainly a forum for the more avant-gardist experiments in theme and form, likewise it can allow a writer to transcend the often petty politics of a particular localised literary milieu (which is often simply the issue of gaining access to international publishing markets), but it cannot make sloppy writing into good writing. I should also point out that more and more writers' support groups and literary publications are encouraging people to try and get published in online publications. Likewise, more and more print publishers are acknowledging the power of the Web by hedging their bets and buying up electronic as well as print rights to books, poetry, non-fiction text etc. They obviously know where things are headed. To my mind this is an healthy trend in Australian literature -- one which will pay dividends in the future in all sorts of ways. Ultimately it leads to the ideal new millennium literary publication, the combined online/print publication, or the online/CD-ROM/Print publication. If we had the funds this would certainly be the path we'd go down with The Animist.

Guy: So finally, the inevitable question. Do you think e-publishing will end up having a big impact on publishing in general? Is the future 'e'?!

Ian: We are in the midst of a publishing revolution that ranks alongside that of the invention of the printing press. Once we see the invention of an electronic book that feels and travels like a paper book ... the forests of the world will breathe much more freely!

Guy: Thanks very much for your input and good luck with further issues of The Animist.

Details

The Animist, http://theanimist.netgazer.net.au>.
Eds. Ian Irvine and Sue King-Smith.



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