19 - Dialogues Across Media: The Creation of (New?) Hybrid Genres by Belén Gache and Marina Zerbarini

Summary

This chapter provides a comparative analysis of two of Argentina's leading women writers and artists for whom digital technologies are an integral part of their literary and artistic practice – Belén Gache (b. 1960) and Marina Zerbarini (b. 1952) – and explores how both authors engage with the discourses of new media technologies, and yet also critique these discourses, pointing out their blind spots and failings. It takes up the notion of “intermediality” as outlined by Lavery and Bowskill in the Introduction to this volume, paying particular attention to the way in which differing texts and sources are brought together in the works of these two authors. Rather than suggesting that the authors merge different sources and media to create a smooth, integrated experience for the reader, the chapter argues how they mobilize different media to create a disruptive, uncomfortable experience, and force the reader to ask questions about the very technologies they are employing.

Belén Gache is one of the leading authors of experimental fiction in the Hispanic world, and has published a variety of literary works, in both print and electronic formats, that cross generic boundaries, and explore the literary potentials of new media technologies. Ranging from e-poetry, such as her Manifiestos robot (Robot Manifestos) (2009), through to literary blogs, such as Diario del niño burbuja (Diary of Bubble Boy) (2004), Gache's work frequently makes use of digital platforms in order to experiment with literary form. As a founder member of the Fin del mundo (End of the World) net.art group, along with Jorge Haro, Gustavo Romano, and Carlos Triknick, Gache has been involved in curatorial projects, as well as contributing significantly to theoretical writings on experimental literature and hypertext.

Gache's oeuvre frequently plays with pre-existing literary genres, authors, and texts, ranging from Cervantes through to contemporary authors, in a form of cultural recycling: that is, a process of taking up and re-using pre-existing genres and literary precedents. At the same time, her work is characterized by an overt exploration of digital technologies, their potentials, and their limitations. In this way, Gache does not posit digital technologies as the culmination of a literary trajectory, or as the utopian answer to the limitations of textual culture. Rather, her work is marked by a concern for the uses of new media technologies, and often the most innovative moments come about in the creative tensions between digital technologies and experimental literary practice.