The NT2 Hypermedia Art and Literature Directory: A New Knowledge Environment Devoted to the Valorization of Screen Culture

Abstract

This communication will address the different problems involved in building a database on hypermedia arts and literature as a steppingstone for an interpretive community. The NT2 website’s main project, the Répertoire des arts et des literatures hypermédiatiques, works at cataloguing, describing and evaluating forms of literature and art that do not correspond to traditional definitions and parameters. This hypermedia art and literature directory identifies and catalogues artistic and literary experiments and promotes their study. More than just a database, the Repertoire is the starting point of a literary community; it is an agora for students, researchers and readers where they can discuss numerous topics, publish papers, present critical evaluations of hypermedia works, as well as propose creative work. It presents itself as a knowledge environment, one oriented towards a new form of literature. NT2 is an academic research Laboratory for Hypermedia Literature and Art. NT2 is affiliated to Figura, the Research Center on Text and the Imaginary at the Université du Québec à Montréal. The NT2 Laboratory promotes the study, reading, writing and archiving of new textualities, hypermedia and cyberart in literary studies, film studies and art history.