Anonymous Animal is a work of electronic literature by Everest Pipkin. It was first published in the online literary journal HTML Review in 2022.[1]
| Author | Everest Pipkin |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | electronic literature |
Publication date | 2022 |
| Awards | New Media Writing Prize, The Robert Coover Award for a Work of Electronic Literature |
| Website | https://everest-pipkin.com/projects/anonymous_animal |
It won the New Media Writing Prize in 2022,[2] and the Robert Coover Award for a Work of Electronic Literature in 2023.[3]
About the work
editAnonymous Animal is a poem that is designed to be read in a web browser and that can be viewed once an hour, on the hour. The poem lasts for 15 minutes, and in the breaks between runs the website shows images of animals.[4] The work uses the HTML element iFrame to pull in various content from the web, including images, database entries and livestreams.[2] The visual aesthetic is minimalist, with the iFrame surrounded by a white background and the text above it in a simple black serif font.[2]
Reception
editReviewer Tegan Pyke describes Anonymous Animal as a work of digital metaliterature because it comments on itself.[2] For example, the narrator comments on the likelihood that the content being pulled in from the web may no longer be available by the time the reader experiences the work:
did that video even still load? or was it lost since i wrote this? in not too many years, this conversation will be a series of 404s
— Everest Pipkin, Anonymous Animal
Pyke writes that the gestural is central to the work, along with a nostalgia for the community and copresence of an imagined past internet.[2] The work has also been described as using defamiliarization as a poetic technique.[4]
The work won two major awards in electronic literature, the New Media Writing Prize in 2022,[2] and the Robert Coover Award for a Work of Electronic Literature in 2023[3]
References
edit- ↑ "the html review 01". thehtml.review. Retrieved April 16, 2026.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 Pyke, Tegan (September 1, 2023). "The New Media Writing Prize 2022 Winners: "Anonymous Animal", "Future is Uncertain, Memory is Real", and "Penrose Station"". Revista de Comunicação e Linguagens (58): 142–149. doi:10.34619/7kd1-fpsp. ISSN 2183-7198.
- 1 2 "2025 ELO Awards – Electronic Literature Organization". July 14, 2025. Retrieved April 16, 2026.
- 1 2 Parezanović, Tijana; Stojanović, Milena (2025). "Aspects of Literariness in New Media Writing". Belgrade English Language and Literature Studies. 17: 187–201. doi:10.18485/bells.2025.17.9. ISSN 1821-3138.
External links
edit- Anonymous Animal in the HTML Review
- Anonymous Animal on author's website