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He is one of the most intriguing writers of our days - in his novels with which I was dealing in my PhD thesis and in his Weblog, as well - the German writer and think-tank on his own Alban Nikolai Herbst.

Now he put online his speech, held at the symposion Literatur und Strom at the Literaturhaus Stuttgart on November 10, 2005.

It is typical for Herbst that he did not publish the paper as the work in progress in his Weblog, making visible the process behind the emergence of literature (and such a speech, as well), but preferred the standard format PDF for the speech as a piece of literature with the closure it has already been given while being held.

Herbst is regarding a Weblog being similar to literature per se for its processual character, and thus he for sure claims the often cited "monstruous" character of both. The Internet as being profoundly "profane" puts literature into a de-sacralized sphere. The Internet is not a common framework for art. It belongs to the sphere of ordinary consumer culture.

On the other hand, the Internet is of a deeply daemonic nature, as is shown by the naming of viruses after demons. And so, a Weblog becomes both a parallel universe where (daemonic) avatars of ordinary people and literary figures communicate, as well as the mise-en-scène of writer and reader in a more common and communicative sense.

Readers who actually take part in the production of literature via a Weblog enter the novel. This is not only metaphorically to be understood. They become/create literary figures. They are in. In this way, the Internet and specifically the Weblog is realisation in full sense.

Unfortunately, and Herbst is very much right here, this does not count at all for information oriented blogs like ours. But maybe we can develop a hybrid of both, realisation and information.