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1. Next Generation Literary Machines: The “Dynamic Network Aesthetic” of Contemporary Poetry Generators

   This dissertation investigates the current state of digital poetry generators. The study argues that today’s poetry programs embody a new stage distinct from second- generation digital literature. The new stage projects a “dynamic network aesthetic,” reflective of four trends in Web 2.0 cultural production: the potential for mass aggregation; the adoption of participatory platforms; the instability of textual material; and the unpredictability of individual actors. The chapters interrogate the ways in which the four characteristics emerge in three categories of poetry generators: programs that manipulate user input; programs that manipulate Internet text; and programs that generate autonomous content. Corresponding with the three categories, three theorists of the machine inform the discussion. Donna Haraway, Jean Baudrillard, and Gilles Deleuze each provide apt approaches to twenty-first-century technology. However, each theorist also demonstrates the ways in which recent models of the machine do not yet fully account for the “dynamic network aesthetic” of the Internet era.

   Scott Rettberg - 08.01.2013 - 17:07

2. Theorizing Digital Narrative: Beginnings, Endings, and Authorship

   [Published under author's previous name, Jennifer Smith] Since its development, critics of electronic literature have touted all that is "new" about the field, commenting on how these works make revolutionary use of non-linear structure, hyperlinks, and user interaction. Scholars of digital narrative have most often focused their critiques within the paradigms of either the text-centric structuralist model of narrativity or post-structuralist models that implicate the text as fundamentally fluid and dependent upon its reader for meaning. But neither of these approaches can account completely for the unique modes in which digital narratives prompt readerly progression, yet still exist as independent creative artifacts marked by purposive design. I argue that, in both practice and theory, we must approach digital-born narratives as belonging to a third, hybrid paradigm. In contrast to standard critical approaches, I interrogate the presumed "newness" of digital narratives to reveal many aspects of these works that hearken to print predecessors and thus confirm classical narratological theories of structure and authorship.

   Jennifer Roudabush - 13.01.2013 - 23:40

3. Between Floors: The Ups and Downs of Mediated Narrative

   “Between Floors: The Ups and Downs of Mediated Narrative” and the accompanying creative remediation project, “Between Floors: Love and Other Blood Related Diseases,” meld theory and practice of print with electronic literature and installation art. I argue that as the medium changes, the narrative is transformed. The narrative can be reconstructed and pieced together as the reader or viewer becomes increasingly involved, even embodied within the work. This embodiment is what Nathaniel Stern calls “Moving and thinking and feeling” (1) and can result in a more direct emotional experience. The form, structure, and medium (sjužet) rely on authorial intention, yet as a narrative becomes more interactive and experiential the feedback loop shifts, placing meaning, message, and construction of narrative (fabula) between media and reader/viewer. This necessarily complicates the notion of authorship, yet within an embodied space, such as the installations included in this analysis, there is a potential for greater emotional understanding between author/artist and reader/viewer.

   Melinda White - 31.05.2014 - 16:17

4. Pivoting the Player. A Methodological Toolkit for the Player Character Research in Offline Role-Playing Games

   This thesis introduces an innovative method for the analysis of the player character (PC) in offline computer role-playing games (cRPGs). It derives from the assumption that the character constitutes the focal point of the game, around which all the other elements revolve. This underlying observation became the foundation of the Pivot Player Character Model, the framework illustrating the experience of gameplay as perceived through the PC’s eyes. Although VG characters have been scrutinised from many different perspectives, a uniform methodology has not been formed yet. This study aims to fill that methodological void by systematising the hitherto research and providing a method replicable across the cRPG genre. The proposed methodology builds upon the research of characters performed in video games, fiction, film, and drama. It has been largely inspired by Anne Ubersfeld’s semiological dramatic character research implemented in Reading Theatre I (1999).

   Jonatha Patrick Oliveira de Sousa - 06.10.2021 - 21:54