Search
The search found 53 results in 0.009 seconds.
Search results
-
Meta Discourse: An Investigation into Possibilities of Meta-Fictions in the 21st Century
The old rites of literature are quickly starting to come to a head, and as we move through the 21st century we will find ourselves staring into new modes of expression of literary concepts that we have known only on the printed page for centuries prior. Meta-fiction not only allows for new ways of approaching a narrative but also new ways of approaching literature in general, including electronic literature. Questioning the boundaries between the reader and the writer, the audience and the performer, the characters in the text and the ones reading it, one might say that meta-fiction was one of the first forms of hypertext mediums in which the reader was encouraged to draw on outside influences and information to arrive at the heart of the text. This understanding of meta-fiction, then, makes it an appropriate place to begin an analysis of new modes of discourse and the variability of the messages presented. In such a textually-conscious style of writing, how does the narrative alter according to the mode of presentation while still retaining a questioning and awareness of the literary roots?
Scott Rettberg - 07.01.2013 - 22:39
-
Hypermediating the Game Interface: Grand Theft Auto and the Alienation Effect
One of the most controversial computer games in recent years has been "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas" (Rockstar Games 2004). Much of the controversy surrounding the game (including the disparaging critiques of the likes of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton) centered around the relationship between the game's simulation of violence, sex, and racial stereotypes and the potential for this game interface to affect the real-world actions of its players. Though "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas" is often considered to simply be a gang-violence simulator, this paper will argue that the relationship between the digital interface and the potentially-affected material space can be altered in such a way as to create a sense of distanciation. Drawing from Bertolt Brecht's theory of the Alienation Effect (which is echoed in Bolter and Grusin's theory of the hypermediated interface), I will demonstrate how the customization possible in "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas" provides a framework for distanciation and socio-political critique essential to Brecht's theory.
Jill Walker Rettberg - 07.01.2013 - 22:44
-
Blending the Crossword with the Narrative: An Examination of the Storygame
Interactive narrative cannot be understood as only literature or as only game, nor even as a combative relationship between the two. Narrative-oriented "games" are neither novel nor movie, but they are likewise significantly different beasts than conventional, competitive games. They rather draw elements from both. We will come to terms with the concept of the storygame by examining the historical role of games in stories and stories in games to come to understand how the two forms combined into the modern storygame, focusing on the key traits of interactivity and immersion.
Scott Rettberg - 07.01.2013 - 22:47
-
Blurring of Public and Private Space in New Media Art
This paper seeks to address the discourse of the blurring of public and private space in new media art, specifically in Mouchette.org and Life Sharing by Eva and Franco Matteos. Both pieces utilize an understanding of the social systems inherent in new media art as a set of relations that require the user to complete. This system, dependant upon the relations that the user, the artist and the artwork creates a discourse on the concept of public and private space that is predicated on the notions of interactivity.
(Source: Author's abstract from ELO 2008 Conference site)
Jill Walker Rettberg - 07.01.2013 - 23:11
-
Original Chat: Exploring the Origins of the Turing Test
The chatbot, or conversational agent, is a new media art object that has been around since Joseph Weizenbaum's ELIZA (1966), which is included in ELO's directory of e-lit. These programs have since been adapted for electronic narratives and interactive dramas. Instigating this area of research, Alan Turing's thought experiment/dare, the Turing Test (1950), claimed that computers would soon be able to perform conversational exchange convincingly as humans. While many use the Turing Test to contextualize a discussion about chatbots, few have examined the origins of the Turing Test itself. Crossing the history of technology in this vision of a chatbot legacy, I will outline one new theory of the origins of the Turing Test, suggesting a lineage from the military-industrial complex that helps us to re-examine our interaction with artificial agents in electronic literature from IF works such as Emily Short's "Galatea" to Andrew Stern and Michael Mateas' "Facade."
Scott Rettberg - 08.01.2013 - 10:45
-
Brautigan Bibliography and Archive: Digitizing a Literary Life
I discuss the digitization of the literary life of author Richard Brautigan, a novelist, poet, and short story writer often cited as the writer to best capture the zeitgeist of the counterculture movement in San Francisco during the late 1960s and early 1970s. This digitization creates not only an archive, but a literary bio-bibliography as well, one that is written not from the perspective of an individual author or archivist (myself), but rather as an upshot of heretofore unachievable associations and interconnections of multiple kinds and sources of information (biographical, bibliographical, historical, ethnographical). The result is a 3-D knowledge base, a "data hive" with a unique and individual electronic literary presence
Scott Rettberg - 08.01.2013 - 11:07
-
From Audio Black to Artful Noises: Looking at Sound in Electronic Literature
The interplay between sound and image was a vexed issue for practioners and critics of the 20th century art screen art. As the story goes, some argued for a "complex interaction of sound with image" (Kahn 142) others for the political necessity of non-synchronized sound. Early on, "the dream" of "correlating sound and image" through localization (Altman) to deploy sound so as "to reinforce the reality effect" and to "induce[...] spectators to center their gaze." (Polet). There is a sense of disappointment in this trajectory, from the "talkie"to Dolby Surround, by which the sound track comes to maintenance of an illusionistic 3-dimensional visual space.
Scott Rettberg - 08.01.2013 - 11:36
-
Digging For The Roots Of Interactive Storytelling
This paper is a writer's reflections on the pre-computer origins of interactive narrative. It seeks out forms of human expression dating back to prehistory that can viewed as the precursors of contemporary interactive storytelling and contemplates what can be learned from these forms that can be applied to contemporary works of interactive storytelling. The examined forms include the participatory myth-based dramas of the ancient Egyptians and Greeks; coming of age rituals in traditional societies; games that blend spiritual beliefs and athleticism; and various Judeo-Christian and pagan religious practices.
Scott Rettberg - 08.01.2013 - 11:46
-
Played by Hyperfiction. Modes of Reading Megan Heyward's "Of Day, of Night"
How do we read digital literature? I want to approach the topic by studying how electronic literature prefigures the reader's response. The aim of this paper is to explore some of the preconditions for reading electronic literature. I argue that electronic literature might be considered as a text game, in Wolfgang Iser's sense, and that different work prefigures different attitudes towards reading. The attitudes regarding reading, or modes of reading, I will focus on the semantic orientation of reading, aesthetic enjoyment, a mode of gaining experience, and absorption of the reader.
(Source: Author's abstract, 2008 ELO Conference)
Scott Rettberg - 08.01.2013 - 11:59
-
An Archival Approach to Curating Born-Digital and Electronic Literary Materials
This panel session will explore the curation of electronic or born-digital materials in literary manuscript collections. Speakers will discuss how they applied (or tried to apply) traditional archival theories of appraisal, transfer, processing, preservation, and access to electronic records within their collections. The session will interest writers and artists, scholars, and curators and archivists specializing in electronic media and provide a unique chance for intellectual exchange between these groups.
(Source: 2008 ELO Conference site)
Scott Rettberg - 08.01.2013 - 12:10
