Off Center

In this episode, Scott Rettberg is joined by immersive storyteller Caitlin Fisher, director of York University's Immersive Storytelling Lab. They discuss topics such as augmented and virtual reality, electronic literature, future cinema, and emerging technology. 

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Eastgate Systems. 1987. Storyspace. http://www.eastgate.com/storyspace/. 

Fisher, C. 2001. These Waves of Girls. Web. https://www.yorku.ca/caitlin/waves/  

Arellano, R. 1996. Sunshine ’69. [Hypertext]. Web. SonicNet. https://bobbyrabyd.github.io/Sunshine69/noflash.html.  

Humphrey, A., Fisher, C., Hoffman, S. J., & Ulit-Destajo, L. 2021. Shadowpox: The Antibody Politic. [Motion-tracked interactive projections]. At the Immune Nations exhibition at McMaster Museum of Art. 

Hoffman, S. J. & Fisher, C. 2023. Mobilizing the arts for global health: a virtual museum of antimicrobial resistance. [VR museum].  

This work was partially supported by the Research Council of Norway Centres of Excellence, project number 332643, Center for Digital Narrative.

In this episode, Scott Rettberg is joined by novelist and professor of Emerging Media and Digital Art at Southern Oregon University, Robert Arellano. They discuss the history of hypertext and Robert’s breakthrough hypertext novel.

Amerika, Mark. 1997. GRAMMATRON. https://markamerika.com/artworks/grammatron-by-mark-amerika

Arellano, Robert. 1996. Sunshine '69. https://bobbyrabyd.github.io/sunshine69//’

Arellano, Robert. 2001. Fast Eddie, King of the Bees. Akashic.

Arellano, Robert. 2009. Havana Lunar. Akashic.

Coover, Robert. 1992. “The End of Books.” The New York Times Book Review, June 21, 1992. https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/98/09/27/specials/coover-end.html

Coover, Robert. 1992. Hypertext Hotel.

Coover, Robert. 1999. “Literary Hypertext: The Passing of the Golden Age.” Keynote Address, Digital Arts and Culture 1999. https://nickm.com/vox/golden_age.html

Coover, Robert. 2023. Open House. OR Books.

Gillespie, William, Scott Rettberg, Dirk Stratton and Frank Marquardt. 1998. The Unknown. https://unknownhypertext.com/

Infocom. Zork. Personal Software. PDP-10. 1977.

Jackson, Shelley. 1995. Patchwork Girl. Eastgate Systems.

Oldham, Will. 1992. Riding.

Perec, George. 1978. Life: A User’s Manual. Hachette Littératures.

Rettberg, Scott. 2018. Electronic Literature. Polity Press

Shelley, Mary. 1818. Frankenstein.

This research is partially supported by the Research Council of Norway Centers of Excellence program, project number 332643, Center for Digital Narrative and project number 335129, Extending Digital Narrative. 

In this episode, Scott Rettberg is joined by Flourish Klink, one of the ‘Fansplaining’ podcast hosts to discuss the world of fandoms and the creation of fanfiction about books, movies, shows, and celebrities.  

Brontë, Charlotte. 1847. Jane Eyre. Smith, Elder & Co.

Fielding, Henry. 1741. An Apology for the Life of Mrs. Shamela Andrews. A. Dodd.

Gabaldon, Diana. 1991. Outlander. Delacorte Books.

James, E.L. 2011. Fifty Shades of Grey. Vintage Books.

Jenkins, Henry. 1992. Textual Poachers: Television Fans & Participatory Culture. Routledge.

Jenkins, Henry. 2006. Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. NYU Press.

Meyer, Stephenie. 2005. Twilight. Little, Brown and Company.

Richardson, Samuel. 1740.Pamela. Messrs Rivington & Osborn.

Skam. 2015 - 2017. NRK.

Star Trek: The Animated Series. 1973 – 1975. NBC.

Supernatural. 2005 - 2020. The CW.

The X-Files. 1993-2018. Fox.

Virgil. The Aenid. 19 B.C.E.

Doctor Who. 1963 -. BBC.

Scott Rettberg is this time joined by Center for Digital Narrative PI Nick Montfort. Together they dive into topics such as computational narrative systems, platform studies, and interactive fiction. 

References

Chandler, Otis and Elizabeth K. Chandler, 2006. Goodreads. Social network site. https://www.goodreads.com/.

Custodio, Alex. 2020. Who Are You? Nintendo’s Game Boy Advance Platform. MIT Press.

Hayles, N. Katherine, Nick Montfort, Scott Rettberg and Stephanie Strickland. 2006. Electronic Literature Collection: Volume 1. https://collection.eliterature.org/1/.

Infocom. Bureaucracy. Infocom. Various platforms. 1987.

Infocom. Deadline. Infocom. Various platforms. 1982.

Infocom. The Hitchhiker’s guide to the Galaxy. Infocom. Various platforms. 1984.

Infocom. Zork. Infocom. PDP-10. 1977.

Meehan, James. 1976. Tale-Spin. A program that writes simple stories.

Montfort, Nick. 1999. Winchester’s Nightmare: A Novel Machine. Interactive fiction. Web edition: https://nickm.com/if/parchment/index.html?story=stories/winchest.z8.js.

Montfort, Nick. 2005. Twisty Little Passages: An Approach to Interactive Fiction. MIT Press.

Montfort, Nick. 2006. Ad Verbum. Interactive fiction. Web edition: https://nickm.com/if/parchment/index.html?story=stories/adverbum.z5.js.

Montfort, Nick. 2008. ppg256. (Perl Poetry Generator in 256 characters) series. https://collection.eliterature.org/2/works/montfort_ppg256/ppg256.html.

Montfort, Nick. 2023. “Why I Am Not an Algorist.” In Poème Objkt Sbjkt, Paris: Librairie Galerie Métamorphoses, pp. 126–131.

Montfort, Nick and Ian Bogost. 2020. Racing the Beam: The Atari Video Computer System. MIT Press.

Montfort, Nick. “Taroko Gorge.” On nickm.com, 2009; In #!, (Nick Montfort, Denver: Counterpath) 2014; With remixes, in Electronic Literature Collection, volume 3, February 2016. https://nickm.com/taroko_gorge/.

OpenAI. 2023. ChatGPT [Large language model]. https://chat.openai.com/chat.

Rettberg, Scott. “Tokyo Garage.” On retts.net, 2009. https://retts.net/tokyogarage.html.

Rowberry, Simon Peter. 2022. Four Shades of Gray: The Amazon Kindle Platform. MIT Press.

Stephens, Paul. 2015. The Poetics of Information Overload: From Gertrude Stein to Conceptual Writing. University of Minnesota Press.

Stephens, Paul. 2020. absence of clutter: minimal writing as art and literature. MIT Press.

University of Bergen. n. d. “Center for Digital Narrative.” https://www.uib.no/en/cdn.

Wardrip-Fruin, Noah and Nick Montfort. 2003. The New Media Reader. MIT Press.

This research is partially supported by the Research Council of Norway Centres of Excellence program, project number 332643, Center for Digital Narrative and project number 335129, Extending Digital Narrative.

In this episode of ‘Off Center’ Scott Rettberg is joined by Lai-Tze Fan to discuss gendered AI voice assistance, editorial labour, and her online collaborative works.  

References

America Online. 1996. “ICQ”. https://icq.com/.

Decameron Collective. 2022. “Decameron 2.0.” https://www.decameroncollective.com/decameron2-0

Electronic Book Review. n. d. “Electronic Book Review.” https://electronicbookreview.com/.

ELMCIP. n. d. “Electronic Literature Knowledge Base.” https://elmcip.net/.

Fan, Lai-Tze. 2023. Reverse engineering the gendered design of Amazon’s Alexa: Methods in testing closed-source code in grey and black box systems. Digital Humanities Quarterly, 17(2). https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7271-2160.

Kairos. n.d. “Kairos.” https://kairos.technorhetoric.net/about.html

Microsoft. 1995. “MSN”. https://www.msn.com/.

OpenAI. 2023. ChatGPT [Large language model]. https://chat.openai.com/chat.

The Digital Review. 2022. “The Digital Review, issue 01.” https://thedigitalreview.com/.

Unity Technologies. 2005. “Unity.” https://unity.com/.

Urban One. 1997. “AsianAvenue”. (Currently redirected to https://blackplanet.com/)

This research is partially supported by the Research Council of Norway Centres of Excellence program, project number 332643, Center for Digital Narrative and project number 335129, Extending Digital Narrative.

Scott Rettberg is back with a new episode of the podcast Off Center. This time he is joined by Drew Keller to discuss computational creativity and storytelling in media production.  

References

Adobe Inc. 2023. Photoshop. macOS and Windows.

Freedgood, Elaine. 2003. “Fine Fingers: Victorian Handmade Lace and Utopian Consumption.” Victorian Studies 45 (4): 625-647. Accessed November 14, 2022. http://www.jstor.com/stable/3829530.

Keller, Drew. 2023. Computational Creativity in Media Production: At the Crossroad of Progress and Peril. [Master’s Thesis]. Download: https://bora.uib.no/bora-xmlui/handle/11250/3071882

Microsoft. 2016. PowerPoint. macOS and Windows.

OpenAI. 2023. ChatGPT [Large language model]. https://chat.openai.com/chat.

This research is partially supported by the Research Council of Norway Centres of Excellence program, project number 332643, Center for Digital Narrative and project number 335129, Extending Digital Narrative.

+ Announcing the More Than Meets AI exhibition at UC Berkeley's Worth Ryder Gallery

Curated by Jill Miller, Eamon O’Kane, and Scott Rettberg, “More Than Meets AI'' explores artificial intelligence and its role in creativity, narrative, and artistic innovation. This exhibition critically engages with AI by highlighting its new creative possibilities for the arts and literature while also recognizing its significant consequences to our culture and society, reflecting on contemporary AI art’s place in relation to historical work in electronic literature. 

Artists in the exhibition:

Mez Breeze, Edgar Fabian Frias, Micol Hebron, Carl Hugo Hernqvist, David Jhave Johnston, Asma Kazmi, Alison Knowles, Alinta Krauth, Koirus (Linda Kronman and Andreas Zingerle), Patrick Lichty, Theo Lutz, Talan Memmott, Avital Meshi, Jill Miller, Nick Montfort, Jason Nelson, Eamon O'Kane, Mario de la Ossa, Sonja Rappaport, Scott Rettberg, Mario Santamaria, Alex Saum, Sasha Stiles, and Victor H. Yngve

Opening Reception: Wednesday, October 10th, 2023. 5pm - 7pm. Worth Ryder Art Gallery (AAPB 116)

Exhibit Run: October 2nd - October 15, 2023

M, T, TH, F: 12pm - 5pm. W: 1pm - 7pm. Sat: 12pm - 3pm. Closed Sundays.

UC Berkeley, Anthropology + Art Practice Building, Rm 116 (First Floor)

In this episode of ‘Off Center’ Scott Rettberg and journalist and digital culture researcher Ashleigh Steele discuss the impact of memes as "preparatory media" for the January 6th insurrection at the US Capitol.  

Barthes, Roland. 1968. Elements of Semiology. Translated by Annette Lavers and Colin Smith. New York: Hill and Wang.

Munn, Luke. 2021. “More Than a Mob: Parler as Preparatory Media for the U.S. Capitol Storming”. First Monday, 26(3). DOI:10.5210/fm.v26i3.11574.

OpenAI. 2023. ChatGPT [Large language model]. https://chat.openai.com/chat.

Petras, George., Loehrke, Janet., Padilla, Ramon., Zarrachina, Javier & Borresen, Jennifer. January 7, 2021. “Timeline: How the storming of the U.S. Capitol unfolded on Jan. 6.” USA Today News. https://eu.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/2021/01/06/dc-protests-capitol-riot-trump-supporters-electoral-college-stolen-election/6568305002/.

Steele, Ashleigh. 2023. Free speech platforms and the impact of the U.S. insurrection: Misinformation in memes. [Master’s Thesis].

Torba, Andrew. “Gab.” Version 2019. https://gab.com/.

Trump Media & Technology Group. “Truth Social.” Version 2022. Truthsocial.com. https://truthsocial.com/.

This research is partially supported by the Research Council of Norway Centres of Excellence program, project number 332643, Center for Digital Narrative.

In this episode of Off Center, Scott Rettberg and Jason Nelson come together to talk about digital art and poetry, art games, and the bridge to researching Extended Digital Narratives.  

References

ACM SIGGRAPH. n. d. “ACM SIGGRAPH.” https://www.siggraph.org/.

Barthes, Roland. 1957. Mythologies. Les Lettres nouvelles.

Blizzard Entertainment. Diablo. Blizzard Entertainment. Microsoft Windows. 1997.

Burning Deck. n. d. “Burning Deck Press.” https://burningdeck.com/.

Electronic Literature Organization. n. d. “Electronic Literature Organization.” https://eliterature.org/.

Gertrude Street Projection Festival. n. d. “GS.PF.” https://www.gspf.com.au/.

Leishman, Donna. 2005. Deviant. https://tohavetohold.uk/deviant.

Nelson, Jason. 2007. Game, Game, Game and Again Game. Web.

Nelson, Jason. 2010. i made this. you play this. we are enemies. Web.

OpenAI. 2022. Dall∙E 2. https://openai.com/dall-e-2.

This research is partially supported by the Research Council of Norway Centres of Excellence program, project number 332643, Center for Digital Narrative and project number 335129, Extending Digital Narrative.

In this episode, Scott Rettberg is joined by Joseph Tabbi, professor of English at the University of Bergen to discuss the electronic book review, research infrastructure, and electronic literature. 

References

Braidotti, Rosi and Maria Hlavajova. 2018. Posthuman glossary. Bloomsbury Publishing.

Braidotti, Rosi, Emily Jones and Goda Klumbyte. 2022. More posthuman glossary. Bloomsbury Publishing.

Burdick, Anne, Johanna Drucker, Peter Lunenfeld, Todd Presner and Jeffrey Schnapp. 2016.* Digital_Humanities.* The MIT Press. https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262528863/digital_humanities/.

Electronic Book Review. n. d. “Electronic Book Review.” https://electronicbookreview.com/.

Electronic Literature Organisation. n. d. “Electronic Literature Organisation.” https://eliterature.org/.

Eskelinen, Markku. 2001. “Towards computer game studies.” Digital Creativity, 12(3), 175-183. https://doi.org/10.1076/digc.12.3.175.3232.

Fiction Collective 2. n. d. “Fiction Collective 2.” https://fc2.org/.

NT2. n. d. “NT2 Répertoire Des Arts et Littératures Hypermédiatiques.” https://nt2.uqam.ca/en/search/site.

Tabbi, Joseph. 2015. Nobody Grew but the Business: On the Life and Work of William Gaddis. Northwestern University Press.

Tabbi, Joseph. 2020. Post-Digital: Dialogues and Debates from electronic book review. Bloomsbury Publishing.

This research is partially supported by the Research Council of Norway Centres of Excellence program, project number 332643, Center for Digital Narrative and project number 335129, Extending Digital Narrative.

In this first episode of the podcast, Scott Rettberg is joined by his co-director and partner Jill Walker Rettberg. They talk about what has inspired them over the years to start this research Center of Excellence, the concept of "algorithmic narrativity," and some of the research that the Center will focus on including digital narratives in electronic literature, computer games, social media, computational narrative systems, AI, XR and more.

Sign up for the CDN newsletter here.

References

University of Bergen. n. d. “Center for Digital Narrative.” https://www.uib.no/en/cdn.

Infocom. 1977. Zork. Personal Software. PDP-10 mainframe computer. https://www.pcjs.org/software/pcx86/game/infocom/zork1/.

Gillespie, W., Rettberg, S., Stratton, D., & Marquadt, F. 1999. The Unknown [Hypertext fiction]. Web. http://unknownhypertext.com/.

ELMCIP. n. d. “Electronic Literature Knowledge Base.” https://elmcip.net/.

Strachey, Christopher. 1952. M.U.C. Love Letter Generator. HTML.

ELMCIP. n. d. “Digital Arts and Culture 1998 Conference.” https://elmcip.net/event/digital-arts-and-culture-1998-conference.

Kittler, Friedrich, Dorothea von Mücke, and Philippe L. Similon. 1987. “Gramophone, Film, Typewriter.” October 41: 101–18. https://doi.org/10.2307/778332.

Jhave Johnston, David. 2019. ReRites. Anteism Books, Montreal. http://glia.ca/rerites/.

Wittig, Rob. 2022. Netprov: Networked Improvised Literature for the Classroom and Beyond. Amherst College Press. https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.12387128.

University of Bergen. n. d. “Machine Vision.” https://www.uib.no/en/machinevision.

This work was partially supported by the Research Council of Norway Centres of Excellence, project number 332643, Center for Digital Narrative.