ENGL 303: Multimedia Writing Fall 2008

http://www.clc.wvu.edu:8080/clc/Members/sbaldwin/courses/engl303f08
Note: this website is the authoritative version of the class syllabus.
Professor Sandy Baldwin
charles.baldwin at mail.wvu.edu
293-9703 (try emailing first)
Office Hours: TR 1000-1115, Colson G21 and by appointment.
The Center for Literary Computing / www.clc.wvu.edu

Course Description

"In a culture like ours, long accustomed to splitting and dividing all things as a means of control, it is sometimes a bit of a shock to be reminded that, in operational and practical fact, the medium is the message. This is merely to say that the personal and social consequences of any medium - that is, of any extension of ourselves - result from the new scale that is introduced into our affairs by each extension of ourselves, or by any new technology. . . . The content of any medium is always another medium. The content of writing is speech, just as the written word is the content of print, and print is the content of the telegraph." (McLuhan, Understanding Media)

“All media work us over completely. They are so pervasive in their personal, political, economic, aesthetic, psychological, moral, ethical, and social consequences that they leave no part of us untouched, unaffected, unaltered. The medium is the massage. Any understanding of social and cultural change is impossible without a knowledge of the way media work as environments.” (McLuhan and Fiore, The Medium is the Massage)

From the English Department Catalog: "Study of communication and design issues in multimedia composition. Focuses on communication, creative expression, persuasion, interactivity, and rhetorical principles. Practice in composing multimedia documents such as online publications, interactive literary works and tutorials. ENGL 303 is part of the English Department's Technical Writing and Editing sequence." ENGL 303 is neither a web design course nor an intro to html; this is a writing course and does involve considerable writing. The course topics vary by semester. The fall 2008 course will include a focused study of creative practices in new media and electronic literature as a way of understanding multimedia writing. The course adopts "uncreativity as creative practice," as espoused by Kenny Goldsmith: open to all, valueless, fun, and real.

Required Texts

• Electronic Literature: New Horizons for the Literary. N. Katherine Hayles. Website for text. The text includes a CD-ROM of the Electronic Literature Collection Volume 1. Selections in the collection are also available online and the syllabus notes the urls for the online versions. Readings for this text are noted in the syllabus as EL.

• Rhythm Science. Paul D. Miller aka Dj Spooky that Subliminal Kid. Website for text and also. The text includes a CD-ROM of examples that accompany the writing. Readings for this text are noted in the syllabus as RS.

Course Format

Lectures, discussion, hand-on workshops. You need access to a camera, preferably digital, and a computer with internet access.

Requirements and activities.

The following are brief summaries of activities to be scheduled throughout the semester. There will be other in-class activities, including in-class writing. All technical skills will be taught in class.

Response Posts. 5 of 6 scheduled posts at 5% ea for 25%. Posts are graded pass/fail. Six are scheduled on the syllabus and you are allowed to skip one of your choice. Each post is a brief writing - at least 300 words - reflecting on the course reading and discussion, posted to your blog, unless otherwise indicated in the syllabus. Postings are due by class time, unless otherwise indicated.

Project. 5 projects, 15% ea = 75%. All projects must be posted to your blog by class time on the due date. There will be opportunity to workshop and revise the project in class, and you will then be able to post revisions to your blog up until midnight of the same day. All projects must include a meta-text or preface of at least a page, reflecting on the process and experience of the project. Some strategies in writing your meta-text/preface: consider what you learned, what questions were answered, what questions remain; define key concepts, terms, and references; connect the project to the readings and to other projects in the course.

• Project 1. Create a multimedia writing as a concrete visual text. The project may be in any file format. "The idea of notation implies, if not demands, performance”(Young). Write your own or adapt one. It must use strong visual elements and textual elements, typography, placement, etc. Some ideas (you do not need to take up all of these): use color, shape, layering, etc.; look at ethnographic inspirations, look at Young's examples of contemporary notations; notate or score the text for performance; treat language as a material medium – code, flesh, wood, air, etc. – rather than a message; use shape and layering; make a digital emblem; create a single complex image or several connected images; consider brief and extended reading; involve the kinesthetics of reading – the body, the voice, movement, etc.; work at the intersection of word / letter and image; use word/image to negate notation. Make an concrete text in Powerpoint and upload it to your blog, or make an animation/presentation in Powerpoint and publish it on Google Docs, or make an image/animation in the Gimp and upload it to your blog. Treat your project - the words, the page, the images - as sampling, as the equivalent of a DJ Spooky song.
• Project 2. McCloud's definition of comics/sequential writing: "Juxtaposed pictorial and other images in deliberate sequence intended to convey information and/or to produce an aesthetic response in the viewer." Create a multimedia writing as a remix composed of your own writing and other materials, and designed to be read sequentially. The project may be in any file format. The project must include images (at least 5), and sound or animation (or both). Possibilities (you do not need to take up all of these): write a poem; write a narrative; write some other medium or genre (comic or documentary adventure, etc.); include as many media as possible; include only two media (e.g. image and text) and focus on their interaction; incorporate "time sequence" (a la McCloud) or focus on a single moment. Remember, sequence suggests some story/narrative, though yours can be abstract, poetic, everyday, grand, mysterious, etc. Techniques so far: 1) Writing/linking on blog; 2) Presentation via Office/Google Docs. 3) Images, including animated gifs. 4) Google Maps. 5) Audio with Audacity. 6) Video with Windows Moviemaker. 6) Or use tools you know (e.g. Flash, Quicktime, etc), or use Flickr, YouTube, Photobucket and other online media sites. Use any and as many as you want!
• Project 3. Create a multimedia writing as a series of texts composed with algorithms/processes. Choose a combination of texts you write and texts you find. You might use an autobiographical text or a story you've written or a poem...? You could find source texts in books or on the web or on the back of a chewing gum wrapper or...? The project may be in any file format. Put the texts into your blog; put them into MovieMaker; record them; or leave them be. The series can be generated from the in-class exercises. As a guideline, write at least three texts of at least a page each plus your meta-text. Write a careful meta-text about how the texts were generated (i.e. what methods you used, what source materials); what makes the results interesting (what do the results show either about your writing, about the source material, about all of these?); try to analyze your texts in detail... Give careful attention to your meta-text!
• Project 4. Create a multimedia writing that deals with the everyday and/or personal and/or scandalous and/or unspeakable (note: these are not all the same and might not at all involve the autobiographical). The work must involve others in its process, either through collaboration or other means. You might use a series of email or AIM chats. You might create a narrative on your blog and allow others to contribute and extend it. You might post all the contents of your telephone answering machine. Or you can use other techniques. The project may be in any file format. Write what cannot be written. Work with surprise, the unexpected, the secret. Use the memorable, the unforgettable; use the everyday, the leftover, the forgotten.
• Project 5. Create a multimedia writing. The project may be in any file format. Open topic, single requirement: it must draw on everyday life either as content or as location (i.e. for the latter, it must create a real event). The project must be "mixed-reality." Note: this can be collaborative, though the extent and ambition of the project should be balanced by the number of people working on it.

Participation and attendance

Participation and attendance are crucial. The class is run in a discussion/workshop format, and a great deal occurs in the interactions and collaborations of the classroom. I assume that you will attend and participate in all classes and class activities. I will begin taking attendance after the first week of class. You are allowed two unexcused absences, after which unexcused absences will reduce your overall grade by up to a full letter. If you believe your absence is excusable, it is your responsibility to discuss it with me. I will determine what constitutes an excuse. All reading, writing, and other work is due on the date indicated on the schedule. Unexcused late work will receive no credit. I will determine what constitutes an excuse. Participation is equally important. If it is clear that you are not participating, and this includes not doing the assigned reading for the class, your overall course grade will be reduced by up to a full letter. You should attend class even if you have not done the work, however, since a great deal happens during class and your presence contributes to the communal learning environment.

Grade Descriptors

Adapted from standard grade descriptors for writing courses. These are intended to give general grading guidelines and may not apply in every case.

A Exemplary work that demonstrates originality and initiative. The content is mature, thorough, and well-suited for the audience; the style is clear, accurate, and forceful; the information is well-organized and formatted so that it is accessible and attractive; genre conventions are effectively used; mechanics and grammar are correct.

B Good work. The work generally succeeds in meeting goals in terms of audience, purpose, and genre without the need for further major revisions. It may need some minor improvements in idea, content, presentation, or writing style/mechanics.

C Satisfactory. Work is adequate but requires some substantial revisions of idea, content, presentation, or writing style/mechanics; may require further work in more than one area.

D Work is unprofessional, requires extensive revisions of idea, content, presentation, writing style, and/or mechanics. The writer has encountered significant problems meeting goals of audience, purpose, and genre.

F Not enough information; inappropriate for the situation; and/or major and pervasive problems in terms of content, presentation, or writing style/mechanics that interfere with meaning. May be incomplete, or plagiarism may compromises the work on ethical grounds.

Academic Integrity

West Virginia University expects that every member of its academic community shares the historic and traditional commitment to honesty, integrity, and the search for truth. Academic dishonesty includes plagiarism, cheating and dishonest practices; and forgery, misrepresentation, or fraud.

Social Justice Statement

"West Virginia University is committed to social justice. I concur with that commitment and expect to maintain a positive learning environment based upon open communication, mutual respect, and nondiscrimination. Our University does not discriminate on the basis of race, sex, age, disability, veteran status, religion, sexual orientation, color or national origin. Any suggestions as to how to further such a positive and open environment in this class will be appreciated and given serious consideration. If you are a person with a disability and anticipate needing any type of accommodation in order to participate in this class, please advise me and make appropriate arrangement with Disability Services (293-6700)."

Schedule

Read Read and be prepared to discuss for class. Look Look at, browse, and familiarize for class. Topics What will be covered in class. Due Assignments due at the beginning of class.

Aug 19

Topics: Course syllabus. Defining multimedia writing.

Look: Four examples of multimedia writing. I Ching Poetry Engine, Donna Leishman, Deviant, Young Hae Chang, All Fall Down, Jason Nelson, Evil Hypnotizing Mascots.

Aug 21

Topics: What is a medium? Defining electronic/web writing. What is the medium of writing for the web? Thesis: the web turns on the multimediality of writing. Being online autobiography. Intro to blogging. Create a blog and email the address to Sandy. Remember: you can have multiple blogs under your account.

Read: Krug, Sample chapter from Don't Make Me Think, Nielson, How users read on the web and Be Succinct!.

Look: Jodi. Internet timeline

Aug 26

Topics: Notation and performance. Types of notation. Intersection of the visible and readable. Kinesthetics and media. Kinesthesia: "The sense that detects bodily position, weight, or movement of the muscles, tendons, and joints." Notation and contemporary reading/writing, including the web? What can we take and adapt from Young's essay? History and structure of the web. Structure of a webpage. Intro to basic html. Email Sandy blog addresses!

Read: Young, Notation and the Art of Reading. Be sure to follow the links and look at the images! This is a key text for the first project.

Look: Ethnopoetry Visuals and Early Visual Poetry. Recommended: NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day, Altered Books

Due: Response 1. Posted to blog by class time. At least 300 words! Describe at least three different types of notation discussed in Young’s article. How is each type read and performed? How are kinesthetics involved?

Aug 28

Topics: 1) Create a web page. 2) Concrete Poetry. The interface of writing and visuality. Ekphrasis ("a painting that talks"/"writing concerning itself with the visual arts, artistic objects, and/or highly visual scenes"). Line and constellation. 3) "r-p-o-p-h-e-s-s-a-g-r" and Gomringer poems. 4) Intro to web graphics/images. 5) Think towards Project 1. Look for things to adapt and borrow! If there's time: Office software as composition tools

Read: Gomringer, From Line to Constellation and Concrete Poetry, Cummings, r-p-o-p-h-e-s-s-a-g-r.

Look: Williams, The Figure 5, Poundstone, New Digital Emblems, De Campos, Unititled and Untitled, Gomringer, Ping Pong, Wind, o, Solt, Flowers, Clemente Padin, Poems, Bruce Andrews, Poems.

Sep 2

Topics: 1) Multimedia Writing and Visuality. Review so far. 2) Discuss first project. 3) More on web graphics/images/texts. Sources for images: Afterimage, Google Images. MS Office as composition tool. Make a spatial text. Try Powerpoint! First choose a short text. What text? Remediate a concrete poem? Or another poem? e.g. Red Wheelbarrow? Or a slogan? Or a random haiku? You choose! Add notation, scoring, etc. Save - choose format - and upload. 4) Write towards first project. Questions?

Read: Shirley Jackson, My Body a Wunderkammer

Look: Stephanie Strickland, Slipping Glimpse, Rainer Strasser and Alan Sondheim, Dawn and Tao, Piringer, Visual Poems, Dan Waber, Strings and 5x5, Ted Warnell, Poems, Mary Flanagan, The House.

Due by midnight: Response 2. Post writing of / towards your first project with a description of how you will notate and transform it.

Sep 4

Topics: 1) Review. 2) DJ Spooky Look at DJ, Vector, Flow, Freestyle. Think of your project in these terms: sampling, freestyling, dj-ing, vectoring... 3) Look at website examples. 4) Read and respond to at least two blog postings. (Sandy will respond over the weekend.) Try to get them to approach their project like DJ Spooky! 5) Multimedia Writing and Visuality. Graphics on the web. Gimp/Photoshop overview. Layers, animations.

Read: RS through page 32 ("Uncanny/Unwoven"). Listen to the CD!

Look: Oculart, Playdamage, Superbad. Recommended: Young Hae Chang, Shredder and Riot (Shredder and Riot are alternative browsers that make art out of webpages).

Sep 9

Topics: Workshop and share project 1.
1) Make sure the final posting of Project 1 is clearly marked. You can always edit the title of a blog post: make sure it says Project 1 Final Post.
2) You can post any format file to Google Docs. Upload it and then publish it. Post this published url into your blog.
3) The project must be posted by midnight (with a little leeway...).
4) Don't forget the Preface/Metatext. Talk about why you chose this project, what it means and how it means.
5) Workshop projects. Respond using questions here.

Due: Project 1, by class time.

Sep 11

Topics:
1) Looking back at Project 1 (mastering technology vs. technology as tool for invention), thinking towards Project 2.
2) Narrative. Basic concepts for Project 2.
3) Sequential writing as a second fundamental feature of multimedia writing (after the concrete word/image). Sequence as link, as screen, as scroll. Direction of text. The infinite page.
4) The vocabulary of comics as the vocabulary of multimedia. Terms: icon ("any image used to represent a person, place, thing of idea"), amplification through simplification ("By stripping down an image to essential meaning, an artist can amplify that meaning"), closure (filling in), "time frames" (look at examples).

Read: McCloud, The Vocabulary of comics, Time Frames, McCloud, I can't stop thinking (especially the first four), Chapter 5 1/2.

Look: Carl Stories, Improv, Grafik Dynamo. Also: Bright Morning Blue, Pup, Nowhere Girl, E-Merl, PO COM, Vera Brosgol Return to Sender, Peter Blegrad, Leviathan, Nouveau Western

Recommended: Exploding Dog, Ninjai, August Strindberg and Helium, Home star runner, Jotto, Bubblesoap, Bembo, Mumbleboy, The Boy

Sep 16

Topics: 1) Respond to two other blog postings. Suggest terms from narratology that could apply to the examples. 2) Animated electronic literature. Digital Narrative. Sequence in storytelling. 3) Using Google Maps as an easy narrative technique.

Read: RS through page 77 ("Rhythmic Cinema"). Listen to the CD!

Look: Lailiana, Zombie and Mummy, J. R. Carpenter, The Cape and Entre Ville, The Night of Melvin's Murder, Geniwaite, Rice, Marsh, Landscapes,

Due: Response 3. Apply McCloud's concepts to two works from the list for today's class (or one from today's class and one from the recommended list from last Thursday's class). Focus on one or two concepts and discuss specific ways that they are employed in the works. Concepts might include sequential writing, time frames, closure, amplification through simplification, etc.

Sep 18

Topics: 1) Separate blog for project 2. 2) What terms can be adapted from DJ Spooky? Spooky wiki posting (center, center). 3) Animation / movement / sound / rhythm. Journey as a metaphor/narrative context. 4) Quicktime Pro and Audacity.

Read: RS through the end of the book. Listen to the CD!

Look: The Drive Project, Pullinger and Babel, Inanimate Alice, Ankerson and Sapnar, Cruising. Recommended: Tale of Tales, Loyer, Chroma, What we will.

Sep 23

Topic:
1) More on Audacity. Recording tips: minimize background noise; use a good mic and adjust mic level; adjust sample rate / size in preferences.
2) MP3 Files in "center" or windows media. Code here. Or WMV files through Moviemaker.
3)Poetry and sound.

Read: Higgins, A Taxonomy of Sound Poetry, Cobbing, Some Statements on Sound Poetry. Recommended: Anti-Records and Conceptual Disks.

Look and listen: Ethnographic Soundings, Masakoa/Ritual with Giant Hissing Madagascar Cockroaches, McCaffery, Carnival, Bok, Ursonate, Schwitter, Ursonate Score, Stein Would He Like It, Beckett, Rule Number Two, Cobbing An Alphabet of Fishes, Emmett Williams, Duet, Bernstein, Girly Man. Recommended: How to read an oral poem, Rothenberg, Horse Song

Sep 25

Hayles: Electronic Literature works as "new horizons for the literary" because it "tests the boundaries of the literary and challenges us to rethink our assumptions of what literature can do and be."

Topics:
1) Examples. In search of lost Tim. Previous semester (different assignment): 1 2, 3. Bert example.
2) Using Windows Moviemaker (upload to blog).
3) Look at sound in Electronic Literature (examples below). Where is the interface of sound/noise and music/song?
4) Listen to your soundings (groups of 3). Discuss where they move towards narrative, sequence, performance...
5) Discuss your project. Utilize vocabulary/concepts from narratology, McCloud, and Spooky.

Read: EL Chapter 1.

Look and listen: YHC’s sound e.g. Dakota, Piringer sound poems, Mencia, Birds singing other birds songs, Smilie, Illiad. Recommended: CTheory, NetNoise.

Due: Response 4. Record a poem on the edge of sound, voice, noise, and static. At least 30 seconds. Post it to your blog along with a brief (100 word minimum) reflection.

Sep 30

Topics: Workshop and share project 2. Workshop groups: 1) White, Ryan, Myers, Jimmie 2) Vassar, Ploger, Mitchem, Humphreys 3) Thrasher, Philips, Maruso, Dempsey 4) Scott, Olive, Johnson, Clemens 5) Schoolcraft, Lutgring, Landers, Brown

• Write on your blog: How do you feel about your second project so far? What is working, what isn't? What do you need help with? What do you like best about it?
• In your groups, focus on one person at a time. That person presents work to the group.
• Respond with a critique. In your response consider the following: 1) How can the work itself incorporate concepts from at least one of the following: McCloud, narratology, and DJ Spooky? 2) Does the work meet the prompt, i.e. a narrative sequence, use of text written by the author + images + audio and/or animation? 3) What do you like most about the look and feel of the work? 4) What needs help in the look/feel/design/technology of the work? Can you help or suggest edits? 4) Give the person a "to-do" list. What should they do first?

Oct 2

Topics: Algorithmic Texts. intermediation. cognitive function of writing. drafts of consciousness. author <-> computer <-> reader.

Read: EL Chapter 2. Dada.

Look: Joyce, Twelve Blue, Birds Singing, Gysin, Cut Ups Self-Explained. Gulliver's Travels, Nelson, Poem Cube, Lazurus Cut-Up, Diastic Reading, Travesty Text, Language is a Virus, The Shannonizer, Cut-up Spellcheck, Cramer's Permutations, Anagram Generator

Due: Project 2, by class time.

Oct 7

• Algorithmic Texts. An algorithm is a process or a set of rules e.g. the artist La Monte Young's work "Composition 1960 #10," which consists of the following instruction: "Draw a straight line and follow it." Or Fluxus performances. In such works, is the work the algorithm or the output? Both?
• Constrained Writing. e.g. "I do not like green eggs and ham" (Dr Seuss wrote Green Eggs and Ham on a bet, using only 50 different words). Potential literature or OuLiPo. Not at all random! Rule-based experimenting with material. E.g. N+7. Try it! OED for n+7, W Queneau Sonnets and here
• Algorithmic electronic literature. "Warnell Berlioz, Viru2 and Lascaux, Cramer, AND (Perl poem), Glazier, Io Sono at Swoons, Geniwaite Generative Poetry, Solitaire Story

Read: Cramer, Program Code Poetry. OuLiPo (Wikipedia), OuLiPo Excerpts

Due: Response 5. Use one or more of the text-generating tools to write and post your own algorithmically processed text. Read and compare.

Oct 9

Topics: Language and translation. In class: Write a translation text using online tools. 1) Take an English text and translate back and forth into other languages. Use any language you want. You might use a Dickinson poem or Bush quotes. 2) Take a text in a foreign language that you can pronounce but not necessarily understand and translate the sound into English. Try any language and program you want. Go word for word or translate larger chunks. (Borrowed from Charles Bernstein.) You might use a Celan poem.

• Intermedial translation, from medium to medium. Page to screen, etc. Nelson, Dreamphage, Lunchtimers, Beiguelman, Egoscopio
• Translation from mark/inscription to sound as basic medial-translation in a culture dominated by alphabetic language. The unit of mark + sound is basic to concept. As Mencia puts it: relation of "visuality, orality and the semantic/non-semantic meaning of language." Mencia, "Worthy Mouths" and Another Kind of Language, YHChan, Nippon
• World Wide Web?, World Internet Traffic. Interlinguistic translation.

Read EL Chap 3.

Look: Lost in Translation, Babelfish, Google Language Tools, Poetry translator, Dialectizer.

Oct 14

Topics: 1) E-lit as feedback loop, according to Hayles. 2) Examples from Deed and Niss, and Cayley ("make explicit the role that machine cognition plays in the process" of electronic literature) 3) Google, flarf and google sculpting. Write a google text in class.

Read: Flarf (Wikipedia), SpamLit, Flarf Article, Flarf Files, Elgoog, Bruno’s Adwords Happening, Google Adwords, Googlism, Google collage, Hapax Legomenon, Statistically Improbable Phrases, Googlewhack, Googlefight, Googlewhack site, Google Ad-Libs. Google Street View, More Street View, More, More, More, Street View Siteseeing

Look: GDay!. Niss and Deed, OuLiPoems, Cayley, Translation.

Oct 16

No class. Read: EL Chap 4, MEZ datableeding.

Oct 21

Topics: Workshop and share project 3. Get into groups. Focus on one group member at a time. Read their online blog posting and post comments. Then talk to them as a group. Work your way through the group like this.

Groups: 1) Brown, Lutgring, Maruso, Schoolcraft, Scott 2) Clemens, Landers, Mitchem, Ryan, Thrasher 3) Dempsey, Johnson, Myers, Ploger, Vassar 4) Humphreys, Jimmie, Olive, Phillips, White

• What do you notice about the text? Words, phrases, lines; the overall texture; the sound, the images, the meaning... Be as specific as you can but also characterize the feel/tone of the whole text. What relation do you see between the "source" texts and the resulting text? How evident is the process/algorithm?
• What does the text make you think about this form of writing? How does it lead to reflection about writing practices and authorship? Does the text produce new meanings and/or insights about its material or about writing? Be imaginative in your response, but also specific in reference to the text.
• What needs to be added to/expanded on before the project is due? So questions: Is there enough text? Enough reflection/meta-text? Be sure to provide the author with a "to-do" list.

Oct 23

Topics: 1) Feedback between print and multimedia machines, notes. 2) Project 4. Examples below.

Read: EL Chap 5.

Look: Sondheim, The Lost Project, Learning to Love you more, A Million Penguins, YHChang, SUBJECT_HELLO, Leishman, Red Riding Hood

Due: Project 3, by class time.

Oct 28

Topics: Process, concepts and distributed uncreativity.

Read: Goldsmith, Uncreativity, Bernstein, In Particular + audio, 100 ways to annoy your roommate (thanks to Cloninger), Goldsmith Soliloquy, Found Magazine, Nelson, Weather Visualizer.

Due: Response 6. Write a list. Make it of anything you want: things you hate, DVDs next to your TV, streets you've lived on... Make it personal. Make it random. Make it detailed. Make it as banal or shocking as you want. Include a meta-text describing how you would develop it into multimedia and/or how you would use it collaboratively for project 4.

Oct 30

Topics: Identity. As commodity and stories. Beginning of class: Where are your thoughts about project 4? Later in class: elaborate project 4 in detail. How will you do it (what tools, websites, etc.)? How is it personal and/or scandalous? How is it collaborative? Give the project a title - name it!

Read: All my life for sale, DiaryU, Online Caroline, Walker, How I was played by Online Caroline, Mouchette, What Happened in Piedmont, Emotion Eric

Nov 4 No Class. Go vote!

Read: Black People Love Us, Blackness for Sale, Black Net Art (look at art projects).

Nov 6

Topics: Identity. Chatter as (a)synchronous presence, as mobilizing writing + networking. Where is chat? (IM, WoW, email, blogs...) Who chats? Models for chat:

• Turing's tests: imitation as identity, validating human-ness. How do we trust the identity of others? e.g. Eliza
• Habermas' public (vs. private) sphere: a space of undistorted communication, shared views, collective involvement. Participatory and social. Model is dialogue, in a room or "agora" (public square).

Possible activity/project: Write poems with one or more other people, alternating words, lines, or whatever, writing simultaneously and collaging, rewriting, editing, supplementing the previous version. (Borrowed from Charles Bernstein.) Or: record conversation with someone else, edit and play, make a work of the recording.

Look: Eliza, Eliza, Eliza, Google Talk, Gogolchat, Mix Chat, Lambdamoo, Habbo Hotel

Nov 11

Topics: Workshop and share project 4. Read and respond to each group member on their blog. Does the project meet the requirements described in the prompt? Is there a metatext? Is there sufficient documentation? How can the author add to/improve the project? Second, discuss each project, as a group. Leave class with a definite TBD list. Groups: 1) White, Maruso, Mitchem, Lutgring; 2) Thrasher, Ploger, Olive, Brown; 3) Philips, Johnson, Dempsey, Clemens; 4) Vassar, Scott, Landers, Jimmie; 5) Schoolcraft, Myers, Humphreys, Ryan

Nov 13

Topics: Start Project 5. Games vs/and/or/are/not narratives. Game time: levels, challenges, bosses, and lives. Game over.

Read: Tetris, More Tetris, Human Tetris, Bookchin's version of Borges Intruder, Zork, Doom, Jason Nelson, Gamegame and Alarmingly these are not lovesick zombies

Nov 18

Topics: Gaming. 1) Serious games. 2) Mixed-reality games. 3) Alternative Reality games. 4) Describe project 5. What is it's audience? It's goal? What is it about? What materials and media will it use?

Read: Joseph Delappe Dead-in-iraq and Quake Friends and Velvet Strike. Newsgaming. Virtual Peace. Blast Theory (look at "Uncle Roy All Around You" and "Can you see me now?"), Pac Manhattan, Live Action Scotland Yard, Capture the Flag, SF0, World Without Oil, Traces of Hope Alternative Reality Gaming Network (check out some of the other games listed at "now playing" on argn). Recommeded: unfiction

Due: Project 4, by class time

Nov 20

Topics: Real space and tactical media. Work on Project 5.

Read: Real Time Amsterdam, Murmur, Memory Maps, 34 North 118 West, Bureau of Inverse Technology, Institute for Applied Autonomy, The Yes Men, Billboard Liberation Front, Surveillance Camera Players

Nov 25 Thanksgiving Break

Nov 27 Thanksgiving Break

Dec 2

Topic: Work on Project 5.

Read: Should a Facebook Poster Be Liable for a Party That Became a Riot?.

Dec 4 Last Class

Complete SEI Survey

Dec 11

Due: Project 5. By midnight

Class Blogs

Useful Links