Paper Formatting

I forgot to mention that I'd like you to use MLA formatting for your foototes and bibliography. This is especially important for web sites you are citing. Here is a good site that runs down the formatting options for your sources:

https://webmail.stockton.edu/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/557/01/

The Yes Men

Final Papers and Presentations

Your presentations should be from 10 to 12 minutes long.

• Start by giving a summary of what your paper is about. The first thing you should do is let the class know your thesis -- what theory you aim to prove, or what range of work you are analyzing and what questions you aim to answer about it. If you are reading your thesis right from your paper, be sure to rephrase it in more conversational terms after reading it. Your thesis should be about questions, not answers -- get us into it by showing there is a problem that you are seeking to solve.
• Then, you should go through a few examples from your paper that support your thesis. For instance, if your thesis involves the fact that education in the classroom has been transformed, for better or worse, by the use of technology, you should have about three solid examples of this. You should have pros and cons -- you should try to look at your examples from different angles. If the examples are not answering questions for you, they will not be interesting to anyone else.
• For your conclusion, you should return to your thesis -- rephrase it if you'd like once again to remind us what you said earlier. Then show how the examples support or negate your thesis, and tell us what you've concluded.

The easiest way to think about is that you are telling a story. Try to make it conversational. Make eye contact with the class, use your own speaking voice. Your presentations in class have been pretty good so far so don't worry too much about it.

New terms: it is a sign to me that you have done a lot of work on your paper if you introduce terms that we are unacquainted with. Sometimes, these terms might seem quite simple -- the term "cool," for instance, has a very different meaning for advertisers than it does for us -- so you have to let us know that you are using it in a different way.

If you are using multimedia: don't show any videos or anything that lasts much longer than 3 minutes unless necessary. Make sure it is well integrated into what you are saying about your thesis. Make sure you introduce the video properly, and also comment on the video after it is done. This also goes for long passages you are quoting, etc. Put the videos on your blog so you can access them quickly.

Hand-outs/PowerPoint: you can use hand-outs for items that need to be seen visually, or you could use a PowerPoint presentation, but don't rely on the Powerpoint to do the work for you. Don't use silly graphics with PowerPoint for the sake of it, only if you think it helps set the mood for your presentation.

Question and Answer Period: Every student in the class should pay close attention to the presentation and I expect everyone to have a question for the presenter. Please don't be absent for class on these two days. You don't have to ask a question for every presenter, but I'll be keeping track of who is asking questions during the two days of presentations.

Research Papers: These papers should be well researched and constructed like a proper paper, with an introductory and concluding paragraph, etc. The style need not be academic or dry, but should be thoughtful and coherent. These papers should be from 6-8 pages long (visual supplements do not count in the page count). Please don't use any filler; stick to your points and keep it lean. Put any visual aids for your paper on your blog so I can refer to them.

Format style: All papers should be in 12 point type (in Times Roman or similar font with serifs) with 1.5 spacing and 1 inch margins. They will be marked down if not in this format. Research papers should have the proper biography and footnotes where applicable.

On Worldbuilding

I found this on BoingBoing and thought it was interesting in relation to narrative and video games. It's from a blog by some guy I've never heard of:

Every moment of a science fiction story must represent the triumph of writing over worldbuilding.

Worldbuilding is dull. Worldbuilding literalises the urge to invent. Worldbuilding gives an unneccessary permission for acts of writing (indeed, for acts of reading). Worldbuilding numbs the reader’s ability to fulfil their part of the bargain, because it believes that it has to do everything around here if anything is going to get done.

Above all, worldbuilding is not technically neccessary. It is the great clomping foot of nerdism. It is the attempt to exhaustively survey a place that isn’t there. A good writer would never try to do that, even with a place that is there. It isn’t possible, & if it was the results wouldn’t be readable: they would constitute not a book but the biggest library ever built, a hallowed place of dedication & lifelong study. This gives us a clue to the psychological type of the worldbuilder & the worldbuilder’s victim, & makes us very afraid.

Links for Monday

Next week, we'll be covering web parady, hacktivism, memes, machinima, mash-ups, detournement, and other forms of unofficial "net art." "All Your Base Are Belong to Us" falls under this category.

Here are the presentations that I assigned last Friday, including the links that I've associated with them (but you can add other material if you find it):

Monday:

Joanna: mash-ups
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bastard_pop
(there are tons of mash-up projects about this, but one of the most famous is The Grey Album http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grey_Album)

Alyssa: machinima
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machinima
(again, there are tons of examples, but the most famous is probably Red vs. Blue -- you should plan to show some of them: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_vs._Blue)

Wednesday:

Melissa: memes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memes
(find a few good examples to illustrate the concept and plan to show some -- this website actively tries to propogate them: http://www.fark.com/)

Danielle: detournement
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detournement
(this is a concept that was conceived by the Situationists -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Situationist_International -- but I don't expect you to report on them, just find examples of detournement that you can use)

Friday

Annalysa: hacktivism, "Blackness for Sale"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacktivism
http://obadike.tripod.com/ebay.html
(try to talk about another example of "Hacktivism" that you find through the wikipedia entry, but concentrate on Keith Obadike)

Kathryn: outsider art
Outsider Art: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outsider_art
(try to find one or two good examples of "Outsider art" that you find through the wikipedia entry)

Stuff I will probably talk about:

The Yes Men
http://www.theyesmen.org/

MyBall
http://collection.eliterature.org/1/works/rider__myball.html

Found Art at Ubu.com:
http://www.ubu.com/outsiders/

Hillary Clinton Meme
http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2412676&perpage=40&pagenumber=1

Snakes on a Plane Trailer
http://youtube.com/results?search_query=snakes+on+a+plane+trailer

Final Presentations

Wed., 25
Ben Esser
Brian Sullivan
Tom McCarthy
Jackie Dunay
Melissa Garafolo
Megan Errickson

Fri., 27
Annalysa Coleman
Kathryn Tomlinson
Joanna Christen
Danielle Sanzone
Alyssa Machado

Second Life and Education

From (where else?) Wikipedia:

Education in Second Life

Second Life has recently emerged as one of the cutting-edge virtual classrooms for major colleges and universities, including Harvard, Pepperdine, Elon University, Ohio University, Ball State, New York University, Stanford University, Delft University of Technology[32] and AFEKA Tel-Aviv Academic College of Engineering.[33] Second Life fosters a welcoming atmosphere for administrators to host lectures and projects online, selling more than 100 islands for educational purposes, according to a New York Times article.[34] The article quoted Rebecca Nesson, an instructor at Harvard who brought her Legal Studies class to Second Life in the second half of 2006. "Normally, no matter how good a distance-learning class is, an inherent distance does still exist between you and your students," she says. "Second Life has really bridged that gap. There is just more unofficial time that we spend together outside of the typical class session." Joe Sanchez, a researcher at the University of Texas at Austin evaluated the use of Second Life in education in an interactive qualitative analysis, finding that once students overcome the technical and interface difficulties with Second Life, they "indicate a preference to social learning activites and find it enjoyable to interact with other avatars while learning in this space".[35]

Issues and criticisms

Because it is under constant development, and is an open environment that can be used by almost anyone with broadband internet access,[40] Second Life has encountered a number of challenges. These range from the technical (Budgeting of server resources) and moral (pornography) to legal (legal position of the Linden Dollar, Linden Lab lawsuit).

Prior to June 6, 2006, all Residents were required to verify their identities by providing Linden Lab with a valid credit card or PayPal account number, or by responding to a cell phone SMS text message.[41] (Residents providing information were not charged if their account type cost nothing to create.) After that date, it became possible to create an account with only an e-mail address; even standard verification methods such as e-mail reply verification are not used.[42] Access to Teen Second Life still requires credit card details. Linden Lab has the ability to ban Residents from Second Life based on a hardware hash of their local PC,[43] preventing them from returning with other accounts.

In January 2007, two articles were published on the Internet which compared the economy of Second Life to a pyramid scheme.[44][45] In the same month, a "virtual riot" erupted between members of the French extremist party National Front who had established a virtual HQ on Second Life, and opponents, including Second Life Left Unity, a socialist and anti-capitalist user-group.[46][47][48][49] Since then, several small internet based organizations have claimed some responsibility for instigating the riots.[50]

Video Game Links

Sissyfight 2000
http://www.sissyfight.com/

Pac-Mondrian
http://pbfb.ca/pac-mondrian/

Legible City
http://www.jeffrey-shaw.net/html_main/show_work.php3?record_id=83

Video Game Auteurs

"Video games do have their auteurs -- Wil Wright, John Carmack, Sid Meyer and Shigeru Miyamoto are examples -- but what they do and how they do it is frightfully opaque."

http://www.scalzi.com/whatever/004301.html

Video Game links for Freewrite

I put these links together for those of you who might have problems with the next freewrite. You should be sure to read the other articles, by Aarseth and Zimmerman, before writing your piece.

This link has a very brief rundown of how the Frogger piece relates to Basho:

http://pbfb.ca/bashos_frogger

Here's a web version of Frogger for those you who have never played it:

http://www.download-free-games.com/online_games/frogger.htm

Here's the link to download the Columbine game if you couldn't figure it out from the site:

http://www.columbinegame.com/download.htm

Here's a good series of discussions about the game (and if you can't get the game to run on your computer, reading some of this might be enough to discuss the moral issues as related to narrative). It has the open letters written to protest the Slamdance festival:

http://grandtextauto.gatech.edu/index.php?s=super+columbine+rpg

Here is a short article by the game designer about "The Marriage":

http://www.rodvik.com/rodgames

Here's a short article on the game with several reader's comments (some of whom hated the game):

http://www.joystiq.com/2007/03/20/the-marriage-unties-the-games-as-art-argument

Freewrite #5 (last one!)

For this last one, I'd like you to look at the following three "video games" and discuss them as literary objects. These are due on Monday, the 16th.

Basho's Frogger
http://www.ubu.com/contemp/hennessy/frogger/basho_frogger.html

Super Columbine Massacre RPG (PC only, has to be downloaded)
http://www.columbinegame.com/

The Marriage (PC only, has to be downloaded)
http://www.rodvik.com/rodgames/

The questions I'd like you to consider are the following:

• what is the purely literary "content" of the piece (i.e. what does the text, setting, context, etc. provide you about the game)? is it more like a poem or a story?
• if you were to describe these games as "narratives," which of Henry Jenkins types of narratives would apply (please quote from the text)?
• how do the "game" elements contribute to this literary content (for example, the GUI, the interactivity, the rules of play, the goals or "dramatic need" of the player)?
• how does the content of the game relate to elements of the world (i.e. its specific analog: poem, news event, marriage)? does it tell us something new about the thing it is commenting on?
• how does this game challenge or confirm values and morals of our present society? does the game have a deeper philosophical component?
• is the game art?

Please be sure to read all of the assigned video game readings before writing this. Also, be sure to do some research on those pieces that require a bit of background info (Basho and the Columbine Massacre, for instance).

The Super Columbine Massacre RPG was banned from a recent festival of independent video games on moral grounds, so that is worth reading about as well (the link above brings you there, but also Google it). It also has some problems on my computer -- it seems to double-up on my screen, so I have two very short versions of the game screen at the same time -- but you can still play and read it.

11 Weirdest Video Games

If the "story" doesn't mean anything and it's all about play, then why are these games "weird"?

http://www.ugo.com/channels/games/features/weirdestgames/default.asp

Friday's Class

Just a reminder... on Friday, we will:

• see two presentations, by Jackie and Megan
• go over the quiz (be prepared to answer all of the questions on the quiz when I call on you)
• discuss the paper outlines
• assign next presentations
• discuss the next freewrite

Sorry about the confusion regarding this most recent freewrite. I had switched the date for one of my classes and thought I had done it for yours.

The Restaurant Game

This is a game that is created by the users who play it -- you are credited as being a "game developer" once you have played it a few times. I can't explain much more than that, except that it is like Facade and runs on an artificial intelligence engine.

http://web.media.mit.edu/~jorkin/restaurant/

Readings for Next Two Weeks

Here are the readings for the next two weeks. Please read the articles, but also the comments on them if there are any:

Monday, April 2
Henry Jennkins, "Game Design as Narrative Architecture"
http://www.electronicbookreview.com/thread/firstperson/lazzi-fair

Monday, April 9
Espen Aarseth, "Introduction: Stories and Games"
http://www.electronicbookreview.com/thread/firstperson/vigilant

Wednesday, April 11
Eric Zimmerman, "Narrative, Interactivity, Play and Games"
http://www.electronicbookreview.com/thread/firstperson/ludican-do

I'd also like you to take a look at this blog on games and narrativity and try a couple of the games in the second link from the "Slamdance" festival. Be prepared to talk about them during class.

Grand Text Auto
http://grandtextauto.gatech.edu/

Slamdance Guerilla Games
http://www.slamdance.com/games/

Academic Search Premier

Here is the link for the search engine for academic journals. If you click "Scholarly (Peer Reviewed Journals)" you will include academically suitable material for your papers:

http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/search?vid=1&hid=2&sid=1cf345b8-20f4-4f31-8155-4996308895db%40SRCSM2

You can also get to this page by clicking "Databases" on the Library homepage, then scrolling to the bottom and choosing "Academic Search Premier."

A lot of this material is free to be downloaded as a .pdf, so you don't have to make xeroxes or even go to the library. How easy can it be?

Class Presentations

On Friday, Melissa will be presenting on "Project for a Tachiscope [Bottomless Pit]." (Please don't show the whole thing. Just show some of it and give a summary.)

On Friday, April 6th, the following people will give presentations:

• Lauren Pahl, "Galatea" by Emily Short
• Dan McCarthy, "What We Will" by John Cayley, Giles Perring, Douglas Cape
• Kathryn Thomlinson, "Facade" (requires installation on PC)

Freewrite #4 (due April 2)

In this freewrite, I want you to think about the psychological implications of computer use, both in online communities and video games. Since most of you don't play online video games, however, you can base your paper on your experience with sites like Facebook, MySpace, Nerve (or other online dating service), chat rooms, IM, etc.

I don't want this to be a general description of some online service. Be sure to use as the basis of your arguments quotes from the two articles we are reading this week, "The Lessons of Lucasfilms' Habitat" and "Video Games and Computer Holding Power." Some questions you can consider are:

• what are the implications of having "avatars" and being anonymous for your online persona?
• what are the "rules" of the community, what keeps everyone in order?
• is there a form of violence that is peculiar to this community or online communities in general?
• what are the moral issues involved in this online community?
• how does the community work as a literary object? is there a way people write on the community that is different than normal?
• how does the context of the community affect what you write?
• can this community operate as a "game"? (for instance, are there "events" that bring people in the community together in a not-normal way?) what do the maintainers of the site do to make sure people come back to the site?
• what are the limitations and benefits of this community compared to "real-world" interactions?
• how does the psychology of the video game player become exhibited in this community? is it a community that is geared toward people who find regular "life" too complicated?

Format style: All papers should be at least 2.5 pages, in 12 point type (in Times Roman or similar font with serifs) with 1.5 spacing and 1 inch margins. They will be marked down if not in this format. Research papers should have the proper biography and footnotes where applicable.

Review Material

Vannever Bush, “As We May Think”
Ben Schneiderman, “Direct Manipulation: A Step Beyond Programming Languages”
“The NLS demo by Douglas Engelbart”
Jeff Han demo
Ted Nelson’s “Computer Lib / Dream Machines”
“Eliza”
Electric Sheep Comix
Robert Coover, “The End of Books”
Borges, “The Garden of Forking Paths”
Stuart Moulthrop “You Say You Want a Revolution? Hypertext and the Laws of Media”
Wikipedia article in The New Yorker
Talan Memmott, “Lexia to Perplexia”
Stuart Moulthrop, “Pax: An Instrument”
Shelly Jackson, “my body – a wunderkammer”
Daniel Howe, “Text Curtain”
Juliet Martin, “oooxxxooo”
Stephanie Strickland, “The Ballad of Sand and Harry Soot”
Thom Swiss, “The Narrative You Anticipate You May Produce”
Lev Manovich, “New Media from Borges to HTML”
Young Hae Chang Heavy Industries, “Dakota”
Chris Martin, “Intimate Alice”
William Poundstone, “Project for Tachistoscope [Bottomless Pit]”
Rachel Greene, Internet Art
“Six Selections by the Oulipo”
William Burroughs, “The Cut-Up Method of Brion Gysin”
Geoffrey Ryman, “253”
Scott McCloud, “The Carl Comix”
Christian Bok, “Eunoia”
Levi Lehto, “Get a Google Poem”
Noah Wardrip-Fruin, David Durand et. al., “Regime Change”

All Your Base Are Belong to Us

http://allyourbase.planettribes.gamespy.com/video1_view.shtml

Research Paper Outline

For this Friday, March 30, I'd like you to hand in a two page outline of your paper topic that includes the following:

Thesis paragraph:

• what questions do you aim to answer or what are the main points you will be making (argumentative or analyitical)
• what material do intend to investigate to answer this question
• what terms do you plan on introducing or defining
• how does this relate to the concepts of new media that we have covered

Outline of paper:

I. Working title for your paper

II. Thesis paragraph

III. Overview of what we know so far

• historical developments
• things you have seen in passing

IV. The examples you will be reviewing and what key points you will be making

• how does each relate to the thesis
• what are the strengths and weaknesses of this example
• how will you transition to the next point

V. The conclusion

• how all of the examples relate to your thesis
• what more do we need to know to answer the questions adequately
• what are the implications of your findings
  

Sources:

• sources from the New Media Reader
• sources from books
• sources from websites (including multimedia)
• sources from magazines you research on library website

Sample outline:
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/general/gl_outlinS.html

"Database Literature" reading links

Following are links for the next online reading assignments.

For Wednesday

This is for everybody to read (there won't be a presentation on it though we'll talk about it in class).

Raymond Queneau, "A Hundred Thousand Billion Poems"
http://www.bevrowe.info/Poems/QueneauRandom.htm

Scott McCloud, "The Carl Comix"
http://www.scottmccloud.com/comics/carl/index.html

For Friday presentations

These are presentation links, but I would like everyone to take a look at these links so that we can have some discussion.

Geoffrey Ryman, "253"
http://www.ryman-novel.com/

Christian Bok, "Eunoia"
http://www.chbooks.com/archives/online_books/eunoia/text.html

Leevi Lehto, "Get a Google Poem"
http://www.leevilehto.net/google/google.asp (regular) http://www.leevilehto.net/google/patterns.asp (patterns)

Noah Wardrip-Fruin et. al., "News Reader" & "Regime Change" http://turbulence.org/Works/twotxt/

Daniel Howe, "Text Curtain"
http://mrl.nyu.edu/~dhowe/textcurtain/ (description)
http://mrl.nyu.edu/~dhowe/textcurtain/applet.html (applet)

Terms

Ephemeral
Plagiarism
Appropriation
Happening
Site-specific
Immaterial / dematerialized
Autonomous art object
Participatory
Oppositional
Connectivity
Mail Art
Teleactivity
Telepresence
Real-time
Marginal
Randomness
Information
Data
Media spheres / public space
Algorithm

Freewrite #3: Internet Art

For this assignment, I want you to review the terms that we talked about from the introduction to Internet Art. Most of these basic concepts appear frequently throughout the book, and if you are still unclear on some of them, do some internet research about them (such as "installation art").

For the freewrite, write at least 2.5 pages on one of the sub-chapters of Internet Art (remember to use 1.5 spacing and Times Roman font). By "sub-chapter," I mean the italicized sub-headings under the four main chapter headings. Go to the website Rhizome.org and look at some of the art works discussed (or look at other pieces by the same artists).

Your freewrite should include:

• a summary of the main points of the subchapter you have chosen (including at least three quotes from the text that you redefine in your own words)
• a brief analysis/description of the art work you have decided to look at
• a sort of "update" on what the artist is doing now -- i.e. are there works on Rhizome that were not discussed in the book? did you find anything through Google about this artist?
• your evaluation on the worth of the art work -- basically, do you like it, why or why not? (you have to give reasons)

The best way to pick a subchapter would be either by flipping through the book, reading the captions to the images, and after you've found a piece that you liked, reading that sub-chapter. Or you could just look at the table of contents and pick a subheading that seems to have something to do with your interests.

This is due on Monday, the 19th.

Student Blogs

Joanna Christen
http://joanna323.blogspot.com
Will focus on looking at the various websites and applications that are used for studying languages. Do they really work? What does programmable media have to offer to the student of language in general that is superior to books and a teacher? Will also look at the use of language labs for the teacher, and tie in some information on schools in Canada and France (not sure in what way at this point). Might want to look at more advanced theories of how languages are being taught today in the classroom and see if there is anything in particular that new media can offer them -- i.e. are there Montessori-type educational theories? (This paper needs a little focus for me, but if you start working on your blog I'll get a better idea.)

Jaclyn Dunay
http://jackiedunay.blogspot.com
Will look at the spate of “alternative” music videos to songs that already have had professional, corporate videos made for them. Has the role that was previously assigned to a business to promote their songs been handed over to fans? Is there a growing stigma attached to professional videos? What types of cultures are being created – is there a particular type of music that gets this treatment? Could also consider the issue of the “mash-up” – types of videos made by using source material from other videos – as well as the increased role of animation in AfterEffects and Flash. (Could also look at weird things like “All Your Base Are Belong to Us”).

Megan Errickson
http://meganerrickson.blogspot.com
Will look at issue of blogs and how they have managed to take over for more traditional media in terms of opinion editorials and other forms of “credibility,” including how something like Wikipedia could be seen as more credible than a traditional book source. Will concentrate on 3 or so blogs that highlight some of these issues, such as Daily Kos, an influential political blog. Must ask questions about the nature of print authority in an age in which one’s web page could be changed overnight – how can one site such a thing as a source?

Benjamin Esser
http://dailywitandwisom.blogspot.com
Will look at issues of gender as it is represented in video games, especially the psychological conditioning that it produces and its effects on society. Questions that should be asked is whether the types of identifications that we believe occur in movies and in politics (or non-fictional television) really carry over to video games, and how much the presumed audience for video games (mostly younger boys) effects the representations. This can also extend into considerations of race and other issues of societal representation (Nazis, car thieves, etc.)

Melissa Garafolo
http://mydreamsneverdie.blogspot.com
Will do a series of short critiques of electronic literature, specifically those that appear on the Electronic Literature Organization’s first CD collection of works. (I will lend her such books as Kate Hayles’ Writing Machines and the Digital Poetics book from MIT). Questions being asked are the usual: how do these pieces operate in terms of conventional genre, how do they make us rethink the issue of the author of the text, how is the text being used as image itself, etc.

Daniel McCarthy
http://eleganceandstyle.blogspot.com
Concerning the internet communities centered around file-sharing of bootleg live recordings of bands such as the Grateful Dead. Will research into pre-internet file-sharing issues, including those of copyright, and how this has changed. (Look at Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig). Nugs.net will be the primary focus of his research, but also will look at internet archives of prior years’ websites. How does the internet affect communities previously considered “underground” (punks, for example) – has this exposure killed some of the excitement? How has it turned a previous “hobby” into a “profession” – i.e. who is earning cash from this?

Thomas McCarthy
http://mccarthyscorner.blogspot.com
Will look at Borges and other writers of the speculative, metaphysical sort (Cortazar, the Oulipo) and the influence they have had on hypertext theory. Most of the concentration will be on Borges and how his intermingling of real-life historical events – “taking what is lying around there to begin with” – with his fictional world is a form of “interactive fiction.” (Could also look at Philip K. Dick, especially The Man in the High Tower.) Will have some discussion of how Borges developed some of these techniques as he made contributions to the Cthulhu Mythos of H.P. Lovecraft.

Cortney Murray
http://cortneysblog-cortney.blogspot.com/
Will look a celebrity gossip blogs and websites as well as mainstream new channels, such as MSNBC, Fox News Channel and CNN, devoted an unusual amount of time covering the death of Anna Nicole Smith as opposed to more substantial material. She will look at sites like tmc.com and perezhilton.com and ask questions of what keeps them going and why people have become so obsessed with this. How do these sites relate to more traditional fare like Us Weekly? How have the distinctions between mainstream media and self-published media collapsed? Is there more authority invested in a self-motivated obsessive than a paid journalist? Might also ask how these phenomena relate to things like daily talk shows and other forms of voyeuristic television like Reality TV. Ideally, would follow a story on the caliber of Anna Nicole Smith as it makes its way through the news.

Danielle Sanzone
http://daniellesmcblog.blogspot.com/
Will look at the phenomenon of fan fiction – fictional extensions of the reality of popular television shows – specifically concerning the show Grey’s Anatomy. Will ask questions of how this was done before the internet, and maybe also how some people have taken to creating video extensions of these fictional worlds. Should ask questions of genre, narrativity, and also the nature of writing style (have any of these authors managed to add legitimate new dimensions to their worlds?). Of course, must ask why this flourishes on the internet and what relationship it has to other web phenomena. Do the television producers care? Has fan fiction generated revenue for the show? Has fan fiction ever saved a show from being cancelled?

Brian Sullivan
http://stopremembering.blogspot.com
Will look at the videogame industry and the internet cultures that have arisen around it, such as the websites with news and reviews, but especially the discussion forums in which gamers “yell, fight, and talk amongst themselves.” How do the fans play a role in advancing the industry? Is there anything equating to a “celebrity” in gaming culture? I would like to see some question of “auteur theory” applied to video games – i.e. are there individual game creators whose personal stamps are so deep that people play their games just to extend their understanding of this creators’ work as a whole?

Kathryn Tomlinson
http://stk36695.blogspot.com/
Will investigate the issue of internet addiction, looking at statistical studies that try to determine the role the internet has played in changing general habits, especially social habits. What role does AIM and cell phones play? How has the increase in general “writing” changed how we think of text (is the culture more literary?) What are the major types of internet addiction, and are some of them more harmful than others? Does the computer industry attempt to promote this addiction the way cigarette companies did? This needs to have a sharper angle (we should discuss it more, and send me links).

Annalysa Coleman
http://annalysasblog.blogspot.com

Alyssa Machado
http://literatuream.blogspot.com

Lauren Pahl
http://lauren301.blogspot.com

All three of these students are interested in working on technology and the classroom. They should visit the offices of MAIT, the Stockton graduate degree in instructional technology. Lauren is particularly interested in asking questions about the purposes and functions of schools, where they succeed and what other options are available. Could probably look at Montessori instruction theory and relate that to what sorts of possibilities exist in cyberculture. These projects could all benefit from interviews with Stockton professors about their use of technology in the classroom, as well as with questionnaires to students about their experience with technology. Would be neat to be able to talk to Stockton graduates who have had to deal with technology in their professional lives.

The Book

Another silly video:

http://www.devilducky.com/media/57946/

Web 2.0... The Machine is Us/ing Us

Neat YouTube video that is like a crib sheet for this course:

Freewrite #2

Your next freewrite, due Wednesday, is to write about Wikipedia. I want you to go to Wikipedia and find an entry and look at its history page. Print out the history page to be handed in with your assignment.

Write a 3-4 page analysis of Wikipedia, using that entry as a focal point. I want you to relate your analysis on Wikipedia to the Stuart Moulthrop article "You Want a Revolution," especially as concerns "destabilizing social hierarchies" and the "four basic questions that could be asked about any invention" that he pulls from Marshall McLuhan.

This is not just a freewrite on your feelings about Wikipedia; you must use quotes (at least five) from the Moulthrop essay as well as the New Yorker article in your paper to back up your points. I realize the Moulthrop essay is a tough one but try your best. The general gist is answering the question: does Wikipedia support Moulthrop's contentions about hypertext?

I've put copies of the New Yorker article in my box in the ARHU office so pick it up there if you were not at last class.

Also, I will be downgrading these assignments from now on if they are handed in late, so please get them in on Wednesday.

Lastly, several of you have not handed me ideas for your final papers, nor have you put them on your blog. Do this asap. (Ben, your blog doesn't seem to be up anymore... please check the URL on the website).

Internet Research Methods

I'd like to spend some time in class talking about internet research methods. I don't have any clear outline of how I do research on the internet, so we will have to put this one together ourselves. There isn't much writing available online, either, but I found a pretty good site that has exercises, and of course there's the ubiquitious Wikipedia:

Teaching Internet Research Skills
http://www.virtualchase.com/researchskills/methods.html

Internet Research Methods (Wikipedia)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_research

Next Class / Presentations

Just a recap: for our next class (Feb. 16) we will be discussing the Moulthrop essay, especially in relation to "social hierarchies," and will be discussing the New Yorker essay on Wikipedia and the short essays I handed out about Electronic Writing.

I'll leave copies of this in my box at the ARHU office for those of you not here today.

(Those of you who have not given me your first writing assignment have to give it to me by this Friday, otherwise I can't count it as having been handed in. In general, I won't be this lenient in terms of deadlines.)

On Wednesday, the 21st we will have the following presentations:

Kathryn: Stuart Moulthrop, "Pax: An Instrument"
http://iat.ubalt.edu/moulthrop/hypertexts/pax/

Annalysa: Daniel Howe, "Text Curtain"
http://mrl.nyu.edu/~dhowe/textcurtain/ (description)
http://mrl.nyu.edu/~dhowe/textcurtain/applet.html (applet)

Megan: Juliet Martin, "oooxxxooo"
http://www.julietmartin.com/

Jackie: Stephanie Strickland, "The Ballad of Sand and Harry Soot"
http://wordcircuits.com/gallery/sandsoot/

Brian: Judd Morrissey, "The Jew's Daughter"
http://www.thejewsdaughter.com/

On Friday the 23rd I want to have individual discussions with each of your about your final projects. It's very important you come to this class (it's very important you come to all of the classes).

David Clark, Meanwhile

Here's the link to David Clark's "Meanwhile":

http://www.habitatstudio.ca/~cmendis/meanwhile/

Research Related Links

Slashdot
http://slashdot.org/

Wired
http://www.wired.com/

Rhizome
http://www.rhizome.org/

Electronic Literature Organization
http://eliterature.org/

Electronic Book Review
http://www.electronicbookreview.com/

Grand Text Auto
http://grandtextauto.gatech.edu/

Two Introductory Essays

Below are links to two short essays that I wrote for my class in Electronic Writing at Brown University. I'd like to include this in our syllabus, so please take a look. I'll be printing them out for you soon, so don't print it out yet. The online versions are better anyway as there are a lot of live links:

What is Electronic Writing?
http://www.arras.net/brown_ewriting/?page_id=54

Themes and Concepts
http://www.arras.net/brown_ewriting/?page_id=20

Freewrite Assignment #1

2-3 pages spaced at 1.5 in a normal font

Should cover two of the experimental interfaces from the class blog:
http://2007stocktonintronewmedia.blogspot.com/2007/01/experimental-websites.html

Should include the following issues:

• general description of the piece as if you are writing about it for someone who has never seen it
• description of analogies that are used in the piece (i.e. what did the designer use to make it more easy to understand, like in our discussion of the desktop). BE INVENTIVE. A lot more is happening that what seems apparent at first.
• possible uses for such a device or interface
• speculation as to "what is happening behind the interface." This seems the hardest to grasp for some of you, so don't sweat it. We'll go over what I mean by this in class.

Look at all of the interfaces before you decide which one you want to write about.

Game Writing

Just heard about this, the first entire book devoted to the subject of writing for video games (or at least that's what I was told, I seem to come up with a few more at Amazon).

Here's a review:
http://books.slashdot.org/books/07/01/31/1445235.shtml

Those of you interested in writing for video games should check out Grand Text Auto:
http://grandtextauto.gatech.edu/

Ideas for Final Projects

Following is a list of general topics for your final papers. I'll add more as I think of them. Of course, if you have an idea for a project that is not included here, let me know!

• video games and gaming culture; development of graphics and types of games over the past decades; the gaming industry (economics, culture of), etc.


• the way digital computers have affected the arts such as music, film/video, performance, poetry; new forms of art that were not possible before computers, etc.


• interface design; interfaces of commercial sites (such as Yahoo! and Google) and how they have changed and/or affected income; graphic design (comparison of print design and web design, for example), etc.


• report on one of the writers we will be reading this semester, or another writer important to the world of digital culture that you have discovered yourself; a general "theory" paper that tries to discuss the future of digital culture, etc.


• a detailed analysis of a website that you are particularly fond of, or critical of (Amazon, for example, or even the Richard Stockton website); general survey of blogging software; survey of media outlets on the web from the mainstream to the underground, etc.


• the use of digital technology in education, including teaching students how to use digital technology to complete their own coursework; digital technology in therapy; alternative theories of education that rely on digital technology, etc.


• the way that electronic networking systems and digital projection/sound systems have altered the way people either meet each other, socialize with each other (how these technologies operate in clubs, bars, the school, etc);


• what role digital technology has played in the design of items we use every day (from sneakers and television to the architecture of buildings we enter), etc.


• technology as it relates to issues of governance, surveillance, war, revolution, philanthropic issues, religious institutions, developing nations or nations with repressive regimes, activism, etc.
  

Example Blogs

Rachel Finley on Machinima
http://www.chupaproject.blogspot.com/

Nick Leonetti on B-Horror and the DVD Market
http://malevolentimages.blogspot.com/

Scott Stagliano on the Semiotic Development of the First Person Shooter
http://fpskillzone.blogspot.com/

Chris Teja on Viral Marketing (Snakes on a Plane, etc.)
http://newmediact.blogspot.com/

Emily Wray on Experimental Televisions Commercials
http://www.dvrready.blogspot.com/

John Carr on Memes
http://intersociety.blogspot.com/

Lindsey Costanza on Pro-Anorexic Websites
http://lalalalinzii.blogspot.com/

Brian Sherr on Internet Gambling
http://fantasyhotblogs.blogspot.com/

Kate Savacool on CGI in Films: Pro/Con
http://gifted-sandbox.blogspot.com/

Experimental Websites

Sodaplay
http://www.sodaplay.com/

Floating Sushi
http://www.andrew3000.net/floatingsushi/

Modifyme
http://www.atomless.com/projects/modifyme/site/

Recube
http://mrl.nyu.edu/~dhowe/recube/

Pianographique
http://www.pianographique.net/

Starry Night
http://rhizome.org/starrynight/

They Rule
http://www.theyrule.net/

BASIC Emulators

This is a link for an online emulator of the Commodore 64, one of the first home computers. I learned how to program on an earlier version fo this computer called the Vic-20.

A better emulator for BASIC is at this site, for Radio Shack's TRS-80.

Associative Interfaces

Dasher
http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/dasher/

Thinkmap Visual Thesaurus
http://www.visualthesaurus.com/

Streams of Consciousness
http://acg.media.mit.edu/projects/stream/

Starry Night
http://rhizome.org/starrynight/

They Rule
http://www.theyrule.net/

Syllabus (PDF)

Here is a link to the print version of the syllabus.

Schedule

January
Wed., 17: Introduction: What is New Media Literacy?
Fri., 19: Set up blogs

Mon., 22: Vannever Bush, “As We May Think”
Wed., 24: Ben Schneiderman, “Direct Manipulation: A Step Beyond Programming Lan-guages”
Fri., 26: What is a GUI? / “The NLS demo by Douglas Engelbart” / Jeff Han demo

Mon., 29: Ted Nelson’s “Computer Lib / Dream Machines”
Wed., 31: “Ted Nelson’s Computer Lib / Dream Machines”

February
Fri., 2: Dream Machines
• “Eliza”
• Plasma Pong
• Electric Sheep Comix

Mon., 5: Robert Coover, “The End of Books” / Borges, “The Garden of Forking Paths”
Freewrite 1 on Dream Machines and GUIs due
Wed., 7: Stuart Moulthrop “You Say You Want a Revolution? Hypertext and the Laws of Media” Fri., 9: Conceptual Interactive Fiction
• Talan Memmott
• Stuart Moulthrop
• Shelly Jackson

Mon., 12: Michael Joyce “Siren Shapes: Exploratory and Constructive Hypertexts”
Wed., 14: Stephanie Strickland “Moving Through Me as I Move: A Paradigm of Interac-tion”
Fri., 16: Conceptual Interactive Poetry
• Daniel Howe, “Text Curtain”
• Juliet Martin, “oooxxxooo”
• Stephanie Strickland, “The Ballad of Sand and Harry Soot”
• Thom Swiss, “The Narrative You Anticipate You May Produce”

Mon., 19: President’s Day
Wed., 21: Viewing of Time Codes
Freewrite 2 on hypertext literature due
Fri., 23: 3 Viewing of Time Codes

Mon., 26: Lev Manovich, “New Media from Borges to HTML”
Wed., 28: Scott McCloud, “Time Frames” / Blog review

March
Fri., 2: Animated Textual Experiences
• Young Hae Chang Heavy Industries, “Dakota”
• Chris Martin, “Intimate Alice”
• William Poundstone, “Project for Tachistoscope [Bottomless Pit]”

Mon., 5: Rachel Greene, Internet Art
Wed., 7: Rachel Greene, Internet Art
Fri., 9: Rachel Greene, Internet Art

Mon., 12: Spring Break
Wed., 14: Spring Break
Fri., 16: Spring Break

Mon., 19: “Six Selections by the Oulipo”
Freewrite 3 on internet art due
Wed., 21: William Burroughs, “The Cut-Up Method of Brion Gysin”/ Writely exercise
Fri., 23: Oulipo Inspired Work
• Geoffrey Ryman, “354”
• Scott McCloud, “The Carl Comix”
• Christian Bok, “Eunoia”
• Levi Lehto, “Get a Google Poem”
• The Pornolizer
• Noah Wardrip-Fruin, David Durand et. al., “Regime Change”

Mon., 26: Chip Morningstar, et al “The Lessons of Lucasfilm's Habitat”
Wed., 28: Sherry Turkle, “Video Games and Computer Holding Power”
Fri., 30: Julian Dibbell, “A Rape in Cyberspace”

April
Mon., 2: Henry Jenkins, “Game Design as Narrative Architecture”
Freewrite 4 on internet culture due
Wed., 4: Preceptorial Advising
Fri., 6: Video Games and Literary Art
• John Cayley, Giles Perring, Douglas Cape, “What We Will”
• Andrew Stern and Michael Mateas, “Façade”
• Emily Short, “Galatea”
• Neil Hennessy, “Basho's Frogger”
• Slamdance Guerilla Games: http://www.slamdance.com/games/

Mon., 9: Espen Aarseth, Introduction to Cybertext
Wed., 11: Eric Zimmerman “Narrative, Interactivity, Play and Games: Four Naughty Con-cepts in Need of Discipline”
Fri., 13: New Media for Educators
• Vicq de Cumptich, “Bembo's Zoo”
• Camille Utterbeck, “Text Rain”
• Jeffrey Shaw, “Legible City”

Mon., 16: Detournement and Appropriation readings
Freewrite 5 on video games due
Wed., 18: UBUweb and concrete poetry
Fri., 20: Web Parody
• Shawn Rider, “myBALL”
• Machinima
• “All Your Base Are Belong to Us”

Mon., 23: Final Presentations
Wed., 25: Final Presentations
Fri., 27: Final Presentations

Mon., 30: Wrap-up

Required Books

Internet Art (World Of Art)
Rachel Greene
Publisher: Thames & Hudson
ISBN: 0500203768

New Media Reader
Noah Wardrip Fruin and Nick Montfort, editors
Publisher: The MIT Press; Bk&CD-Rom edition
ISBN: 0262232278

Class Policies

Grading
Grading will primarily be based on your writing, but with much consideration given to class-room participation, presentations and in-class assignments.
• 50% short papers (5)
• 30% final paper and blog
• 20% responses and classroom participation/in-class assignments etc.

Attendance
If you are more than ten minutes late, you will be considered late. Two lates equal an absence. Four absences result in a full letter reduction in your grade. More than that and you could be considered for a failing grade. For excused absences, I would like print documentation that I can keep (xerox of doctor report, etc). You are expected to be quiet and attentive in class. If you are sleeping, typing on your cell phone, giggling and chatting, etc. this will count against you in the final grade.

Plagiarism
You will fail if caught plagiarizing. Once you have settled on a final paper, you are not allowed to change your topic unless you revise your entire blog.

Late papers and assignments
For every week a paper is late, it is worth a full grade less.

Assignments
There will be two primary writing assignments in this class:

• Freewriting Response: These are short, 2-3 page responses to the work that we have read for the week. These papers will be graded on grammar, spelling and style, and should give me a sense of your prose writing at its best. In general, they do not require additional research though should be researched enough to bring your level of understanding higher than a first impression. (I.e. do a Google search on the topic, and reread parts of text that confuse you). These must be handed in hard copy but also posted on your blog so that others can read them. I won’t read them unless you give me a hard copy.
• Research Papers: These papers should be well researched and constructed like a proper paper, with an introductory and concluding paragraph, etc. We will review the possible subjects for your final papers, but in general they must involve some issue regarding the uses of new media in art and culture (a list of general topics will be posted). The style need not be aca-demic or dry, but should be thoughtful and coherent. These papers should be from 6-8 pages long (visual supplements do not count in the page count). Please don't use any filler; stick to your points and keep it lean.

Format style: All papers should be in 12 point type (in Times Roman or similar font with serifs) with 1.5 spacing and 1 inch margins. They will be marked down if not in this format. Research papers should have the proper biography and footnotes where applicable.

Blogs
You will be required to create and maintain a blog for this class. The blog should be used to col-lect material on what will be your final paper assignment. The blog must include multimedia elements, some of your own editorial writing, an RSS feed to someone else’s blog in the class and to other websites, images, and links to stories of interest to you. You will be graded on this blog during the course of the semester. The blog should also include your freewriting assignments.

Short Presentations
Throughout the semester students will be asked to give short presentations on new media art works. These presentations can be quite short, but the student must be prepared to answer ques-tions and conduct that portion of the class on his/her own. Presentations should include the fol-lowing:
• a brief synopsis of what the piece is/does
• a brief description of the creators of the piece and its history
• choice excerpts from text where that is applicable
• a “demo” of the piece if it is a piece of interactive software
• an evaluation of the success of the piece taking in consideration all of the above

Vocabulary Notebooks
You should keep a notebook of important vocabulary as it is introduced throughout the semester. I will be evaluating you for your understanding of basic vocabulary at certain moments through-out the semester.

Final Presentation
During the last weeks of the semester you will give a final presentation of your research work. This presentation must include your blog in it. You will be expected to employ elements of mul-timedia in your presentation. The presentation will be roughly 15-20 minutes in length including whatever multimedia elements you choose to employ.

Introduction

The goal of this course is to introduce students to the rudiments of New Media “literacy.” Unlike what the word connotes, “literacy” in new media involves not just text but images and computer interfaces. Students will build rudimentary blogs and learn to appreciate internet culture and the web’s use as a research tool. Students will also learn about the creative uses of the computer in creating textual works as well as other forms of art, and will also consider the uses of technology in educational settings, for children and for adults. Basic readings in theory and the history of new media will be assigned, as will creative assignments. A major portion of the grade will be based on the blog and the final paper.

By the end of this class, students should be able to:
• maintain a basic blog and use it as a research and presentation tool
• understand concepts of digital art/textuality and how it differs from analog culture
• have a sense of the history of computers
• understand how computer technology has impacted community