“Process-Oriented Fictions: Narrative in the Age of Media Machines”
Noah Wardrip-Fruin
Thursday April 8, 2010
– 10AM -12PM Critique/Discussion, FAC302
– 5PM – 7PM “Playing What We Mean: Games, Fiction, and Expressive Processing” Reitz Union Room 282
Sponsored by Digital Media Art and Digital Assembly
Noah Wardrip-Fruin is a creator of literary art in digital media whose work connects writing with the arts, humanities, and computer science – with a particular interest in fiction and playability. His projects of different sorts include The Impermanence Agent, Screen, The New Media Reader (co-edited with Nick Montfort), three edited collections with Pat Harrigan (First Person, Second Person, and Third Person), and the group blog Grand Text Auto. He is currently an Assistant Professor with the Expressive Intelligence Studio in the Department of Computer Science at the UC Santa Cruz. His book Expressive Processing: Digital Fictions, Computer Games, and Software Studies is just out from MIT Press and is the first in the new Software Studies series.
You can download Expressive Processsing introduction at: http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/chapters/0262013436chap1.pdf
“Meaning What We Play: Games, Fiction, and Expressive Processing” (Reitz Room 282, 5pm)
“Today’s games have well-developed models of spatial movement, combat, and economics. But their models of fiction barely deserve the name. Even those supporting the most ambitious games are burdensome and bug-prone for authors – while providing the player quite limited ranges of meaningful choice. This talk discusses examples of more dynamic approaches to fiction, considering lessons past work presents for authors wishing to craft models that express their visions for playable fiction. At the same time, the talk argues that critics need to begin to interpret the computational processes of computer games (and digital media generally) and connect them to an understanding of audience experience.” (Noah Wardrip-Fruin)