The latest issue of The Velvet Light Trap (Number 58, Fall 2006), spotlights film and TVÂ narrative. There is a wonderful selection of papers with one by Jason Mittell:
Keating, Patrick. Emotional Curves and Linear Narratives
Newman, Michael Z. From Beats to Arcs: Toward a Poetics of Television Narrative
Mittell, Jason. Narrative Complexity in Contemporary American Television
Kerins, Mark. Narration in the Cinema of Digital Sound
Lavik, Erlend. Narrative Structure in The Sixth Sense: A New Twist in “Twist Movies”?
Cameron, Allan. Contingency, Order, and the Modular Narrative: 21 Grams and Irreversible
You can only access the journal through an institution subscription though. But if you can, it will be worth it.
DAC, the premier international digital arts conference, will be in Perth next year with Beap. They have just announced the first stage of acceptances:
The reviewing of the 230 abstracts has now been completed, and many thanks to the reviewers for the enormous task. In a process that turns out to have been highly competitive, 48 abstracts have been invited to be developed for presentation at the conference. This will involve the writing and reviewing of the full paper. All submissions will be notified by e-mail, with a report of the reviewing process. Anyone who submitted who has not received a report by the end of October should contact a.hutchison@curtin.edu.au.
48 abstracts have been invited to be developed and presented, while 31 abstracts were outright rejected due to being Too far off topic, Insufficiently original or Unclear / unconvincing. The rest of the abstracts (150) were rated as “valuable contributions” by the review panel, and were not rejected as such, but the DAC format unfortunately simply does not have room for them. Hopefully, these abstracts will be developed further for future presentation. While the review panel was excited about many papers, it did make the observation that a lot of writers did not seem to understand the art of writing an abstract, and that many seemed to be under-informed by obvious, current reading/theory in their area.
Apart from the outstanding papers we are expecting to develop from this selection process, the conference experience will incorporate visits to all of the major exhibitions in the BEAP festival, networking opportunities, artists talks, and the conference itself will take place directly in the heart of Northbridge, PerthÕs cultural and nightlife centre.
I’m so thrilled to say that my abstract has been accepted! Wohoo! I’m so excited. The paper will outline a schema for how people approach media in the multi-platform landscape. I discuss theories of multi-tasking, ergodics and interactivity (and lots more but I’m not giving it away now!). Of course, my paper needs to be accepted through peer-review before I’m actually in the conference, but this is a great start. Wohoo!
I’m way too busy again, so apologies for the lack of posting about interesting things happening around the world. Here is an update on what I’ve been doing though:
Last week I did my first video skype lecture to students at the University of Western Australia on cross-media entertainment. It was for the Masters and Honours level course in Communication Studies: iGeneration: Communication and Participatory Culture. It was great to ‘meet’, well, see Christina waving in the distance and the rest of the class, and of course Peter. I’ve been checking out the vlogs and blogs of the students and am really impressed.
I started a wonderful mentoring program with the Booranga Writer’s Center: Youth Online Writing Workshop (YOWW). They’re running an online writing program (which means we converse and publish online and create electronic literature)Â for six months and I’m one of the three mentors. I’m lucky to to be co-mentoring with Bernard Cohen and Johannes Klabbers. Fantastic! I met the participants on the weekend and we took them through some exercises and gave an intro to the various forms of electronic literature around. They’re a very talented bunch of writers so I really look forward to working with them. I’ll let you know once the public part of the cool YOWW site is up.
I was on radio again about Second Life, on ABC’s PM show. The segment was good but I’m feeling a bit pimped by the media at the moment. They keep putting in the inane things I say in the interview. [Note to self: Don’t say inane things.] Part of the problem is, however, that the interviewers are just findingout about SL and want to report ont he basics of it, the sensationalist angle. This is a first step though. There is much more interesting stuff that can be said about the creative community and what is actually happening in SL that is unique. Ho hum. One day I’ll get to talk about that I hope. Anyway, here is the blurb:
Internet Attracting Virtual Worlds More and more people are escaping workaday reality by starting a new life in virtual reality. In 3D virtual worlds on the internet, you can create your own body and personality, meet virtual friends and carry out everyday activities. One online society, called Second Life, now has more than 870,000 residents logging in around the world. But social commentators are warning that some addicts of the virtual world run the risk of being trapped in a fantasy of cyber perfection.
Speaking of work in virtual worlds. The next issue of Slate Night Magazine will be out shortly with another article by me on a virtual art. The previous issue, in which I (Lythe Witte that is) wrote about the remediation of virtual world art is now available in pdf form.
The NMC is hosting a 12-day symposium on the NMC Campus in Second Life focusing on the impact of digital media on all aspects of our daily lives. At the intersection of virtual 3-D space and the “flat-web” of the browser, virtual worlds like Second Life are active settings for collaboration and socialization. The Symposium on the Impact of Digital Media will explore the ways we encounter and understand digital media — inside such a setting.
Angela/Anya has arranged a Slate Night session in which I’ll speak about the remediation of art in SL. Keep up to date with the symposium at the NMC Second Life blog.