Grand Text auto is an interesting group blog about “interactive narrative, games, poetry, and art”… there appears to be a lot of interesting entries…I need to go back and look at this site closely….

Roderick Coover’s 2003 Cultures in Webs: Working in Hypermedia with the Documentary attempts to integrate new media practices with documentary, non-fiction storytelling. I’ve not seen this work yet first-hand, but it sounds like an intriguing concept. However, I curious as to why Coover chose to release it as a CD-ROM rather than a Web-based work. Considering the nature of the work, I feel that it’s very relevant to my own research. Yet, why am I hesistant to spend $35 to purchase this CD-ROM when I feel no such hesitation to purchasing a similarly themed book? Maybe it’s just my own proclivity towards open access of digital scholarship.

A review of the CD-ROM is in The Journal of New Media & Culture. The review points out a few technical flaws with the way that the material is presented, indicating that Coover doesn’t take advantage of “current hypermedia software to build a truly engaging, reader-interactive experience.” Of course, it’s easy to be a critic but much more difficult to be the creator so I’m definitely don’t want to fault a CD that I’ve not yet seen. But, again, it makes me wonder: why not just put this work on the Web, which offers not only a rich hypermedia environment but a broader audience for one’s efforts. Jennifer Ley, the author of this review, concludes that “With the abundance of free material available on the web, if we’re to build a paying audience for hypermedia, I think we have to give people a bit more for their $35.” That’s certainly true, but I question why we’re trying to build a paying audience for hypermedia

From examining Rhizome Digest

In a comment at Grand Text Auto, Noah Wardrip-Fruin writes that he is quite impressed by Cultures in Webs: “It strikes me as one of the few truly ambitious, successful essayistic new media projects I’ve seen. ”

3/4/05 update: my copy of Cultures in Webs arrived today. A future post will have my review of it.

I’ve selected a set of readings to inform my thinking about the area I call “endless hybrids”

So, here’s my list of readings in new media, game studies, and narratology that I’m going to examine. (Other items likely will be added as I come across them; this is a starting point, though I think it’s a fairly broad selection of books. Note that I’ve not included articles or web sites in this list. Those also will be added separately):

Lev Manovich, The Language of New Media
Janet Murray, Hamlet on the Holodeck
George Landow, Hypertext 2.0: The Convergence of Contemporary Critical Theory and Technology
Katherine Hayles, How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics
Marie-Laure Ryan, ed., Narrative Across Media: The Languages of Storytelling
Marie-Laure Ryan, Narrative as Virtual Reality: Immersion and Interactivity in Literature and Electronic Media
Gunnar Liestl, ed., Digital Media Revisited: Theoretical and Conceptual Innovations in Digital Domains
Noah Wardrip-Fruin, Pat Harrigan, ed., First Person: New Media as Story, Performance, and Game
Amy Scholder, Eric Zimmeran, Replay: Game Design and Game Culture
Mieke Bal, Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of Narrative
Jay David Bolter, Remediation: Understanding New Media
Jay David Bolter, Writing Space: Computers, Hypertext, and the Remediation of Print
Espen Aarseth, Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature
Jerome McGann, Radiant Textuality: Literature after the World Wide Web
Walter Ong, Orality and Literacy
David Bordwell, Narration in the Fiction Film
Gerard Genette, Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method
Gerald Prince, Narratology: The Form and Functioning of Narrative