Universe Creation 101

_Leonardo Electronic Almanac Discussion (LEAD): Vol 14 No 8_ Wild Nature and the Digital Life Special Issue, guest edited by Dene Grigar and Sue Thomas

:: Live chat with artist/writer Jeremy Hight and architect/theorist Peter Hasdell

:: Chat date: Thursday, February 1.

:: 2 pm West Coast US / 5 pm East Coast USA / 10pm UK / 9am Feb 2nd Aus

Author Biographies

Jeremy Hight is a locative media and new media artist/writer/ theorist. He collaborated on the early locative narrative project “34 north 118 west”. His essay “Narrative Archaeology” is studied in several universities as a resource on locative narrative and space. He collaborated most recently on the landscape data edited project Carrizo Parkfield Diaries. The diaries are archived in the Whitney Museum Artport. He recently co-curated the online new media exhibition Binary Katwalk . He is working on two large-scale locative media projects that look to push into new areas both in physical space and in functionality. He currently has a project shortlisted for possible development with the European Space Agency and as a form of locative narrative utilizing the European Space Station and points above the earth. Hight is currently editing a book of essays on locative media. Hight holds Masters in Fine Arts (writing, theory, art) from the Critical Studies/Writing program at Cal Arts, and a B.A. in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University. He teaches Visual Communication and English at Los Angeles Mission College.

Peter Hasdell is an architect and academic. He studied film theory and computer engineering before graduating in architecture from University of Sydney. Post-graduate studies completed at the Architectural Association (London), Ph.D in process in Stockholm. He has worked as an architect and artist on both theoretical and actual projects in a number of countries for 16 years. He has taught architecture, design and technology in Europe and North America, and has held positions at the Bartlett School London (UCL), The Berlage Institute in Amsterdam and at KTH Architecture School in Stockholm. His academic work has included research, lecturing and teaching at various institutions in different countries at undergraduate level, postgraduate level and post professional level. In Stockholm he was recently Associate Professor/programme founder/ director of the innovative research studio Architecture and Urban Research Laboratory investigating the mediated city, urban scale metabolic systems and artificial ecologies. He is currently Professor of Architectural Technology at the University of Manitoba. His research work presently investigates metabolic systems and interactive technologies with a focus on ‘artificial ecologies’ and issues of sustainability. He has been a member of various research institutes including Chora Institute of Urbanism and Architecture in London.

:: How to participate in the live chat?

Live chats will use the Writing and the Digital Life Discussion Room.

To access the WDL discussion room, it is necessary to subscribe to the list, by chosing “Join WRITING-AND-THE-DIGITAL-LIFE”

If the online interface does not start, it is necessary to download and install the most recent Java version

I found the WDL link to the discussion forum didn’t work. So I just logged in and went to the WDL page and found it from there. I also added the time and day for those in Australia. I look forward to this one! There are others too, some great ones I’ve missed and others upcoming that I will miss to. But the discussion about notions of distributed narrative should be interesting.

Joseph Jaffe, a new marketing evangelist that I’ve referred to a few times on this blog is in the process of writing his second book. His first, Life After the 30-Second Spot is about the shift from marketers being able to reach massive consumers through the television, indeed, the 30sec TVC. I’ve got it, it is an easy and enjoyable read. He did a nifty thing with his first book: put the last chapter online. His latest book, Join the Conversation, and so, he’s doing something nifty again. He’s asking people to come up with the design for the cover AND, tather than put a chapter online, he’s asking everyone to write the chapter themselves. He has set up a wiki that you can contribute to (after you get the password). I like the idea. Join the conversation

As I mentioned earlier, McKenzie Wark is including contributions of people who has commented on his Future of the Book ‘Thinking Out Loud’ publication of Gam3r 7h3ory. Thinking Out Loud is described as follows:

Using existing social software and web-based tools, the Institute is hosting a series of networked publishing experiments designed to bring authors and readers into conversation around works in progress. Though each of these experiments will culminate in a printed book, we hope to explore what might happen along the way while the work is still in flux.

We’ve also seen many books being developed publically, with active invites to discuss, over the past few years. Chris Anderson’s The Long Tail blog is one. Anderson spend two years blogging his writing of the book, actively engaging with commenters. He gave review copies to every blogger who requested one (you should also invited bloggers and podcasters to launches!), crowd sourced the cover art, and threw MeetUps rather than bookstore signings (Rebecca Lieb). Now that the book is published, his blog continues, he provides a free chapter online and some updates on the book now that it is published. Seth Godin’s latest book ‘Small is the New Big’ is basically a publication of his blog posts. Mark Pesce’s blog hyperpeople is a development of what started as a blog of a book writing project:

hyperpeople:what happens after we’re all connected? started out as a book project. But it grew and evolved. Although there are two completed books that have grown out of it, The World Is My Hard Drive, and The Telephone Repair Handbook, much of what has to be covered in hyperpeople is best handled in blog format. Hence, this site.

There have been plenty online versions of books that provide summaries of the book, a multi-modal version and extensions. Notable ones include Multimedia: From Wagner to Virtual Reality and the more recent The Virtual Window by Anne Friedberg or Andrew Rollings and Ernest Adams’ Game Development. There are also plenty of PhD candidates that blog their research. This blog (CME) started as a research blog. But I don’t blog about my PhD anymore. My research will be coming out through academic publications this year onwards. Some academics create interactive, reconceptualising of their essays, or visualisations that are the theory. I will be doing that too. There are also plenty of fictional stories in blogs, books that are delivered in the blog format, blogs that tell a story using a personal blog style, character blogs and so on. Darth Vader has a blog, and so does Julius Caesar. You can read some more blogfiction at my delicious (and I’ve got a couple of wikifictions too). I too use blogs for creating characters in transmedia fictions.

I really like this approach to writing and marketing books. Working up a fanbase through a blog, through blogging about a book makes sense. Seth Godin spoke at this at the recent Google UnBound: Advancing Book Publishing in the Digital World:

Godin cited Scott Adams’ success with his Dilbert books, based on the comic character. Adams began to include his e-mail address in the syndicated strip. Fans wrote, so he launched a newsletter. “So he delivers a book to Harpers, e-mails his list, and it’s the #1 bestseller,” Seth explained. “How long did it take to make it a best seller, one day? No. Seven years. He built an asset.” (review by Rebecca Lieb)

As an advisor to the Australian Literature Board, I discuss approaches such as they ones I’ve cited and others. I really like the creativity that is emerging. I’m disappointed, however, that it is all coming from the authors and not many publishers. There are some enlightened ones, such as the efforts of Penguin UK, and others I’ll mention here over the next few months. But mostly the drive is coming from authors. The reason being that many publishers just don’t see the need for using the web (I know, I know), and that they don’t see any money in providing digital versions (free copies) or that not many writers or books are suitable for this. The latter is not entirely true, every book needs online marketing; but not all books are appropriate for a collaborative development process. As for fear of losing control and money when digital versions (such as pdfs) are out there. Well, this is where I recommend cross-media bundling. One fee and you get the printed book and a digital version. I’ll be posting about this more soon, but for now, it is interesting to note that a fairy told me Amazon will be bringing this out in a big way. Very cool.

Thanks to this post from Burcu I found out about this fun spoof of the Second Life website: Get a First Life, by Darren Barefoot. Very funny.

Thanks Angus for the heads up on this nice example of producer’s courting the fans. On a recent episode of My Name is Earl, a character who is a forum members of Television Without Pity refers to their posts in the real life forum. Posts which have actually been posted. The character is killed off, and a forum member runs a charity drive in his name. There are many lovely movements between the real world forum and the storyworld of the tv. Check out Rob Coverfish’s description of the events. 

In Feb a new feature film called The Host will be released. It is a scary monster film that has already won numerous Korean Film awards, including Best Film and Best Director. I just checked out the trailer and at the end was some information that if you follow up on…you’ll find an ARG. Yes! An ARG! Very exciting. I think this is the first scary (movie) ARG. Enjoy, or should I say, run! 

Stranger Adventures, an interactive net drama, has been running for a couple of years. It has been nominated for an Emmy twice. There is an interview with the writers by Christie Taylor at the Writers University. Here is an excerpt:

How does writing for “Stranger Adventures” differ from screenwriting?

This is just like writing a screenplay to me in that you do have to write shootable scenes as if it were a movie script. However, each of the scenes you write don’t necessarily have to connect to the next one, so it’s like writing individual movies, some with beginning, middles and ends. Others have no ends, just cliffhangers.

When it comes to the e-mails [that characters send to players] it reminds me of when I first began to write screenplays and I used to explain what was going on in the scenes instead of letting information come out in the scene itself. Writing the e-mails to participants logging on and playing the game is committing one of the cardinal sins of screenwriting, where you tell the reader what’s going on in the scene rather than letting the scene speak for itself. I think it’s great in this format because you have to keep the viewer or the player interested and give juicy information without having to think of a clever way of showing it. This gives a very personal touch and allows the player to connect with the character like a real person.

Read the interview

This will be an interesting conference. I’m interested not just in the marketing of products, but of the transmedia expansions of entertainment properties (as I’ve discussed here).

Virtual Worlds Conference 2007 is the leading event for Fortune 500 businesses seeking to understand and maximize marketing and business strategies within virtual worlds.  Leading companies from Toyota to Starwood to Leo Burnett to Adidas are setting up presences in virtual worlds.  MTV has set up its own virtual world with Virtual Laguna Beach.  CBS will bring its Star Trek franchise into Second Life.

Virtual Worlds 2007 shows you how to succeed as a marketer in this rapidly growing segment of marketing, media, entertainment and commerce.  Separate buzz from success; hear from companies who’ve made the journey and learn from their experiments and activities; learn more about this technology trend and the consumers who inhabit virtual worlds.

Companies considering the following VW applications should attend: branding, entertainment, interactive television, social networking, promotion, education, ecommerce, employee collaboration, test-marketing, content generation, training, recruiting and new product development.

Check out: www.virtualworlds2007.com

Ah, nice mix.

April last year I blogged, at WRT, about a book that had an unusual online life. The ‘book’ is in a card-file type format with cool bright colours and rounded corners. It is a networked book, created by the Future of the Book. The idea is that the book is presented in a cool manner, and that people are encouraged to discuss it, whilst it is being written. The book is about game theory, indeed, it is called ‘GAM3R 7H30RY’. It is written by academic McKenzie Wark, Professor of Cultural and Media Studies at the New School in New York, and author of many books including A Hacker Manifesto. The book will be published in print format around April this year and will include comments by those online. Recently, Wark was interviewed about his online book and his game theory inside a game: Halo. He was interviewed in the ingame talk show This Spartan Life (my favourite talk show) and ended the interview with a reading of his book. A reading that many writers would either envy or fear greatly. Enjoy.

I’ve been checking out the new media initiatives that Penguin UK are running and I must say I am quite impressed. They’ve been providing audio books for a long time, and ebooks too, but they also have a blog, podcast, have a fun MyPenguin program, are now in Second Life and are running on online game to launch a book: The Malice Box Quest. The audio books provide a point of entry to stories for people who prefer or can only enjoy books aurally. Ebooks are similarly for those that prefer to read a book in that format, and want the added benefits such as searchable text. The blog keeps everyone posted on what they are doing but most importantly gets a conversation going between consumers and the company. Indeed, it personifies the company. The podcast has interviews with authors to encourage selling of books, but also provides interviews with Penguin staff to continue the conversation of the blog. MyPenguin is a great little campaign where you can buy classic books such as ‘Crime and Punishment’ that come with a different cover. No cover. Teh cover is completely blank, and you, the consumer, are encouraged to draw or paint the cover and send a picture of it back to them. They’re put the images online at the MyPenguin site and at flickr.

In Second Life (the online virtual world) they will be providing a virtual book of the Ur-text of virtual worlds: Neal Stephenson’s Snowcrash. Snowcrash is the novel that inspired Second Life. At present they only have a sample of the book, but they will be bringing in a swag of Penguin books, holding reading groups and launches in there too. I’ve been speaking with Jeremy Neumann inworld, he is always happy to chat so give him a bell (IM). The Malice Box Quest looks like a cross between the Google Da Vinci Code Quest and Perplex City:

Over 30 days you must complete a series of puzzles to locate the seven sources of red gold scattered across the earth.

By accurately mapping all seven sources of red gold, the antennae grid of the Malice Box will be disabled, allowing Robert to battle and so defeat the Malice Box.

This will also trace a shape on a map of the Earth, guiding you to the location of the Malice Box – known as the FOCAL POINT.

Only when you have made your mark on the FOCAL POINT can you complete your trials and claim your power and prizes.

I’m impressed Penguin UK. Not because they’re plonked a whole lot of new media or Web 2.0 elements into the mix, but because these are executed well. Check them out:

• audio books
• ebooks
• blog
• podcast
• MyPenguin (and at flickr)
• in Second Life
• The Malice Box Quest

A new peer-reviewed journal of new media art has just been launched:

Hyperrhiz: New Media Cultures provides a forum for experimental new media projects (both critical and creative) located outside or across current disciplinary boundaries.

New thinking need not follow established patterns. We at Hyperrhiz oppose the idea that knowledge must grow in a tree structure from previously accepted ideas. Instead, we are interested in the creative potential of thinking as a nodal process. As our name suggests, works written in the spirit of Deleuzian approaches are welcomed but not required.

We value works that are nomadic in nature: place-less but not lost. Like the nomad, we encourage migrations into new conceptual territories resulting from unpredictable juxtapositions: of the material, the virtual, the oral, the visual, the textual, the tactile. These interleavings of words and practices, expressed as electronic meditations, are the literature of the Deleuzian technological nomad.

Check out: http://www.hyperrhiz.net/