I’m in Melbourne, Australia, as a “Visiting Research Fellow” at the School of Applied Communication of the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. I feel honored to have been preceded in this position by folks like Stuart Moulthrop, Mark Amerika, and Jill Walker. And it’s been nice not to have to jump back on the plane after DAC, but be able to stay, and get to know the city some, and channel some of the intellectual energy that a good conference can generate. (Speaking of the conference, my panel statement — which became a short paper in its presentation — is now available from a page with links to all the papers).

In Melbourne, traffic runs against my expectations, and when someone wants to turn right, across traffic, instead of waiting in the middle of the road they pull over to the left. When the other traffic has passed they drive all the way across the road. They call it a “hook turn.”

Half the interesting things in this city are down dark alleys. Doors open off alleys into courtyards with staircases, and you can start to hear the beat of music after you get a flight up, then the murmuring wall of people talking, then high tinks of glass or silverware, and then no longer hear the unsyncopated feet of those with you on the stair.

I’ve been working on a review of Marie-Laure Ryan’s Narrative as Virtual Reality for Computers and the Humanities. I posted a version of it over at grandtextauto (where we’re using blog software that supports comments) and I’ve already had a response from the author herself!

I used Apple’s Keynote for my DAC slides — and liked it quite well — but then was surprised to find that there’s no option for exporting to html. So I’ve exported the slides as a PDF “From Instrumental Texts to Textual Instruments.”

DAC was great, by the way. That perfect combination of new ideas/stimulations from the presentations and plenty of informal conversation and brainstorming with really smart folk. There’s no DAC planned for next year, which is sad. But Mary Flanagan, Nick Montfort, and I are starting to toy with the idea of a one-day DAC-affiliated workshop/party in New York City next summer. Anyone with thoughts on that idea please email…

I’m going to be a ramblin’ man over the next few months. Next week I’m speaking at the Digital Arts and Culture conference in Melbourne, Australia — after which I’ll be in Australia and New Zealand for a few weeks. In late June I’ll be giving a couple lectures at Keio University in Tokyo, Japan (at the Mita and Fujisawa campuses) and visiting folks for about 10 days. In early July I’ll be talking at the Summer Literary Seminars in St. Petersburg, Russia — and from there making my way into Europe to visit various people and places.

I hope to keep blogging here and at grandtextauto while I’m on the road — probably more personal stuff here, and the material that’s appropriate over there. And I’ll put up more specific talk dates as they become clear, just in case anyone wants to drop in…

The cat’s out of the bag. Gonzalo Frasca just posted a link to the nascent group blog I’m doing with Andrew Stern, Michael Mateas, Stuart Moulthrop, and Nick Montfort: grandtextauto.org.