Noah Wardrip-Fruin

Expressive Processing on Grand Text Auto

noah — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 03:12:17 +0000

One of the pleasures of Grand Text Auto is the experimentation we undertake with the blog form. Last fall we spawned a gallery exhibition from the blog, at UC Irvine’s Beall Center for Art and Technology. Today, I’m happy to announce, we’ve begun an experiment in blog-based peer review — Expressive Processing — in collaboration with the MIT Press, the Institute for the Future of the Book, and UCSD’s Software Studies initiative. Jeff Young’s piece in the Chronicle of Higher Education does a great job of framing the questions we’re exploring.

Media Workshop & Communicating

noah — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 08:53:08 +0000

The initial versions of the syllabi for Advanced Workshop in Communication Media (my graduate course, COGR 280) and Communicating and Computers (my undergraduate course, COMT 111a) are now online. In both course we’re taking a look at Mary Flanagan and Helen Nissenbaum’s Values at Play research project and curriculum — and at least one course (it’s not yet decided for the second) includes working with the new Metaplace tools being developed by Raph Koster’s Areae.

Intro to Computer Game Studies, Spring 07

noah — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 01:09:16 +0000

Back in September I posted the syllabus for my Fall 2006 graduate seminar in game studies. Now that this site is back online, here’s a link to my Spring 2007 undergrad computer game studies lecture course.

Second Person arrives

noah — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 15:36:02 +0000

Pat Harrigan and I enjoyed editing First Person — and readers seemed to enjoy its broad view of our field. Now Pat and I are happy to announce the publication of a follow-up volume, Second Person: Role-Playing and Story in Games and Playable Media. The contributors to this book go further with some of the ideas and topics in First Person, but also take in a new set of areas. In each case — from tabletop role-playing games to improvisational theater, from political games to procedural authorship — the approach of Second Person is grounded in specific examples, drawing on the insights of a diverse set of contributors.

To learn more, check out:

the table of contents,
the introduction,
Booksense’s link to a local bookstore, or
ISBN.nu link’s to the major online retailers.

receiver, Tate, Encyclopedia, Speakeasy and a minima

noah — Fri, 22 Dec 2006 17:49:18 +0000

This year brought a number of interesting opportunities to share thoughts with new communities. Most recently, the 17th issue of Vodaphone’s receiver just launched, including my article “Three play effects: Eliza, Tale-Spin, and SimCity.“ Before that, I contributed to the Tate’s e and eye project with a piece titled “e and eyeToy.” Also, while it’s not online, I contributed an entry on “Agent” (specifically, The Impermanence Agent) for the Encyclopedia Project’s stunning initial publication this fall: Encyclopedia volume 1: A-E. Yet earlier in the year, one of the final print issues of Speakeasy (Spring 2006) featured the text of Screen with commissioned illustrations by Allison Healy. Finally, I was pleased to be included in the 13th issue of a minima — including an overview of some of my writing/art work (in English and Spanish) as well as a reprint of my dichtung digital interview with Roberto Simanowski (which was also republished by artificial.dk at the beginning of the year).

Meanwhile, I’m told that Second Person should be shipping out from MITP’s warehouse in the next few weeks, and the new year promises a few other events I hope to note in a more timely manner.

Computer Game Studies, Fall 06

noah — Fri, 15 Sep 2006 19:37:20 +0000

I’ve just posted the current draft of my syllabus for the graduate seminar I’ll be leading at UCSD this fall: Computer Game Studies.

Dissertation posted

noah — Sat, 15 Jul 2006 16:18:07 +0000

After being given the nod by Brown University’s Graduate Council, I was recently supported to do a non-departmental “Special Graduate Studies” PhD. I couldn’t have been happier with my committee — chaired by Andy van Dam, and including Wendy Chun, Robert Coover, David Durand, and George Landow. I’m particularly indebted to David, who engaged in a yearlong series of conversations with me, shared his research on related topics (especially Christopher Strachey), and also kept me thinking about making art occasionally. Now I’ve posted the results on my dissertation page and made a post on Grand Text Auto that could serve as a place for discussion among those interested…

In with the new

noah — Fri, 14 Jul 2006 06:50:16 +0000

I started a site called hyperfiction.org in 2002, with the goal of creating something like what our collaborative blog — Grand Text Auto — has become. So now, after long neglect, I’m returning to revamp my personal website, re-christened noahwf.com. There won’t be much active blogging here, but occasional news will be posted on the front page. The site will also host a growing collection of online writings and project documentation, as well as the archives of past efforts. In addition, with the move to WordPress, my personal site will finally allow comments. We’ll see how that goes…

New Project Pages

Administrator — Mon, 08 Nov 2004 09:12:06 +0000

I’ve put up a few “work” pages which gather information about some of my art/writing projects. So far I’ve got pages for The Impermanence Agent, Screen, Regime Change & News Reader, Talking Cure, and Gray Matters.

The World and the World Service

Administrator — Mon, 27 Sep 2004 13:23:43 +0000

I’ve contributed thoughts to a couple of Clark Boyd’s stories this month on The World (distributed by Public Radio International). On September 10th I spoke about the growing uses digital media, especially of the game and simulation varieties, in a story on newsgaming (wma) which focused primarily on Gonzalo Frasca’s September 12th. Then, on September 20th, I spoke a bit about the limitations of purely online political action in a story about a group of hacktivists in Milan. The first of these stories has now been picked up (in text form) by the BBC World Service: “Games blur news and entertainment.”