About the Talk:
The current moment is analogous to the invention of the movie camera 100 years ago. A new medium of communication, with particular promise for the creation of narrative has arrived, but we have yet to invent the new narrative forms that will be the equivalent of the "movies." We are currently in transition between the additive stage of "multi-media" (equivalent to the creation of "photo-plays") and the development of expressive form. This change will happen when we learn to exploit the intrinsic properties of the computer. This talk will identify those properties and the narrative pleasures and problems intrinsic to digital media.
About the speaker:
Janet H. Murray is Senior Research Scientist and Director of the Program in Advanced Interactive Narrative Technology (PAINT) in MIT's Center for Educational Computing Initiatives. She is a pioneer of multimedia computing in the humanities and has won the Educom and the Gold Cindy awards among others for her work in interactive design. Her recently published Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace (Free Press, 1997) was cited by Library Journal as one of the two "Best Books of 1998" in the field of computing, and has been hailed as a "brilliant look at the future of storytelling," (James Coates, Chicago Tribune),"a landmark book" (Jon Katz, Hotwired ) and a "Poetics for Cyberspace" (Peter Petre, Fortune). It is based in part on her course in Interactive Narrative, which has been offered at MIT since 1992. She lectures and consults widely on interactive design and applications of new media.
Dr. Murray has been at MIT since 1971, dividing her interests between the literature of the nineteenth and the twenty-first centuries. She was born in New York City, and holds a Ph.D. in English Literature from Harvard University.
Contact Data:
Janet H. Murray, Ph.D.
Senior Research Scientist,
Director, Program in Advanced Interactive Narrative Technology (PAINT)
Center for Educational Computing Initiatives
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
105 Mass. Avenue Room 9-321
Cambridge, MA 02139
phone and voice mail: 617-253-2094 Fax: 617-253-8632
Personal Page: http://web.mit.edu/jhmurray/www/
Web Resource Page for Hamlet on the Holodeck: http://web.mit.edu/jhmurray/www/HOH.html