Off Center

In the final AI Update of the season, Scott and Jhave talk about some of the ways in which AI is finding itself involved in research. They talk about some of the AI models that have been developed with research in mind as well as some of their own experiments with these models.References:Brain2Qwerty https://ai.meta.com/research/publications/brain-to-text-decoding-a-non-invasive-approach-via-typing/ Accessed March 11, 2025.Claude https://claude.ai/ Accessed March 11, 2025.Deep research. https://openai.com/index/introducing-deep-research/ Accessed March 11, 2025.Eliot, George. 1879. “Impressions of Theophrastus Such” William Blackwood and Sons.Perplexity deep research https://www.perplexity.ai/?model_id=deep_research Accessed March 11, 2025.Rettberg, Scott. 2020. “Republicans In Love” https://eloconference2023exhibitions.wordpress.com/exhibition2_resistance/republicans-in-love/

On this episode Scott joins David Bithell overseas, at Southern Oregon University's Digital Media Center. They talk about digital performance, collaborative online music and digital puppetry. References: Bithell, David. Followers. 2017. http://www.davidbithell.com/followers.htmlBithell, David. Matters Dark and Luminous. 2023-Present. http://www.davidbithell.com/mattersdarkandluminous.htmlBithell, David. Subterranean. 2020. http://www.davidbithell.com/subterranean.htmlBithell, David. Windward. 2018. http://www.davidbithell.com/windward.html

In this week's AI Update, Scott and Jhave discuss some of the ways in which fascism reproduces itself, how AI could be used as a tool to facilitate it, and how those leading AI development have found themselves in positions of political power.References:Knausgård, Karl Ove. My Struggle. 2009-2011. Watkins, Gareth. AI: The New Aesthetics of Fascism. 2025. New Socialist. https://newsocialist.org.uk/transmissions/ai-the-new-aesthetics-of-fascism/

In this episode, Scott travels to Australia to talk with Tama Leaver at the Center of Excellence for the Digital Child. They discuss Tama's involvement with the Center, his research regarding generative AI, the ways in which children interact with AI and how they can be affected by them, as well as a recent ban to social media for all children under 16 in Australia. ReferencesHaidt, Jonathan. The anxious generation: how the great rewiring of childhood is causing an epidemic of mental illness. 2024. New York, Penguin Press. Leaver, Tama, and Suzanne Srdarov. 2025. "Generative AI and Children's Digital Futures: New Research Challenges." Journal of Children and Media. 19 (1): 65-70. doi:10.1080/17482798.2024.2438679.Ritchie, Hannah. Australia approves social media ban on under-16s. BBC News, Sydney. November 2024. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c89vjj0lxx9o

Jhave and Scott talk about simulated worlds or environments created with AI, considering what are the boundaries for artifical life.

In this episode we are joined by co-authors Lillian-Yvonne Bertram and Nick Montfort to talk about their new publication Output: An Anthology of Computer Generated Text, 1953-2023. We learn about their path into digital poetry and the process of putting together this anthology.ReferencesBertram, Lillian-Yvonne. 2019.Travesty generator. Noemi Press.Bertram, Lillian-Yvonne and Nick Montfort. 2024.Output: An Anthology of Computer-Generated Text, 1953–2023. The MIT Press.Gysin, Brion and Ian Sommerville. 1960.Permutation Poems.H. Yngve, Victor. 1961.Random Sentences.Knowles, Alison and James Tenney. 1967.The House of Dust.Lutz, Theo. 1959.Stochastic Texts.Montfort, Nick. 2017.The Truelist. Counterpath.Montfort, Nick and Noah Wardrip-Fruin. 2003.The New Media Reader.Nish-Lapidus, Matt. 2020.Work, Life, Balance.Richardson, Leonard. 2013.Alice's Adventures in the Whale.Stiles, Sasha. 2021.Technelegy. The Black Spring Press Group.Strachey, Christopher. 1953.Love Letters.

In this AI Update Jhave and Scott discuss O3, the new AI model announced by OpenAI, which excels in high-complexity tasks, demonstrating state-of-the-art capabilities in science, structured reasoning, and problem-solving.

In this episode, Alinta Krauth, new media artist, is joining Scott Rettberg for a discussion about her art and interspecies communication. Tune in now! 

Jhave and Scott discuss recent developments in AI and forecast new developments in AI storytelling, reasoning, efficiency, organoids, and medicine coming in 2025.

In this AI update, hosts Scott Rettberg and David Jhave Johnston dive deep into the connection between AI and violence. Tune in for the latest AI updates, and the last episode of the year. We will continue the season in the new year. References Calvo, Serena, et al. 2024. Does suicide contagion (Werther Effect) take place in response to social media? A systematic review. Spanish journal of psychiatry and mental health. HBO Entertainment. 2011. Game of Thrones. HBO. Lystad, Reidar P., Brown, Benjamin T. 2018. “Death is certain, the time is not”: mortality and survival in Game of Thrones. Inj. Epidemiol, (5)44. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40621-018-0174-7 Ree, Benjamin, [director]. 2024. “The Remarkable Life of Ibelin.” Netflix. 1 hr., and 24 min. Ritchie, Hannah. 2024. “Australia approves social media ban on under-16s.” BBC News. Effective November 29, 2024, https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c89vjj0lxx9o The New York Times. 2024. “Can A.I. be blamed for a teen's suicide?” The New York Times. Effective, October 23, 2024, https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/23/technology/characterai-lawsuit-teensuicide.html Weizenbaum, Joseph. 1967. ELIZA.

On today's episode, recent PhD graduate, Marianne Gunderson, joins Scott for a discussion on creepypasta, fanfiction and monsters, and machine vision. Doctor Gunderson has started her postdoctoral research at the ALGOFOLK (algorithmic folklore) project connected to the Center for Digital Narrative. References Andam, Julie. 2015. Skam. NRK. Atalaia, Nuno, and Marianne Gunderson. “Alexa's Monstrous Agency: The Horror of the Digital Voice Assistant.” Not available in BORA awaiting publishing. 4Chan. 2003. “What is 4chan?” 4chan. https://4chan.org/. Gunderson, Marianne. 2017. “What is an omega? Rewriting sex and gender in omegaverse fanfiction.” [Master's thesis]. DOI:10.13140/RG.2.2.14405.47849. Gunderson, Marianne. 2024. “The Nexus of Algorithmic Visions: Agency, Imaginaries, and the Self in Sociotechnical Situations.” [Doctoral thesis]. https://bora.uib.no/bora-xmlui/handle/11250/3161190.

In this short byweekly AI update, hosts Scott Rettberg and Jhave Johnston talk about the use of AI in filmmaking in places like Hollywood. While actors and writers fear AI could take over their jobs, its use in filmmaking is rapidly growing.  Bateman, Justine. 2024. “Hollywood is dead, according to Justine Bateman. Here's what comes next.” Fast Company. Effective November 2, 2024. https://www.fastcompany.com/91220089/hollywood-is-dead-according-to-justine-bateman-heres-what-comes-next.  Gordon, Devin. 2024. “What if A.I. Is Actually Good for Hollywood?” The New York Times. Effective November 6, 2024. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/01/magazine/ai-hollywood-movies-cgi.html.  Viggle. n. d. “Home.” Viggle AI. Accessed December 2, 2024. https://viggle.ai/home.  Wonder Animation Studio. n. d. “Home.” Wonder Animation. Accessed December 2, 2024. https://wonderanimation.us/.  Zemeckis, Robert, director. 2024. Here. Miramax. 1 hr., and 44 min. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt18272208/. 

Mark Amerika is a visual artist, media theorist, and novelist. He is a professor of Art and Art History at the University of Colorado. In this episode, Scott and Mark will discuss Mark's career in art and academia, and some of his field-defining works.     References Amerika, Mark. 1997. GRAMMATRON. Alt-X. https://www.grammatron.com/   Amerika, Mark. 1995. Sexual Blood. Black Ice.   Amerika, Mark, Will Luers, & Chad Mossholder. 2023. Posthuman Cinema. https://posthumancinema.com/.  Gillespie, William, Rettberg, Scott, Stratton, Dirk, & Marquadt, Frank. 1999. The Unknown [Hypertext fiction]. Web. http://unknownhypertext.com/.    Rettberg, Scott. 2003. Destination Unknown: Experiments in the Network Novel. [Dissertation]. https://retts.net/documents/rettberg_dissertation.pdf  

Back with a new episode and song, are David Jhave Johnston and Scott Rettberg. In today's episode, they will discuss AI agents. Secret agents, travel agents, helping you with anything you need. Whether that may be spying on people or booking that holiday you wanted to go on, the AI agents can do it for you. Listen now for this new AI update.     References Fourney, Adam, et al. 2024. “Magentic-One: A generalist multi-agent system for solving complex tasks.” Microsoft. Effective November 4, 2024. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/articles/magentic-one-a-generalist-multi-agent-system-for-solving-complex-tasks/ Lu, Yadong. 2024. “OmniParser for pure vision-based GUI agent.” Microsoft. Effective October 8, 2024. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/articles/omniparser-for-pure-vision-based-gui-agent/ Riegler, Michael Alexander. 2024. “Exploring OpenAI's Swarm: An experimental framework for multi-agent systems.” Medium. Effective October 12, 2024. https://medium.com/@michael_79773/exploring-openais-swarm-an-experimental-framework-for-multi-agent-systems-5ba09964ca18 The Big Sleep Team. 2024. “Project Zero. From naptime to big sleep: Using large language models to catch vulnerabilities in real-world code.” Google Project Zero. Effective November 1, 2024. https://googleprojectzero.blogspot.com/2024/10/from-naptime-to-big-sleep.html#bigsleepteam

Welcome back to a new episode of Off Center. Today, Scott is joined by Talan Memmott, a professor of Mass Communication at Winona State University. They discuss Talan's career as a digital artist and electronic literature artist, highlighting his latest work in cripistemology. Tune in now! References Jackson, Shelley. 1995. Patchwork Girl. Eastgate Systems. Joyce, Michael. 1987. Afternoon, a story. Eastgate Systems. Memmott, Talan. 2024. “A Cripistemology of Breath.” YouTube. 4 min., 32 sec. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VRCSILVdgM Memmott, Talan. 1998. BeeHive - Hypertext/Hypermedia Literary Journal, 1(1). https://archive.thenext.eliterature.org/beehive/archive/11arc.html. Memmott, Talan. 2014. Digital Culture World Lecture Tour. [Netprov]. Memmott, Talan. 2023. Introducing Lary: The San Biagio Frescoes of Pietro Golamuto. https://talanmemmott.info/?p=729. Memmott, Talan. 2000. Lexia to Perplexia. Electronic Literature Collection Volume One. https://collection.eliterature.org/1/works/memmott__lexia_to_perplexia.html. Memmott, Talan, & Scott Rettberg. 2019. The Limerick Diet. Electronic Literature Organisation conference.

In this AI update, hosts Scott Rettberg and David Jhave Johnston dive deep into the evolving relationship between AI and human reasoning. They explore how AI models like GPT are learning to "think" through synthetic chain-of-thought processes. Tune in for the latest AI updates.     References Brown, Noam, and Tuomas Sandholm. 2019. “Superhuman AI for multiplayer poker.” Science 365, 885-890. DOI:10.1126/science.aay2400.  Meta Fundamental AI Research Diplomacy Team (FAIR) et al. 2022. “Human-level play in the game of Diplomacy by combining language models with strategic reasoning.” Science 378, 1067-1074. DOI:10.1126/science.ade9097.  Tessler, Michael Henry, et al. 2024. “AI can help humans find common ground in democratic deliberation.” Science 386(6719) DOI:10.1126/science.adq2852. 

This week's episode fits the Halloween theme. Spooky places, historical sites, and digital narratives. In this episode, Scott is joined by Nicole Basaraba, Assistant Professor in Digital Humanities at Trinity College in Dublin. They discuss topics such as cultural heritage research and dark tourism.    References Basaraba, Nicole. 2023. “The Rise of Paranormal Investigations as Virtual Dark Tourism on YouTube.” Journal of Heritage Tourism 19(2): 287–309. doi:10.1080/1743873X.2023.2268746.  Basaraba, Nicole. 2022. Transmedia Narratives for Cultural Heritage: Remixing History. Routledge.  Sam and Colby. 2014. Sam and Colby. YouTube. [YouTube Channel]. YouTube. Retrieved October 24, 2024, from https://www.youtube.com/c/samandcolby/about.  Sam and Colby. 2021. Our Demonic Encounter at Haunted Sallie House. YouTube. 1 hr., 10 min. Retrieved October 24, 2024, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bqwiR871KU.  

In this short biweekly AI update, hosts Scott Rettberg and Jhave Johnston talk about this year's Nobel Peace Prizes for AI research. John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics, and Demis Hassabis and John Jumper received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Tune in to find out what their discoveries and inventions are.   References Baker Lab. n. d. “Baker Lab.” Retrieved on October 24, 2024, from https://www.bakerlab.org/.  Google. n. d. “About.” Google DeepMind. Retrieved on October 24, 2024, from https://deepmind.google/about/.   Hopfield, John J. 1974. “Kinetic proofreading: a new mechanism for reducing errors in biosynthetic processes requiring high specificity.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 71(10), 4135–4139. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.71.10.4135.  Jumper, John, Richard Evans, Alexander Pritzel, et al. 2021. “Highly accurate protein structure prediction with AlphaFold.” Nature 596, 583–589. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-03819-2.  Rumelhart, David E., Geoffrey E. Hinton, and Ronald J. Williams. 1986. “Learning representations by back-propagating errors.” Nature 323, 533–536. https://doi.org/10.1038/323533a0. 

In this episode, Jordan Magnuson, Fulbright scholar at the Center for Digital Narrative, joins us for an interesting discussion about indie games. Jordan has a background in making video games from a very young age. Together with Scott, they discuss the crossover between games and poetry.     Electronic Literature Organisation. n. d. “Electronic Literature Organisation”. https://eliterature.org/.    Magnuson, Jordan. 2023. Game Poems: Videogame Design as Lyric Practice. Amherst College Press.  Magnuson, Jordan. 2018. “Poetic Videogames”. https://www.poeticvideogames.com/about.  Mojang Studios. 2011. Minecraft.  Mossmouth. 2013. Spelunky. https://spelunkyworld.com/index.html. Pope, Lucas. 2013. Papers, Please. 3909. https://store.steampowered.com/app/239030/Papers_Please/. 

Robert Coover was one of the most important American novelists of the 20th Century, the author of more than twenty books including novels, short story collections, plays and other writings. He was also a leading figure in the field of electronic literature, the teacher of many digital writing workshops at Brown University, the co-founder of the Electronic Literature Organization, and a tireless promoter of the field and of innovation in digital writing.  Robert Coover passed away on October 6, 2024, in the company of his family in Warwick, England, listening to “Penny Lane” by the Beatles as he drew his final breath.  This collage of voices, adapted from a simultaneously released Off Center podcast, is part of a larger project based on interviews that Robert Arellano and Scott Rettberg have been conducting with critics, creative writers, students, and friends of Coover in 2023-24, including many of the people who knew Coover's work best. We also include a segment of a lecture titled “A History of the Future of Narrative” that Coover gave at the University of Bergen in 2008, and segments of interviews Larry McCaffery conducted with Coover in 1979 and 1999. In order of first appearance, the speakers include Robert Coover, Scott Rettberg, Robert Arellano, Larry McCaffery, Lance Olsen, Nick Montfort, Stéphane Vanderhaege, Caitlin Fisher, Thomas A. Bass, Tom LeClair, and Alvin Lu.

We are back with another AI update about AI produced podcasts. And this time, we have a special guest joining us, Jill Walker Rettberg. In this episode Jill, Scott, and Jhave will discuss the new feature of Google's NotebookLM, that lets you listen to a podcast conversation about your source documents.   References Google. n. d. “NotebookLM”, NotebookLM. retrieved from https://notebooklm.google/.   Infocom. 1977. Zork. Personal Software. PDP-10 mainframe computer. https://www.pcjs.org/software/pcx86/game/infocom/zork1/.    Montfort, Nick. 2011. Curveship. https://nickm.com/curveship/index.html. 

Off Center, the podcast, is back with a new episode. Scott Rettberg, our host, is joined by Jaroslav Švelch, an associate professor of media studies at Charles University in Prague. In this episode, they will discuss local game production in Czech Republic, gaming the iron curtain, and Jaroslav's book on monstrous antagonists in games.     References Croucher, Mel. 1984. Deus Ex Machina. Automata UK.  Namco. 1981. Galaga. Midway.  Spytihněv. 2023. HROT.  Spytihněv. https://store.steampowered.com/app/824600/HROT/.   Švelch, Jaroslav. 2023. Gaming the Iron Curtain. The MIT Press.  Švelch, Jaroslav. 2023. Player vs. Monster. The MIT Press.   Unknown. 1989. The Adventures of Indiana Jones in Wenceslas Square in Prague on January 16, 1989. Video Game.  

Welcome back to another biweekly AI update with David Jhave Johnston and Scott Rettberg, that from this season on come out every other week between the usual Off Center episodes. In this AI update, Scott and Jhave discuss one of the venues for the More Than Meets AI exhibition at the Bergen International Film Festival. They talk about several projects that will be exhibited that show the future of cinema.   References Boesch, Kelly. N.d. “kelly_boesch_ai_art”, TikTok. Retrieved from https://www.tiktok.com/@kelly_boesch_ai_art.  Finger, Jon. 2023. “Summoner's Rune: Making a film Actors + Ai.” YouTube, video, 4 min., 37 sec. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vqLqqgPskM.   Johnston, David Jhave. 2024. Hallucinations are (almost) all we Need. https://glia.ca/2024/Hallucinations/.   Krauth, Alinta & Jason Nelson. 2023. Ultra Large Digital Narratives.   Niceaunties. n.d. “Auntieverse”, niceaunties. Retrieved from https://niceaunties.com/auntieverse.  Rettberg, Scott. 2024. Fin du Monde. doi: https://doi.org/10.7273/m4ke-zs24.  Warburton, Alan. 2023. The Wizard of AI. https://culture.theodi.org/the-wizard-of-ai/. 

In this episode, Kat Mustatea joins Scott for a chat about the crossroad of technology and performance. Kat Mustatea is a playwright and technologist, and her tech-native storytelling stretches theatre into the digital age. They talk about her journey and her projects Voidopolis BodyMouth, and Lizardly in depth on this episode on Off Center.   References Mustatea, Kat & Heidi Boisvert. 2021. Lizardly. https://www.mustatea.com/lizardly.  Mustatea, Kat & Rozin, Yonatan. 2024. BodyMouth. https://www.mustatea.com/bodymouth.   Mustatea, Kat. 2023. Voidopolis. MIT Press Leonardo. 

From this season on, the biweekly AI update with David Jhave Johnston and Scott Rettberg will come in the weeks between the usual Off Center episodes. In this first separate AI update, Scott and Jhave discuss art made in collaboration with AI for the upcoming More Than Meets AI exhibition, that will take place in Bergen, Norway this fall. References Johnston, D. J. 2018. ReRites. Anteism Books. https://glia.ca/rerites/. Memmott, Talan. 2023. Introducing Lary: The San Biagio Frescoes of Pietro Golamuto. https://talanmemmott.info/?p=729. Meshi, Avital. 2023. Peekaboo. http://www.avitalmeshi.com/peekaboo-2023.html. Miller, Jill, Eamon O'Kane, & Scott Rettberg. 2023. More than meets AI. UC Berkeley. ⁠https://art.berkeley.edu/event-calendar/2023/9/21/more-than-meets-ai⁠. 

Scott Rettberg is back with another season of the podcast Off Center. In this first episode of season 3, Scott is joined by Will Luers, a digital artist, filmmaker and writer. Luers also teaches web development, digital cinema and multimodal publishing in the Creative Media & Digital Culture program at Washington State University Vancouver. In this episode, they will discuss AI filmmaking and Luers' previous works.   Sign up for the CDN newsletter here.   References Amerika, Mark. 2002. FILMTEXT 2.0.  Amerika, Mark. 2022. My Life as an Artificial Creative Intelligence. Stanford University Press.  Amerika, Mark, Will Luers, & Chad Mossholder. 2023. Posthuman Cinema. https://posthumancinema.com/.   Electronic Book Review. n. d. “Electronic Book Review.” https://electronicbookreview.com/.     Farrell, Lisa. 2024. Demons & Ghosts. doi: https://doi.org/10.7273/fbaj-sb31.   Johnston, Jhave. 2024. Identity Upgrade. doi: https://doi.org/10.7273/fs7n-a798.   Krauth, Alinta. 2024. The Songbird Speaks. doi: https://doi.org/10.7273/bpw7-an93.   Luers, Will (editor). 2020. Issue: 00 Digital Essayism. The Digital Review. https://thedigitalreview.com/issue00/index.html.   Luers, Will (editor). 2024. Issue: 04 AI-augmented Creativity. The Digital Review. https://thedigitalreview.com/index.html.   Luers, Will, Roger Dean, & austraLYSIS. 2013. Hypnagogia. https://will-luers.com/collage-cinema/hypnagogia.html.  Luers, Will, Hazel Smith, & Roger Dean. Novelling. https://dtc-wsuv.org/wluers/novelling/.   Rettberg, Scott. 2024. Fin du Monde. doi: https://doi.org/10.7273/m4ke-zs24.  

In the final episode of this second season of Off Center, Scott Rettberg is joined by Rob Wittig, a digital writing pioneer. Rob is an experimental writer in digital media and helped invent the genre Netprov. Learn more about what Netprov is in this episode. In this episode you find a new AI update with David Jhave Johnston, starting from 22:16. We will be back with another episode in September 2024. References de Chervantes, Michael. 1615. Don Quixote, Part Two. Francisco de Robles. Invisible Seattle. 1983-1993. IN.S.OMNIA. [Electronic magazine]. Rettberg, Scott. 2002. Kind of Blue. https://retts.net/kindofblue/. Wittig, Rob. 2002. Blue Company. https://www.robwit.net/bluecompany2002/. Wittig, Rob. 2000. Friday's Big Meeting. [Netprov], https://www.robwit.net/fbm/. Wittig, Rob. 2012. Grace, Wit and Charm. [Netprov], http://gracewitandcharm.com/. Wittig, Rob. 1994. Invisible Rendezvous: Connection and Collaboration in the New Landscape of Electronic Writing. Wesleyan University Press. Wittig, Rob, & Marino, Marc C. 2016. Monstrous Weather. [Netprov], http://meanwhilenetprov.com/index.php/project/monstrous-weather/. Wittig, Rob & Marino, Marc C. 2016. One Week, No Tech. [Netprov], https://meanwhilenetprov.com/index.php/project/one-week-no-tech/. Wittig, Rob. 2021. Netprov: Networked Improvised Literature for the Classroom and Beyond. Amherst College Press. https://www.fulcrum.org/concern/monographs/pc289m47x. Wittig, Rob, & Wohlstetter, Philip. 1983. Invisible Seattle: The Novel of Seattle, by Seattle.

Scott Rettberg has a conversation with Alessandro Ludovico about his new MIT Press book: Tactical Publishing: Using Senses, Software, and Archives in the Twenty-First Century, and about 30 years of tracking digital culture as publisher of Neural magazine. References Ludovico, Alessandro. 2012. Post-Digital Print: The Mutation of Publishing since 1894. Onomatopee. Ludovico, Alessandro. 2023. Tactical Publishing: Using Senses, Software, and Archives in the Twenty-First Century. The MIT Press. Ludovico, Alessandro. 1992. Virtual Reality Handbook. Minus Habens Records. Neural. 1993. Neural Magazine. https://neural.it/ Rosetto, Louis, & Metcalfe, Jane. 1993. Wired Magazine. Issue 1. Swift, Johnathan. 1726. Gulliver's Travels. Benjamin Motte.

Scott Rettberg is back with another episode of the podcast ‘Off Center'. This time he is joined by Søren Pold, Associate professor of Digital Design at Aarhus University. They discuss digital literature, platformazation, and the COVID-19 pandemic. This episode also includes a new AI update with David Jhave Johnston. Together with Scott, he will bring you up to date about recent AI medical advances. The AI update starts at 18:13. References   Abramson, Josh, Adler, Jonas, Dunger, Jack, et al. 2024. Accurate structure prediction of biomolecular interactions with AlphaFold 3. Nature 630, 493–500. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-07487-w.   Ahmad, Irshad. 2022. CRISPR/Cas9—A Promising Therapeutic Tool to Cure Blindness: Current Scenario and Future Prospects. International Journal of Molecular Sciences, 23(19), 11482.  Elias, Pierre, Jain, Sneha, Poterucha, Timothy, et al. 2024. Artificial Intelligence for Cardiovascular Care-Part 1: Advances: JACC Review Topic of the Week. Journal of the American College of Cardiology.  Fuller, Matthew, Green, Colin, & Pope Simon. 1997. The Web Stalker. I/O/D.  Nacher, Anna, Rettberg, Scott, & Pold, Søren. 2021. COVID E-LIT: Digital Art from the Pandemic. Electronic Book Review. DOI: 10.7273/kehh-8c3.  Nacher, Anna, Rettberg, Scott, Pold, Søren Bro & Steele, Ashleigh. 2022. COVID E-LIT: Digital Art During the Pandemic. Documentary. 44 min., 12 sec.    Rettberg, Jill Walker. 2010. Feral hypertext: when hypertext literature escapes control. International Handbook of Internet Research, 477-492.  Richard, Guillaume, de Almeida, Bernardo P., Dalla-Torre, Hugo, et al. 2024. ChatNT: A Multimodal Conversational Agent for DNA, RNA and Protein Tasks. bioRxiv, 2024-04.  Ruffolo, Jeffrey A., Nayfach, Stephen, Gallagher, Joseph, et al. 2024. Design of highly functional genome editors by modeling the universe of CRISPR-Cas sequences. bioRxiv, 2024-04. https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.04.22.590591.  Yang, Lin, Xu, Shawn, Sellergren, Andrew, et al. 2024. Advancing Multimodal Medical Capabilities of Gemini. arXiv preprint arXiv:2405.03162.  Zhao, Yujahio, Ding, Ye, Lau Vick, et al. 2024. Whole-body magnetic resonance imaging at 0.05 Tesla. Science. DOI:10.1126/science.adm7168.  

In a new episode of ‘Off Center', Scott Rettberg and Gabriele de Seta come together for a discussion about Chinese surveillance compared to Western surveillance and Gabriele's new research project on Algorithmic Folklore. Tune in now.  References de Seta, Gabriele. 2024. “An algorithmic folklore: Vernacular creativity in times of everyday automation” In Critical meme reader III: Breaking the meme. Institute of Network Cultures.   De Seta, Gabriele. 2015. Dajiangyou: Media practices of vernacular creativity in postdigital China. [Thesis doctoral].   De Seta, Gabriele, & Shchetvina, Anya. 2023. Imagining machine vision: Four visual registers from the Chinese AI industry. AI & Society. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-023-01733-x.  Merchant, Amil, Batzner, Simon, Schoenholz, Samuel S. et al. 2023. Scaling deep learning for materials discovery. Nature, 624, 80–85. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06735-9.  Perrault, Ray, & Clark, Jack. 2024. Artificial Intelligence Index Report 2024. Stanforth University. 

In this new episode of the podcast Off Center, Scott Rettberg is joined by Mario Aquilina, Associate Professor of English at the University of Malta. They discuss the definition of essay, the effects of AI on essays and whether there is an AI essayistic. Listen now!  Sign up for ⁠⁠⁠⁠the CDN newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠ here. References Aquilina, Mario. 2021. The Essay at the Limits. Bloomsbury Publishing.   Cayley, John. 2023. “Modelit: eliterature à la (language) mode(l)”. Electronic Book Review. https://doi.org/10.7273/2bdk-ng31.  de Montaigne, Michel. 1588. Essais. Publishers: Millanges and Jean Richer.  Johnson, Samuel. 1755. A Dictionary of the English Language. Consortium. 

In this episode of Off Center, Scott Rettberg is joined by Ben Grosser, a professor of New Media at the University of Illinois. Ben is a well-known software artist who critically approaches digital media and platforms in his work. Listen now!  Sign up for ⁠the CDN newsletter⁠ here. References Grosser, Benjamin. 2012. Facebook Demetricator. Web browser extension.  https://bengrosser.com/projects/facebook-demetricator/.  Grosser, Benjamin. 2014. What do metrics want? How quantification prescribes social interaction on Facebook. Computational Culture. http://computationalculture.net/what-do-metrics-want/.  Grosser, Benjamin. 2019. Order of magnitude. Video. 47:15 minutes. https://bengrosser.com/projects/order-of-magnitude/.  Perrault, Ray, & Clark, Jack. 2024. Artificial Intelligence Index Report 2024. Stanforth University.  Mallapaty Smriti. 2024. AI traces mysterious metastatic cancers to their source. Nature, 628(8009). 699-700. doi: 10.1038/d41586-024-01110-8.  Downey, Sean C. 2024. “The Godmother of AI. How Fei-Fei Li '99 is safeguarding the future of human and artificial intelligence”. https://alumni.princeton.edu/stories/fei-fei-li-woodrow-wilson-award.   Grosser, Benjamin. 2021. Deficit of less. Video. 47:15 minutes. https://bengrosser.com/projects/deficit-of-less/.  Grosser, Benjamin. 2020. Not for you. Browser extension.  https://bengrosser.com/projects/not-for-you/.  Smith, Ben. 2021. “How TikTok reads your mind”. New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/05/business/media/tiktok-algorithm.html.  Grosser, Benjamin. 2020. The Endless Doomscroller. https://endlessdoomscroller.com/. 

This time on Off Center, Scott Rettberg is joined by Sarah Edmands Martin, a designer and researcher at the University of Notre Dame. Her research takes place at the intersection of visual communication design, critical fabulation, and media aesthetics. In this episode they discuss speculative design.  References Bierut, M. 2015. How to use graphic design to sell things, explain things, make things look better, make people laugh, make people cry, and (every once in a while) change the world change the world. United Kingdom: Thames & Hudson.  Berry, Anne, H., & Sarah Edmands Martin. 2020-2021. Ongoing Matter. Exhibitions at The Galleries at CSA, College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences, Cleveland State University, and The Cook Center Galleries, Maxwell Hall, Indiana University.   Jagoda, Patrick, & Sarah Edmands Martin. In Progress. Otherworldly Games: An Atlas of Possible Realities. 

Welcome back to a new episode of Off Center. In this episode Scott Rettberg is joined by Kristine Jørgensen, professor of media studies and PI at the Center for Digital Narrative. They talk about male gaming culture, transgressive games, and understanding male gamers.  Sign up for ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠the CDN newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ here.   References (in order of appearance) Espen, Aarseth. 1997. Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature. Johns Hopkins University Press.  Smith, Paul, & Howard, Steve. 1987. Bride of Frankenstein. 39 Steps.   US Army. 2015. America's Army: Proving Grounds. US Army. https://store.steampowered.com/app/203290/Americas_Army_Proving_Grounds/.  11 Bit Studios. 2014. This war of mine. 11 Bit Studios.  https://store.steampowered.com/app/282070/This_War_of_Mine/.  Destructive Creations. 2015. Hatred. Destructive Creations.  https://store.steampowered.com/app/341940/Hatred/.  DMA Design. 1997. Grand Theft Auto. BMG Interactive.   Mortensen, Torill Elvira & Jørgensen, Kristine. 2020. “The Carnivalesque Aesthetics of Games” In The Paradox of Transgression in Games. Routledge.   Den Norske Forfatterforening. February 8, 2024. “Enighet om KI-appendiks" Den Norske Forfatterforening, retrieved on April 3, 2024, from https://www.forfatterforeningen.no/artikkel/enighet-om-ki-appendiks/.  Bjørkelo, Kristian, A. 2020. “Elves are Jews with Pointy Ears and Gay Magic”: White Nationalist Readings of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. The International Journal of Computer Game Research, 20(3). https://gamestudies.org/2003/articles/bjorkelo.   Bethesda Game Studios. 2011. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Bethesda Softworks.  Blizzard Entertainment. 2004. World of Warcraft. Blizzard Entertainment. https://worldofwarcraft.blizzard.com/en-us/.  Black Isle Studios. 1999. Planescape: Torment. Beamdog. https://planescape.com/. 

Scott Rettberg and Patrick Jagoda, professor at the university of Chicago, and cofounder of the Game Changer Chicago Design Lab and the Transmedia Story Lab, talk about alternate reality games and transmedia storytelling in this episode of Off Center. They talk about games Patrick has been working on.  Sign up for ⁠⁠⁠⁠the CDN newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠ here. References (in order of appearance) Spielberg, Steven, director. 2001. A.I. Artificial Intelligence. Warner Bros. Pictures. 2 hr., 26 min.  Gilliam, Melissa, director. 2013. The Source. Game Changer Chicago Design Lab. Alternate reality game. http://www.patrickjagoda.com/projects/the-source.  Jagoda, Patrick, & Coleman, Heidi, directors. 2022. Cene. Fourcast Lab. Alternate reality game. https://fourcastlab.com/cene/.  Jagoda, Patrick, & Bennett, Ireashia, & Sparrow, Ashlyn. 2022. Transmedia Stories: Narrative Methods for Public Health and Social Justice. Stanford University Press. https://transmediastories.org/.   Slade, D, director. 2018. Black Mirror: Bandersnatch. House of Tomorrow. Netflix. 1 hr, 30 min. https://www.netflix.com/no-en/title/80988062.   Coleman, Heidi, & Jagoda, Patrick, directors. 2023. Encounter. Fourcast Lab. Alternate reality game. https://fourcastlab.com/encounter/. 

A new episode of Off Center in which Scott and Mathias Klang, a lawyer and professor at Fordham University, talk about surveillance microcosms and how spying is shaping our lives.   In this episode, Scott and Jhave, a previous guest on Off Center, give the first 5-minute AI update. Sign up for ⁠⁠⁠the CDN newsletter⁠⁠⁠ here. References Rettberg, Jill Walker. 2024. Machine Vision: How Algorithms Are Changing the Way We See the World. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.  Bentham, Jeremy, 1748-1832. 1995. The Panopticon Writings. London; New York: Verso.  Orwell, George. 1949. 1984. England: Secker & Warburg.  Foucault, Michel. 1977. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. New York: Pantheon Books.  Suno Inc. 2024. Suno AI. https://www.suno.ai/.  Johnston, D. J. 2018. ReRites. Anteism Books. https://glia.ca/rerites/.  Forsgren, Seth & Hayk Martiros. 2022. Riffusion. https://www.riffusion.com/.   sp0n, Inc. 2017. Citizen. Android & iOS. 

In this second episode of season two, Scott is joined by Jill Walker Rettberg, co-director of the Center for Digital Narrative to talk about her book on Machine Vision and how algorithms are changing the way we see the world.  Sign up for ⁠⁠the CDN newsletter⁠⁠ here. References Rettberg, Jill Walker. 2024. Machine Vision: How Algorithms Are Changing the Way We See the World. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.  Vertov, Dziga, director. 1929. Man with a Movie Camera. All-Ukrainian Photo Cinema Administration. 68 minutes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Man_With_A_Movie_Camera_(Dziga_Vertov,_1929).webm   Hayles, N. Katherine. 1999. How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature and Informatics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.  Ring LLC. 2017. Neighbors by Ring. Android & iOS. Shusterman, Neal. 2018. Thunderhead. Simon & Schuster. Kronman, Linda. 2019. The deception of an infinite view – exploring machine vision in digital art. BCS Learning and Development Ltd. http://dx.doi.org/10.14236/ewic/POM19.11.

Episode 13: Creative AI with David Jhave Johnston In this first episode of season two, Scott is joined by David Jhave Johnston, digital poet, videographer, and motion graphics artist. Together they talk about digital poetry, cyborg authorship, and the use of AI for content creation.   References Johnston, D. J. 2016. Aesthetic Animism: Digital Poetry's Ontological Implications. The MIT Press. https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262034517/aesthetic-animism/. Johnston, D. J. 2018. ReRites. Anteism Books. https://glia.ca/rerites/. Open AI.  n.d. “ChatGPT,” https://chat.openai.com/. Google Deepmind. n.d. “Gemini.” Gemini, https://www.gemini.com/. 23andMe Holding Co. n.d. “23andMe,” https://www.23andme.com/en-int/. Johnston, D. J. 2023. “Identity Upgrade Series”, https://glia.ca/. Karp, A. C. July 25, 2023. “Our Oppenheimer Moment: The Creation of A.I. Weapons.” The New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/25/opinion/karp-palantir-artificial-intelligence.html. Luckey, P. 2017. “Command and Control.” Anduril, https://www.anduril.com/command-and-control/. Suchman, L. 2023. “The Uncontroversial ‘thingness' of AI.” Big Data & Society 10, no. 2 (July). https://doi.org/10.1177/20539517231206794. Reardon. S. 2023. “FDA Approves First CRISPR Gene Editing Treatment for Sickle Cell Disease”. Last modified December 8, 2023. Scientific American. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fda-approves-first-crispr-gene-editing-treatment-for-sickle-cell-disease/. Altae-Tran, H., Kannan, S., et al. 2023. Uncovering the functional diversity of rare CRISPR-Cas systems with deep terascale clustering. Science. DOI: 10.1126/science.adi1910. Lovelock, J. 2019. Novacene: The Coming Age of Hyperintelligence. Penguin Books Limited. Kurzweil, R. 2005. The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology. Viking. Kurzweil, R. 2000. “Ray Kurzweil's Cybernetic Poet: HOW IT WORKS”. [Poetry machine]. https://www.kurzweilcyberart.com/poetry/rkcp_how_it_works.php.

Welcome back to the final episode of the first season of the podcast ‘Off Center'. In this episode, Scott Rettberg is joined by video game designer Doris Rusch, professor at Uppsala University. They talk about Doris' journey in game design and the creation of existential games for the soul.   We will be back in February 2024 with a new season.   References Thatgamecompany. 2012. Journey. Sony Computer Entertainment.   Fullerton, T. 2017. Walden, a game. USC Games.  Play for Change. 2017. Blood Myth.   Rusch, D. C., & Phelps, A. 2021. The Witch's Way. [Twine].   Klimas, C. 2009. Twine. https://twinery.org/.  Rusch, D. C. 2012. Zombie Yoga. [Kinect].  

Scott Rettberg is back with a new episode of the podcast Off Center. This time he is joined by Roderick Coover to discuss filmmaking with the use of databases and combinatory cinema projects they collaborate on.   References Coover, R. 1999. A Harvest in Burgundy. [first exhibited at Midway Studios Chicago]. Coover, R. 2010. Canyonlands: Edward Abbey and the Great American Desert. Unknown Territories LTD. Coover, R., & Rettberg, S. 2014. Toxi•City: A Climate Change Narrative. [Recombinatory narrative film]. Coover, R., & Rettberg, S. 2015. “The Last Volcano / Det siste utbruddet.” Hyperrhiz: New Media Cultures, 12. doi:10.20415/hyp/012.me02 Coover, R., Montfort, N., & Rettberg, S. 2012. Three Rails Live. [Combinatory narrative film]. Coover, R., & Hafertepe, C. 2013. Estuary. [Large format book]. Long, L., Rettberg, S., & Coover, R. et al. 2015. Hearts and Minds: The Interrogations Project. Unknown Territories LTD. [Interactive virtual reality narrative].

In this episode, Scott Rettberg is joined by immersive storyteller Caitlin Fisher, director of York University's Immersive Storytelling Lab. They discuss topics such as augmented and virtual reality, electronic literature, future cinema, and emerging technology.    References Eastgate Systems. 1987. Storyspace. http://www.eastgate.com/storyspace/.  Fisher, C. 2001. These Waves of Girls. Web. https://www.yorku.ca/caitlin/waves/   Arellano, R. 1996. Sunshine '69. [Hypertext]. Web. SonicNet. https://bobbyrabyd.github.io/Sunshine69/noflash.html.   Humphrey, A., Fisher, C., Hoffman, S. J., & Ulit-Destajo, L. 2021. Shadowpox: The Antibody Politic. [Motion-tracked interactive projections]. At the Immune Nations exhibition at McMaster Museum of Art.  Hoffman, S. J. & Fisher, C. 2023. Mobilizing the arts for global health: a virtual museum of antimicrobial resistance. [VR museum].  

In this episode, Scott Rettberg is joined by novelist and professor of Emerging Media and Digital Art at Southern Oregon University, Robert Arellano. They discuss the history of hypertext and Robert's breakthrough hypertext novel. References Coover, Robert. 1992. “The end of Books”. Essay. New York Times. https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/98/09/27/specials/coover-end.html. Coover, Robert. 2023. Open House. OR Books. Coover, Robert. 1993. “Hyperfiction: Novels for the Computer”. Essay. New York Times. https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/98/09/27/specials/coover-hyperfiction.html?_r=4. Gillespie, W., Rettberg, S., Stratton, D., & Marquadt, F. 1999. The Unknown. [Hypertext fiction]. Web. http://unknownhypertext.com/. ELMCIP. n. d. “TP21CL” https://elmcip.net/event/technology-platforms-21st-century-literature. Arellano, R. 1996. Sunshine '69. [Hypertext]. Web. SonicNet. https://bobbyrabyd.github.io/Sunshine69/noflash.html. Eastgate Systems. 1987. Storyspace. http://www.eastgate.com/storyspace/. Klimas, C. 2009. Twine. https://twinery.org/. Jackson, S. 1995. Patchwork Girl. [Hypertext]. Eastgate Systems. Arellano, R. 2001. Fast Eddie: King of the Bees. Akashic Books. Arellano, R. 2009. Havana Lunar. Akashic Books. Rettberg, S. 2018. Electronic literature. John Wiley & Sons. Coover, R. 1992. Hypertext Hotel. [Hypertext]. MOO. Landow, G. P. 1992. Hypertext: The convergence of contemporary critical theory and technology. Johns Hopkins University Press.  

In this episode, Scott Rettberg is joined by Flourish Klink, one of the ‘Fansplaining' podcast hosts to discuss the world of fandoms and the creation of fanfiction about books, movies, shows, and celebrities.   References Klink, F., & Minkel, E. 2015-. Fansplaining. Podcast. https://www.fansplaining.com/episodes. Rowling, J. K. 1998. Harry Potter and the sorcerer's stone. New York: Arthur A. Levine Books. Jenkins, H. 2006. Convergence culture: Where old and new media collide. New York University Press. Jenkins, H. 1992. Textual Poachers. Routledge. Andem, J. 2015-2017. Skam. NRK. Lucas, G. 1999. Star Wars: Episode I: The phantom menace. 20th Century Fox. Kripke, E. 2005-2020. Supernatural. Warner Bros. Television. Crane, D, & Kauffman, M. 1994-2004. Friends. Warner Bros. Television. Frank Baum, L. 1990. The wonderful wizard of Oz. George M. Hill Company. Doyle, A. C. 1888. A study in Scarlet. Ward Lock & Co. Richardson, S. 1740. Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded. Messrs Rivington & Osborn. Fielding, H. 1741. An apology for the life of Mrs. Shamela Andrews. A. Dodd. Shazeer, N., & De Freitas, D. 2022. Character.ai. https://beta.character.ai/. Finger, B. 1939. Detective Comics 27. DC Comics. Huffman, S., Swartz, A., & Ohanian, A. 2005. Reddit. https://www.reddit.com/. Lau, A., & Yuen, I. 2006. Wattpad. https://www.wattpad.com/. Google LLC. 2005. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/. ByteDance. 2016. TikTok. https://www.tiktok.com/en/. James, E.L. 2011. Fifty shades of Grey. Vintage Books. Gabaldon, D. 1991. Outlander. Delacorte Books. Newman, S., Webber, C. E., & Wilson, D. 1963-1989. Doctor Who. BBC Studios. Brontë, C. 1847. Jane Eyre. Smith, Elder & Co. Roddenberry, G. 1966-1969. Star Trek: The Original Series. Paramount Television. Carter, C. 1993-. The X-Files. FOX.

Scott Rettberg is this time joined by Center for Digital Narrative PI Nick Montfort. Together they dive into topics such as computational narrative systems, platform studies, and interactive fiction.  References Infocom. 1977. Zork. Personal Software. PDP-10 mainframe computer. https://www.pcjs.org/software/pcx86/game/infocom/zork1/.  Infocom. 1982. Deadline. Interactive fiction detective video game. Various platforms.  Infocom. 1984. The Hitchhiker's guide to the Galaxy. Interactive fiction video game. Various platforms.  Infocom. 1987. Bureaucracy. Interactive fiction video game. Various platforms.  Montfort, N. 1999. Winchester's Nightmare: A Novel Machine. Interactive fiction. Web edition: https://nickm.com/if/parchment/index.html?story=stories/winchest.z8.js.   Montfort, N. 2005. Twisty Little Passages: An approach to interactive fiction. MIT Press.  Montfort, N. 2006. Ad Verbum. Interactive fiction. Web edition: https://nickm.com/if/parchment/index.html?story=stories/adverbum.z5.js.  Wardrip-Fruin, N., & Montfort, N. 2003. The New Media Reader. MIT Press.  Hayles, K., Montfort, N., Rettberg, S., & Strickland, S. 2006. Electronic Literature Collection: Volume 1. https://collection.eliterature.org/1/.  Montfort, N., & Bogost, I. 2020. Racing the Beam: The Atari video computer system. MIT Press.  Rowberry, S. P. 2022. Four Shades of Gray: The Amazon Kindle platform. MIT Press.  Chandler, O., & Chandler, E. K. 2006. Goodreads. Social network site. https://www.goodreads.com/.  Custodio, A. 2020. Who are you? Nintendo's Game Boy advance platform. MIT Press.   Montfort, N. 2023. “Why I Am Not an Algorist.” In Poème Objkt Sbjkt, Paris: Librairie Galerie Métamorphoses, pp. 126–131.  Montfort, N. 2008. ppg256. (Perl Poetry Generator in 256 characters) series. https://collection.eliterature.org/2/works/montfort_ppg256/ppg256.html.  Stephens, P. 2015. The Poetics of Information Overload: From Gertrude Stein to Conceptual Writing. University of Minnesota Press.  Stephens, P. 2020. Absence of cCutter: Minimal Writing as Art and lLterature. MIT Press.  University of Bergen. n. d. “Center for Digital Narrative.” https://www.uib.no/en/cdn.  OpenAI. 2023. ChatGPT [Large language model]. https://chat.openai.com/chat.  Meehan, J. 1976. Tale-Spin. A program that writes simple stories. 

In this episode of ‘Off Center' Scott Rettberg is joined by Lai-Tze Fan to discuss gendered AI voice assistance, editorial labour, and her online collaborative works.   References Urban One. 1997. “AsianAvenue”. (Currently redirected to https://blackplanet.com/)   America Online. 1996. “ICQ”. https://icq.com/.   Microsoft. 1995. “MSN”. https://www.msn.com/.  The Digital Review. 2022. “The Digital Review, issue 01.” https://thedigitalreview.com/.  Electronic Book Review. n. d. “Electronic Book Review.” https://electronicbookreview.com/.  Unity Technologies. 2005. “Unity.” https://unity.com/.  Fan, Lai-Tze. 2023. Reverse engineering the gendered design of Amazon's Alexa: Methods in testing closed-source code in grey and black box systems. Digital Humanities Quarterly, 17(2). https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7271-2160.   ELMCIP. n. d. “Electronic Literature Knowledge Base.” https://elmcip.net/.  OpenAI. 2023. ChatGPT [Large language model]. https://chat.openai.com/chat. 

Scott Rettberg is back with a new episode of the podcast Off Center. This time he is joined by Drew Keller to discuss computational creativity and storytelling in media production.   References Keller, Drew. 2023. Computational Creativity in Media Production: At the Crossroad of Progress and Peril. [Master's Thesis] . Download:  https://bora.uib.no/bora-xmlui/handle/11250/3071882 Freedgood, Elaine. 2003. "Fine Fingers: Victorian Handmade Lace and Utopian Consumption." Victorian Studies (Indiana University Press) 45 (4): 625-647. Accessed November 14, 2022. http://www.jstor.com/stable/3829530.  Microsoft. 2016. PowerPoint. macOS and Windows.   Adobe Inc. 2023. Photoshop. macOS and Windows.  OpenAI. 2023. ChatGPT [Large language model]. https://chat.openai.com/chat.  + Announcing the More Than Meets AI exhibition at UC Berkeley's Worth Ryder Gallery Curated by Jill Miller, Eamon O'Kane, and Scott Rettberg, “More Than Meets AI'' explores artificial intelligence and its role in creativity, narrative, and artistic innovation. This exhibition critically engages with AI by highlighting its new creative possibilities for the arts and literature while also recognizing its significant consequences to our culture and society, reflecting on contemporary AI art's place in relation to historical work in electronic literature.  Artists in the exhibition: Mez Breeze, Edgar Fabian Frias, Micol Hebron, Carl Hugo Hernqvist, David Jhave Johnston, Asma Kazmi, Alison Knowles, Alinta Krauth, Koirus (Linda Kronman and Andreas Zingerle), Patrick Lichty, Theo Lutz, Talan Memmott, Avital Meshi, Jill Miller, Nick Montfort, Jason Nelson, Eamon O'Kane, Mario de la Ossa, Sonja Rappaport, Scott Rettberg, Mario Santamaria, Alex Saum, Sasha Stiles, and Victor H. Yngve Opening Reception: Wednesday, October 10th, 2023. 5pm - 7pm. Worth Ryder Art Gallery (AAPB 116) Exhibit Run: October 2nd - October 15, 2023 M, T, TH, F: 12pm - 5pm. W: 1pm - 7pm. Sat: 12pm - 3pm. Closed Sundays. UC Berkeley, Anthropology + Art Practice Building, Rm 116 (First Floor)

In this episode of ‘Off Center' Scott Rettberg and journalist and digital culture researcher Ashleigh Steele discuss the impact of memes as "preparatory media" for the January 6th insurrection at the US Capitol.   References Steele, Ashleigh. 2023. Free speech platforms and the impact of the U.S. insurrection: Misinformation in memes. [Master's Thesis].  Petras, George., Loehrke, Janet., Padilla, Ramon., Zarrachina, Javier & Borresen, Jennifer. January 7, 2021. “Timeline: How the storming of the U.S. Capitol unfolded on Jan. 6.” USA Today News. https://eu.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/2021/01/06/dc-protests-capitol-riot-trump-supporters-electoral-college-stolen-election/6568305002/.    Trump Media & Technology Group. “Truth Social.” Version 2022. Truthsocial.com. https://truthsocial.com/.   Torba, Andrew. “Gab.” Version 2019. https://gab.com/.   OpenAI. 2023. ChatGPT [Large language model]. https://chat.openai.com/chat.  Barthes, Roland, Annette Lavers, and Colin Smith. 1968. Elements of Semiology / Roland Barthes; Translated from the French by Annette Lavers and Colin Smith. Translated by Annette Lavers and Colin Smith. 1st American edition. New York: Hill and Wang.  Munn, Luke. 2021. “More Than a Mob: Parler as Preparatory Media for the U.S. Capitol Storming”. First Monday, 26(3). DOI:10.5210/fm.v26i3.11574.  

In this episode of Off Center, Scott Rettberg and Jason Nelson come together to talk about digital art and poetry, art games, and the bridge to researching Extended Digital Narratives.   References Burning Deck. n. d. “Burning Deck Press.” https://burningdeck.com/.   ACM SIGGRAPH. n. d. “ACM SIGGRAPH.” https://www.siggraph.org/.   Electronic Literature Organization. n. d. “Electronic Literature Organization.” https://eliterature.org/.   Nelson, Jason. 2007. Game, Game, Game and Again Game. Web.   Brevik, David. 1997. Diablo. Blizzard Entertainment. Microsoft Windows.   Nelson, Jason. 2010. i made this. you play this. we are enemies. Web.   Gertrude Street Projection Festival. n. d. “GS.PF.” https://www.gspf.com.au/.   OpenAI. 2022. Dall∙E 2. https://openai.com/dall-e-2.   Leishman, Donna. 2005. Deviant. https://tohavetohold.uk/deviant.   Barthes, Roland. 1957. Mythologies. Les Lettres nouvelles.   

In this episode, Scott Rettberg is joined by Joseph Tabbi, professor of English at the University of Bergen to discuss the electronic book review, research infrastructure, and electronic literature.  References Tabbi, Joseph. 2015. Nobody Grew but the Business: On the Life and Work of William Gaddis. Northwestern University Press.  Electronic Book Review. n. d. “Electronic Book Review.” https://electronicbookreview.com/.   Electronic Literature Organisation. n. d. “Electronic Literature Organisation”. https://eliterature.org/.   Eskelinen, Markku. 2001. Towards computer game studies, Digital Creativity, 12(3), 175-183. https://doi.org/10.1076/digc.12.3.175.3232.   Fiction Collective 2. n. d. “Fiction Collective 2.” https://fc2.org/.   Tabbi, Joseph. 2020. Post-Digital: Dialogues and Debates from electronic book review. Bloomsbury Publishing.   Burdick, Anne & Drucker, Johanna & Lunenfeld, Peter & Presner, Todd & Schnapp, Jeffrey. 2012. Digital Humanities. DIO: 10.7551/mitpress/9248.001.0001.  NT2. n. d. “NT2 Répertoire Des Arts et Littératures Hypermédiatiques.” https://nt2.uqam.ca/en/search/site.   Braidotti, R., & Hlavajova, M. 2018. Posthuman glossary. Bloomsbury Publishing.  Braidotti, R., Jones, E., & Klumbyte, G. 2022. More posthuman glossary. Bloomsbury Publishing. 

In this first episode of the podcast, Scott Rettberg is joined by his co-director and partner Jill Walker Rettberg. They talk about what has inspired them over the years to start this research Center of Excellence, the concept of "algorithmic narrativity," and some of the research that the Center will focus on including digital narratives in electronic literature, computer games, social media, computational narrative systems, AI, XR and more. Sign up for the newsletter coming soon. References University of Bergen. n. d. “Center for Digital Narrative.” https://www.uib.no/en/cdn.   Infocom. 1977. Zork. Personal Software. PDP-10 mainframe computer. https://www.pcjs.org/software/pcx86/game/infocom/zork1/.   Gillespie, W., Rettberg, S., Stratton, D., & Marquadt, F. 1999. The Unknown [Hypertext fiction]. Web. http://unknownhypertext.com/.   ELMCIP. n. d. “Electronic Literature Knowledge Base.” https://elmcip.net/.   Strachey, Christopher. 1952. M.U.C. Love Letter Generator. HTML.   ELMCIP. n. d. “Digital Arts and Culture 1998 Conference.” https://elmcip.net/event/digital-arts-and-culture-1998-conference.   Kittler, Friedrich, Dorothea von Mücke, and Philippe L. Similon. 1987. “Gramophone, Film, Typewriter.” October 41: 101–18. https://doi.org/10.2307/778332.  Jhave Johnston, David. 2019. ReRites. Anteism Books, Montreal. http://glia.ca/rerites/.   Wittig, Rob. 2022. Netprov: Networked Improvised Literature for the Classroom and Beyond. Amherst College Press. https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.12387128.  University of Bergen. n. d. “Machine Vision.” https://www.uib.no/en/machinevision.