This dissertation examines the role of the spatial in four works of digital interactive literature. These works are Dreamaphage by Jason Nelson (2003), Last Meal Requested by Sachiko Hayashi (2003), Façade by Michael Mateas and Andrew Stern (2005) and Egypt: The Book of Going Forth by Day by M. D. Coverley (2006). The study employs an original analytical method based on close reading and spatial analysis, which combines narrative, design and interaction theories. The resulting critique argues that the spatial components of the digital works define reader interaction and the narratives that result from it. This is one of very few in-depth studies grounded in the close reading of the spatial in digital interactive literature. Over five chapters, the dissertation analyzes the four digital works according to three common areas. Firstly, the prefaces, design and addressivity are present in each. Secondly, each of the works relies on the spatial for both interaction and the meanings that result. Thirdly, the anticipation of responses from a reader is evaluated within the interactive properties of each work. This anticipation is coordinated across the written text, moving and still images, representations of places, characters, audio and navigable spaces. The similar divisions of form, the role of the spatial and the anticipation of responses provide the basic structure for analysis. As a result, the analytical chapters open with an investigation of the prefaces, move on to the design and conclude with how the spaces of the digital works can be addressive or anticipate responses. In each chapter representations of space and representational space are described in relation to the influence they have upon the potentials for reader interaction as spatial practice. This interaction includes interpretation, as well as those elements associated with the ergodic, or the effort that defines the reception of the digital interactive texts. The opening chapter sets out the relevant theory related to space, interaction and narrative in digital literature. Chapter two presents the methodology for close reading the spatial components of the digital texts in relation to their role in interaction and narrative development. Chapter three assesses the prefaces as paratextual thresholds to the digital works and how they set up the spaces for reader engagement. The next chapter takes up the design of the digital works and its part in the formation of space and how this controls interaction. The fifth chapter looks at the addressivity of the spatial and how it contributes to the possibilities for interaction and narrative. The dissertation argues for the dominance of the spatial as a factor within the formation of narrative through interaction in digital literature, with implications across contemporary storytelling and narrative theory.

The present diploma work describes the early development of digital narrative on the territory of the former Czechoslovakia in the 80's and at the beginning of the 90's of the 20th century. In that period, the text adventure game production and use were influenced by the socio-cultural and economic environment in the east-European Communist bloc, and by its following transformation into a democratic system with market economy. That brought about unique approaches to the computer game development and playing, and it also led to a formation of a cultural phenomenon of digital text games connected with the context of that time. The text deals with a brief historic development of digital game playing in the world, and a general situation in the information technologies on the territory of the former Czechoslovakia including direct participants' selected opinions. Within the framework of the present work, basic theoretical approaches have been presented, examining the adventure games genre, and especially their narrative part and the principles of intertextuality. The latter have been described using the examples of the respective Czechoslovak game production.

Temat för detta examensarbete är brädspel, därför börjar studien med en genomgång av brädspelens historia. Därefter följer en generell genomgång av ett flertal berättartekniker. Detta görs för att ge kontext till resten av arbetet. Forskningsfrågan för arbetet är: Hur påverkas personens agerande i en fiktiv värld utifrån dess känslomässiga koppling till ett narrativ? Denna fråga besvarades med hjälp utav ett brädspel. Detta brädspel hade två versioner, en med ett narrativ och en utan narrativ för att sedan kunna påvisa skillnader mellan dessa. Tjugo personer testade sedan de två artefakterna. Efter testningen hölls kvalitativa intervjuer. Dessa användes för att svara på forskningsfrågan ställd. Att testarnas agerande varierade mellan de två versionerna var det ingen tvekan om. De narrativa testarna kände en starkare känslomässig koppling till karaktärerna i spelet. Om arbete på undersökningen skulle fortsätta hade en större testgrupp med större mångfald varit att föredra. / The theme for this paper is table-top games, therefore the study will begin with a history review of table-top games. Following will be a general rundown of multiple narrative techniques. This is for giving a context for the rest of the work. The research question asked for this paper is: How is a person’s behavior affected by their emotional connections to a narrative?  This question was answered with the help of a table-top game. The game had two variants, one with a narrative and one without. This was for finding differences between the two. Twenty persons tested the two artefacts. After the testing, qualitative interviews took place. These were used to answer the question. There was no doubt that the behavior of the testers differentiated between the two variants. The narrative testers felt a stronger emotional connection to the characters in the game. If the study would have continued, a larger test group with a greater diversity would have been preferred.

Den här uppsatsen är ett försök till att analysera ny digital och digitaliserad litteratur med hjälp utav medieteorier och intervjuer med lokala aktörer i det litterära produktionsfältet, först och främst förläggare. Jag har två mål med min avhandling: att ge en överblick över hur dagens digitala landskap ser ut och hur vi, både som kulturkonsumenter och -producenter kan förhålla oss till dessa nya medier när de är så pass abstrakta som de är idag. / The main focus of this essay is an attempt to analyze the modern form of digital and digitized literature through media-theories and interviews with local actors from different parts of the literary production, mainly publishers. My thesis consists of two focus points; to give an overview of the new electronic literary landscape and how we, as both cultural consumers and -producers, can approach these new forms of digital, and digitized literature when the terms used to define them are as abstract as they are.

Every day, machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) embeds itself further into domestic and industrial technologies. Interaction de- signers have historically struggled to engage directly with the subject, facing a shortage of appropriate methods and abstractions. There is a need to find ways though which interaction design practitioners might integrate ML into their work, in order to democratize and diversify the field. This thesis proposes a mode of inquiry that considers the inter- active qualities of what machine learning does, as opposed the tech- nical specifications of what machine learning is. A shift in focus from the technicality of ML to the artifacts it creates allows the interaction designer to situate its existing skill set, affording it to engage with ma- chine learning as a design material. A Research-through-Design pro- cess explores different methodological adaptions, evaluated through user feedback and an-in depth case analysis. An elaborated design experiment, Multiverse, examines the novel, non-anthropomorphic aesthetic qualities of generative literature. It prototypes interactions with bidirectional literature and studies how these transform the reader into a cybertextual “user-reader”. The thesis ends with a discussion on the implications of machine written literature and proposes a number of future investigations into the research space unfolded through the prototype.

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The video game industry has in three decades gone from a garage hobby to a global multi-billion euro media industry that challenges the significantly older and established cultural industries. After decades of explosive growth the industry surprisingly finds itself in a crisis – in terms of sales, future trajectories and creative paradigms. The global gaming culture receives substantial attention from society, media and academia – but the industry itself appears in comparison as an enigmatic terra incognita with astonishingly little dedicated research. This thesis aims to amend this situation by presenting a study at the cross-section of the video game industry, game studies, literary theory, cultural industries and business studies. It deals with the following question: how does the global game industry relate to its own product, in terms of communication and media dimensions, and what are the (business) consequences, in terms of production, strategy and commercial/creative innovation, of this relationship? This study’s departure point is constituted by a comprehensive description of the industry’s structure, dynamics and processes, based on extensive interviews with industry professionals. It is followed by an examination and comparison of the game industry with other media/cultural industries in relation to their economy and business dynamics. With inconclusive answers regarding the medium-industry relation, this study proceeds by exploring literary theories from the field of game studies, in order to gain insights into the dynamics of medium and industry. Literary theories from ludology and narratology provide rewarding perspectives on this inquiry, since it is found that the ontological dichotomy of simulation vs. respresentation present in the interpretational realm of the game medium is also reflected in the industry and its dynamics. This has pivotal consequences for the analysis of the game industry. This study concludes by positing the current critical condition of the industry as an extremely decisive moment in its history: will it become a truly universal mass-medium, or will it continue down its subcultural path? Subcultural “interactive cinema” meets mass-cultural media of simulation – how will the industry evolve? / QC20100708

This thesis examines key examples of materially experimental writing (B.S. Johnson’s The Unfortunates, Marc Saporta’s Composition No. 1, and Julio Cortázar’s Hopscotch), hypertext fiction (Geoff Ryman’s 253, in both the online and print versions), and video games (Catherine, L.A. Noire, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, and Phantasmagoria), and asks what new critical understanding of these ‘interactive’ texts, and their broader significance, can be developed by considering the examples as part of a textual continuum. Chapter one focuses on materially experimental writing as part of the textual continuum that is discussed throughout this thesis. It examines the form, function, and reception of key texts, and unpicks emerging issues surrounding truth and realism, the idea of the ostensibly ‘infinite’ text in relation to multicursality and potentiality, and the significance of the presence of authorial instructions that explain to readers how to interact with the texts. The discussions of chapter two centre on hypertext fiction, and examine the significance of new technologies to the acts of reading and writing. This chapter addresses hypertext fiction as part of the continuum on which materially experimental writing and video games are placed, and explores reciprocal concerns of reader agency, multicursality, and the idea of the ‘naturalness’ of hypertext as a method of reading and writing. Chapter three examines video games as part of the continuum, exploring the relationship between print textuality and digital textuality. This chapter draws together the discussions of reciprocity that are ongoing throughout the thesis, examines the significance of open world gaming environments to player agency, and unpicks the idea of empowerment in players and readers. This chapter concludes with a discussion of possible cultural reasons behind what I argue is the reader’s/player’s desire for a high level of perceived agency. The significance of this thesis, then, lies in how it establishes the existence of several reciprocal concerns in these texts including multicursality/potentiality, realism and the accurate representation of truth and, in particular, player and reader agency, which allow the texts to be placed on a textual continuum. This enables cross-media discussions of the reciprocal concerns raised in the texts, which ultimately reveals the ways in which our experiences with these interactive texts are deeply connected to our anxieties about agency in a cultural context in which individualism is encouraged, but our actual individual agency is highly limited.

This diploma thesis explores subjectivity in the domain of so-called digital writing, that is, in texts of largely experimental nature generated by computer algorithms (or with their assistance). In order to do so, the thesis briefly covers the history of digital writing, its mediatic specificities, poetics as well as various theoretical and philosophical conceptualizations. Most importantly, it undertakes an analysis of a post-lyrical subject, a concept devised by Janez Strehovec, that is common to all cases of generative writing under focus. For its comparative analysis, the thesis deals with the recent works from contemporary creators who approach algorithmic textuality from variegated perspectives, incl. Nick Montfort, Allison Parish, Stephanie Strickland, Li Zilles, and Jörg Piringer. Texts generated by programs are conceived of as expressing a new, parasitic and prosthetic, genus of cyber-textual subjectivity that defies the traditional lyric and expands its pool "by other means," as Marjorie Perloff would say. Such a tendency results in conceptually as well as formally complex literary corpus "infected" by - to further exploit the suggested metaphor - parasitic voices and prosthetic selves. Unlike in generic lyric, the post- lyrical subject surpasses the confines of poetry as genre; it is...

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Video games are increasingly recognized as powerful tools for learning in classrooms. However, they are widely neglected in the field of English, particularly as objects worthy of literary study. This project argues the place of video games as objects of literary study and criticism, combining the theories of Espen Aarseth, Ian Bogost, Henry Jenkins, and James Paul Gee. The author of this study presents an approach to literary criticism of video games that he names “player-generated narratives.” Through player-generated narratives, players as readers of video games create loci for interpretative strategies that lead to both decoding and critical inspection of game narratives. This project includes a case-study of the video game Undertale taught in multiple college literature classrooms over the course of a year. Results of the study show that a video game introduced as a work of literature to a classroom increases participation, actives disengaged students, and connects literary concepts across media through multimodal learning. The project concludes with a chapter discussing applications of video games as texts in literature classrooms, including addressing the practical concerns of migrating video games into an educational setting.