Program

Regions of narrative: culture and subjectivity in transmidia worlds

24 – 25 August  2011

Casa da Ciência/ Federal University of Rio de Janeiro

 Organizers:

Advanced Program for Contemporary Studies – PACC/UFRJ

Contemporary Research Projects Institute – O INSTITUTO

Software Studies Brazil

Sponsors:

Petrobras and Globo Universidade Program

 

PROGRAM:

24/ 08

9h30 am /12h30. Keynote:

Games language and the future of narratives

Lecture: The Player of the Story: Computer Games and the Future of Fiction by

Noah Wardrip-Fruin (University of California, Santa Cruz – UCSC)

Coordinator: Cícero Inacio da  Silva (Software Studies Brazil; UFJF)

Abstract: Computer games produce powerful experiences of fiction by combining two things. First, the storytelling tools of prior media: language, moving images, music and sound, cinematography and editing, and so on. Second, game systems that enable and require actions on the part of the audience, bringing them into the role of *players*. This combination opens powerful new emotional spaces for fiction, as players experience the accomplishment of overcoming fictional challenges, the intellectual curiosity aroused by fictional mysteries they can literally explore and uncover, or simply moments of enacting a fictional situation — perhaps even one that is mundane or sorrowful. These are experiences significantly different from those available in current media for fiction (e.g., books, film) and we are only beginning to understand and appreciate them. However, at the same time, we still haven’t reached what some expect from games — that they will offer new and profound experiences of emotions such as joy and regret because audiences will not only feel responsible for moment-by-moment actions and challenges, but also for the longer term outcomes of an interactive story. I will explain why current games don’t offer this, and also why I believe universities and institutes should take on the combined art and technology research necessary to open this new space for the creation and experience of fiction.

2 pm/ 5 pm. Space, body and subjectivity in virtual worlds

Brett Stalbaum (University of California, San Diego – UCSD)

Renata Gomes (SENAC SP)

Marta Pinheiro (Eco/UFRJ; UFJF)

Coordinator: Arthur Protasio (CTS/FGV)

 

25/08

9h30 am /12h30 pm. Transmidia: interactivity, convergence and creativity

David Charles (Integrated Creative Director/Writer)

 Maurício Mota (The Alchemists)

Cristiane Costa (ECO/UFRJ)

Coordinator: Ilana Strozenberg (ECO/PACC/UFRJ; O Instituto)

2 pm/ 5 pm. Keynote: On the edge: a new aesthetics of an hybrid art

by Mark Amerika (University of Colorado, Boulder)

Abstract: What is transmedia narrative and what value does it have for contemporary artists? The traditional art and entertainment industries would have us believe that transmedia is a powerful marketing concept that uses new media technologies to aggregate fragmented audiences by delivering story information across multiple media platforms. But what about the fragmented stories being told by amateur auteurs whose online personae remix their personal mythologies? These alternative transmedia narratives resist convergence yet also circulate in the networked space of flows. New media artists, many of whom identify with the historical avant-garde, can now expand the forms of transmedia narrative to foreground an anti-disciplinary approach to both contemporary practice and theory. In this context, Amerika will discuss his experimental art, theory, and pedagogy, including his recent projects Immobilité and remixthebook

Giselle Beiguelman  (FAU/USP)

5 pm. Closing cocktail