Dene Grigar | When Hypertext Goes Game Engine

 

What is the best way to translate a hypertext novel for Virtual Reality (VR) so that it can be accessed for reading, combined with its historical artifacts, and enhanced by commentary by its author? What are the affordances and constraints of making a hypertext novel published originally in 2001 accessible in a VR environment today?

This paper presents the transformation of Richard Holeton’s Figurski at Findhorn on Acid to a Virtual Reality experience by the Electronic Literature Lab. Using Unity, the lab reconstructed the novel for access at the virtual museum and library called The NEXT in its Virtual Archival Storytelling Experience (VASTE). In this space, the novel is united with its physical artifacts modeled in 3D, historical media like video clips and animations, and commentary by the author. In this way, VASTE reimagines hypertext as an embodied, spatial experience while addressing challenges of technological obsolescence, preservation, and access. The paper concludes by introducing nSpace, a non-Euclidean environment that moves beyond screen-based navigation toward immersive, three-dimensional encounters with archival data.
 

About the Speaker

Dene Grigar, PhD, is Professor and Director of Creative Media and Digital Culture in the Department of Digital Technology and Culture at Washington State University Vancouver whose research focuses on the creation, curation, preservation, and criticism of born-digital media.

She has authored 16 media works, 79 scholarly articles, four print books, and seven open electronic resource publications. She has curated exhibits at the Bibliotheca Hertziana ––Max Planck Institute for Art (Rome), British Computer Society (London), the Library of Congress (D.C.), and for the International Symposium on Electronic Art, among other venues. With Stuart Moulthrop (U of Wisconsin Milwaukee) she developed the methodology for documenting born-digital media, a project that culminated in an open-source, multimedia book, entitled Pathfinders (2015), and book of media art criticism, entitled Traversals (The MIT Press, 2017). With James O’Sullivan (University College Cork, Ireland) she has recently co-authored a collection of essays for Bloomsbury Press, entitled Electronic Literature as Digital Humanities. Her recent book, Challenges of Born-Digital Literature: Editions, Translations, and Emulations, is co-authored with Mariusz Pisarski (Adam Mickiewicz University, Poland) for Cambridge University Press (2024), involves the production of a theoretical print book accompanied by electronic open-source book built on the Scalar platform containing over 90 media assets that demonstrate concepts expressed in the print book.

Grigar serves as the Managing Director and Curator of organization's The NEXT and directs the Electronic Literature Lab.

Lunch at 11:45 a.m. for in-person attendees

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