[Purple-Blurb] D. Fox Harrell MONDAY 6pm in 14E-310

[Nick Montfort]

On Monday (November 16; Tomorrow)
  at 6pm
   in MIT's 14E-310

The Purple Blurb series of readings and presentations on digital writing
will present

  D. Fox Harrell

creator of GRIOT, a system that generates poetry and interactive 
multimedia narrative using his Alloy algorithm. Alloy uses an algebraic 
semiotics formalization of the cognitive linguistics theory of conceptual 
integration, also called conceptual blending.

Harrell gives this description of "The Girl with Skin of Haints and 
Seraphs," which is implemented in GRIOT:

"This polypoem is a commentary on racial politics, the limitations of 
simplistic binary views of social identity, and the need for more 
contingent, dynamic models of social identity. The dynamic nature of 
social identity is also reflected in the way the program produces 
different poems with different novel metaphors each time it is run."

D. Fox Harrell's generative poetic systems change elements such as theme, 
metaphorical exposition, emotional tone, or imagery based upon user input 
- exploring issues such as contingent and dynamic identities that 
challenge trite conceptions of identity based in binary oppositions of 
race, power, gender, and other normative categories.

In addition to his work in interactive narrative and poetry, Harrell has 
completed a number of technologies for social identity representation 
under the umbrella of his Advanced Identity Representation (AIR) Project. 
The AIR Project represents a new transdisciplinary approach to designing 
computational identity technologies. The AIR Project results in new 
technology (e.g., virtual characters, avatars, and social networking 
profiles) and theory to allow users to create highly imaginative 
self-representations and to reveal how stereotypes, prejudice, bias, and 
other ills are built into current technologies.

Dr. Harrell is Assistant Professor of Digital Media in the department of 
Literature, Communication, and Culture at the Georgia Institute of 
Technology. He directs the Imagination, Computation, and Expression [ICE] 
Lab (icelab.lcc.gatech.edu) in developing new forms of computational 
narrative and poetry, gaming, social networking, and related forms, all 
with bases in computer science, cognitive science, and digital media arts. 
He is recipient of the NSF CAREER Award, the National Science Foundation's 
most prestigious award in support of junior faculty, which includes a 
generous, five-year grant to support his research. He holds a Ph.D. in 
Computer Science and Cognitive Science from the University of California, 
San Diego. He earned an M.P.S. in Interactive Telecommunications at New 
York University's Tisch School of the Arts. He also earned a B.F.A. in 
Art, a B.S. in Logic and Computation, and minor in Computer Science at 
Carnegie Mellon University, each with highest honors. He has worked as an 
interactive television producer and as a game designer. He has completed a 
novel, "Milk Pudding Flavored with Rose Water, Blood Pudding Flavored by 
the Sea," and is completing a book on an imaginative cognition- and 
computation-based approach to digital media, "Phantasmal Media."

-- 
-   Nick Montfort         nickm at nickm.com     http://nickm.com
--
-   Associate Professor of Digital Media
  -  Program in Writing & Humanistic Studies, MIT
--  77 Massachusetts Avenue, 14N-233, Cambridge, MA 02139-4307