[Purple-Blurb] Spring 2014, four events

[Nick Montfort]

It's Purple Blurb, Spring 2014!

http://trope-tank.mit.edu/purple_blurb/

Please join us at any or all of our four Spring digital writing events, 
featuring:

  Páll Thayer, Lance Olsen, Scott Rettberg, Jill Walker Rettberg

All of the Spring 2014 events will be held Mondays at 5:30pm in MIT's room 
14E-310.


March 10
5:30pm in 14E-310

  Páll Thayer

Microcodes - Short Perl programs that are also artworks, presented for 
viewers to read, download, and execute. Thayer will trace some key steps 
showing how he went from his background in painting and drawing to 
presenting code as his artwork.

Páll Thayer is an Icelandic artist working primarily with computers and 
the Internet. He is devout follower of open-source culture. His work is 
developed using open-source tools and source-code for his projects is 
always released under a GPL license. His work has been exhibited at 
galleries and festivals around the world with solo shows in Iceland, 
Sweden and New York and notable group shows in the US, Canada, Finland, 
Germany and Brazil (to name but a few). Pall Thayer has an MFA degree in 
visual arts from Concordia University in Montreal. He is an active member 
of Lorna, Iceland’s only organization devoted to electronic arts. He is 
also an alumni member of The Institute for Everyday Life, 
Concordia/Hexagram, Montreal. Pall Thayer currently works as a lecturer 
and technical support specialist at SUNY Purchase College, New York.


April 7
5:30pm in 14E-310

  Lance Olsen

Experimental writing & video - Including a reading from his recent book [[ 
there. ]] and video from his Theories of Forgetting project.

Lance Olsen is author of more than 20 books of and about innovative 
writing, including two appearing this spring: the novel based on Robert 
Smithson’s earthwork the Spiral Jetty, Theories of Forgetting (accompanied 
by a short experimental film made by one of its characters), and [[ there. 
]], a trash-diary meditation on the confluence of travel, curiosity, and 
experimental writing practices. His short stories, essays, and reviews 
have appeared in hundreds of journals and anthologies. A Guggenheim, 
Berlin Prize, N.E.A. Fellowship, and Pushcart Prize recipient, as well as 
a Fulbright Scholar, he teaches experimental theory and practice at the 
University of Utah.


April 28
5:30pm in 14E-310

  Scott Rettberg

Videos & combinatory videos - Produced in collaboration with Roderick 
Coover, Nick Montfort, and others, including: The Last Volcano, Cats and 
Rats, Three Rails Live and Toxicity.

Scott Rettberg is Professor of Digital Culture in the department of 
Linguistic, Literary, and Aesthetic studies at the University of Bergen, 
Norway. Rettberg is the project leader of ELMCIP (Electronic Literature as 
a Model of Creativity and Innovation in Practice), a HERA-funded 
collaborative research project, and a founder of the Electronic Literature 
Organization. Rettberg is the author or coauthor of novel-length works of 
electronic literature, combinatory poetry, and films including The 
Unknown, Kind of Blue, Implementation, Frequency, Three Rails Live, 
Toxicity and others. His creative work has been exhibited online and at 
art venues including the Chemical Heritage Foundation Museum, Palazzo dell 
Arti Napoli, Beall Center, the Slought Foundation, The Krannert Art 
Museum, and elsewhere.


May 5
5:30pm in 14E-310

  Jill Walker Rettberg

Selfies - With examples from her own work as well as from photobooths, 
older self-portraits, and entries from others’ diaries, in her talk 
“Seeing Ourselves Through Technology: How We Use Selfies, Blogs and 
Wearable Devices to Understand Ourselves.”

Jill Walker Rettberg is Professor of Digital Culture at the University of 
Bergen in Norway. Her research centers on how we tell stories online, and 
she has published on electronic literature, digital art, blogging, games 
and selfies. She has written a research blog, jilltxt.net, since October 
2000, and co-wrote the first academic paper on blogs in 2002. Her book 
Blogging was published in a second edition in 2014. In 2008 she co-edited 
an anthology of scholarly articles on World of Warcraft. Jill is currently 
writing a book on technologically mediated self-representations, from 
blogs and selfies to automated diaries and visualisations of data from 
wearable devices.


All events are free & open to the public. One announcement for each will 
be sent out on this list.


The Purple Blurb page is here:

http://trope-tank.mit.edu/purple_blurb/


Please note that anyone may join or leave this public mailing list here:

http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/purple-blurb


  -Nick