Off Center

After our summer break, Off Center returns with episode 2 of season 4. This episode features an interview with Samya Brata Roy, now an Assistant Professor of English at Gitam (Deemed-to-be) University Hyderabad, recorded during the 2025 CDN Digital Narrative PhD Summer School. Samya discusses his academic journey and the founding of Electronic Literature India. 

On the first episode of the new season, returning guest Gabriele de Seta joins Scott to talk about Algopod, the new series of podcast episodes that will be released as part of the new season of Off Center. We also hear some interviews that David and Benji, two middle school students who had their work week at the center, did with several people within the center's staff.

In the final AI Update of the season, Scott and Jhave talk about some of the ways in which AI is finding itself involved in research. They talk about some of the AI models that have been developed with research in mind as well as some of their own experiments with these models.References:Brain2Qwerty https://ai.meta.com/research/publications/brain-to-text-decoding-a-non-invasive-approach-via-typing/ Accessed March 11, 2025.Claude https://claude.ai/ Accessed March 11, 2025.Deep research. https://openai.com/index/introducing-deep-research/ Accessed March 11, 2025.Eliot, George. 1879. “Impressions of Theophrastus Such” William Blackwood and Sons.Perplexity deep research https://www.perplexity.ai/?model_id=deep_research Accessed March 11, 2025.Rettberg, Scott. 2020. “Republicans In Love” https://eloconference2023exhibitions.wordpress.com/exhibition2_resistance/republicans-in-love/

In this week's AI Update, Scott and Jhave discuss some of the ways in which fascism reproduces itself, how AI could be used as a tool to facilitate it, and how those leading AI development have found themselves in positions of political power.References:Knausgård, Karl Ove. My Struggle. 2009-2011. Watkins, Gareth. AI: The New Aesthetics of Fascism. 2025. New Socialist. https://newsocialist.org.uk/transmissions/ai-the-new-aesthetics-of-fascism/

In this episode, Scott travels to Australia to talk with Tama Leaver at the Center of Excellence for the Digital Child. They discuss Tama's involvement with the Center, his research regarding generative AI, the ways in which children interact with AI and how they can be affected by them, as well as a recent ban to social media for all children under 16 in Australia. ReferencesHaidt, Jonathan. The anxious generation: how the great rewiring of childhood is causing an epidemic of mental illness. 2024. New York, Penguin Press. Leaver, Tama, and Suzanne Srdarov. 2025. "Generative AI and Children's Digital Futures: New Research Challenges." Journal of Children and Media. 19 (1): 65-70. doi:10.1080/17482798.2024.2438679.Ritchie, Hannah. Australia approves social media ban on under-16s. BBC News, Sydney. November 2024. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c89vjj0lxx9o

Jhave and Scott talk about simulated worlds or environments created with AI, considering what are the boundaries for artifical life.

In this episode we are joined by co-authors Lillian-Yvonne Bertram and Nick Montfort to talk about their new publication Output: An Anthology of Computer Generated Text, 1953-2023. We learn about their path into digital poetry and the process of putting together this anthology.ReferencesBertram, Lillian-Yvonne. 2019.Travesty generator. Noemi Press.Bertram, Lillian-Yvonne and Nick Montfort. 2024.Output: An Anthology of Computer-Generated Text, 1953–2023. The MIT Press.Gysin, Brion and Ian Sommerville. 1960.Permutation Poems.H. Yngve, Victor. 1961.Random Sentences.Knowles, Alison and James Tenney. 1967.The House of Dust.Lutz, Theo. 1959.Stochastic Texts.Montfort, Nick. 2017.The Truelist. Counterpath.Montfort, Nick and Noah Wardrip-Fruin. 2003.The New Media Reader.Nish-Lapidus, Matt. 2020.Work, Life, Balance.Richardson, Leonard. 2013.Alice’s Adventures in the Whale.Stiles, Sasha. 2021.Technelegy. The Black Spring Press Group.Strachey, Christopher. 1953.Love Letters.

In this AI Update Jhave and Scott discuss O3, the new AI model announced by OpenAI, which excels in high-complexity tasks, demonstrating state-of-the-art capabilities in science, structured reasoning, and problem-solving.

In this episode, Alinta Krauth, new media artist, is joining Scott Rettberg for a discussion about her art and interspecies communication. Tune in now! 

On today’s episode, recent PhD graduate, Marianne Gunderson, joins Scott for a discussion on creepypasta, fanfiction and monsters, and machine vision. Doctor Gunderson has started her postdoctoral research at the ALGOFOLK (algorithmic folklore) project connected to the Center for Digital Narrative. References Andam, Julie. 2015. Skam. NRK. Atalaia, Nuno, and Marianne Gunderson. “Alexa’s Monstrous Agency: The Horror of the Digital Voice Assistant.” Not available in BORA awaiting publishing. 4Chan. 2003. “What is 4chan?” 4chan. https://4chan.org/. Gunderson, Marianne. 2017. “What is an omega? Rewriting sex and gender in omegaverse fanfiction.” [Master's thesis]. DOI:10.13140/RG.2.2.14405.47849. Gunderson, Marianne. 2024. “The Nexus of Algorithmic Visions: Agency, Imaginaries, and the Self in Sociotechnical Situations.” [Doctoral thesis]. https://bora.uib.no/bora-xmlui/handle/11250/3161190.

Mark Amerika is a visual artist, media theorist, and novelist. He is a professor of Art and Art History at the University of Colorado. In this episode, Scott and Mark will discuss Mark's career in art and academia, and some of his field-defining works.     References Amerika, Mark. 1997. GRAMMATRON. Alt-X. https://www.grammatron.com/   Amerika, Mark. 1995. Sexual Blood. Black Ice.   Amerika, Mark, Will Luers, & Chad Mossholder. 2023. Posthuman Cinema. https://posthumancinema.com/.  Gillespie, William, Rettberg, Scott, Stratton, Dirk, & Marquadt, Frank. 1999. The Unknown [Hypertext fiction]. Web. http://unknownhypertext.com/.    Rettberg, Scott. 2003. Destination Unknown: Experiments in the Network Novel. [Dissertation]. https://retts.net/documents/rettberg_dissertation.pdf  

Welcome back to a new episode of Off Center. Today, Scott is joined by Talan Memmott, a professor of Mass Communication at Winona State University. They discuss Talan's career as a digital artist and electronic literature artist, highlighting his latest work in cripistemology. Tune in now! References Jackson, Shelley. 1995. Patchwork Girl. Eastgate Systems. Joyce, Michael. 1987. Afternoon, a story. Eastgate Systems. Memmott, Talan. 2024. “A Cripistemology of Breath.” YouTube. 4 min., 32 sec. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VRCSILVdgM Memmott, Talan. 1998. BeeHive - Hypertext/Hypermedia Literary Journal, 1(1). https://archive.thenext.eliterature.org/beehive/archive/11arc.html. Memmott, Talan. 2014. Digital Culture World Lecture Tour. [Netprov]. Memmott, Talan. 2023. Introducing Lary: The San Biagio Frescoes of Pietro Golamuto. https://talanmemmott.info/?p=729. Memmott, Talan. 2000. Lexia to Perplexia. Electronic Literature Collection Volume One. https://collection.eliterature.org/1/works/memmott__lexia_to_perplexia.html. Memmott, Talan, & Scott Rettberg. 2019. The Limerick Diet. Electronic Literature Organisation conference.

This week's episode fits the Halloween theme. Spooky places, historical sites, and digital narratives. In this episode, Scott is joined by Nicole Basaraba, Assistant Professor in Digital Humanities at Trinity College in Dublin. They discuss topics such as cultural heritage research and dark tourism.    References Basaraba, Nicole. 2023. “The Rise of Paranormal Investigations as Virtual Dark Tourism on YouTube.” Journal of Heritage Tourism 19(2): 287–309. doi:10.1080/1743873X.2023.2268746.  Basaraba, Nicole. 2022. Transmedia Narratives for Cultural Heritage: Remixing History. Routledge.  Sam and Colby. 2014. Sam and Colby. YouTube. [YouTube Channel]. YouTube. Retrieved October 24, 2024, from https://www.youtube.com/c/samandcolby/about.  Sam and Colby. 2021. Our Demonic Encounter at Haunted Sallie House. YouTube. 1 hr., 10 min. Retrieved October 24, 2024, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bqwiR871KU.  

In this episode, Jordan Magnuson, Fulbright scholar at the Center for Digital Narrative, joins us for an interesting discussion about indie games. Jordan has a background in making video games from a very young age. Together with Scott, they discuss the crossover between games and poetry.     Electronic Literature Organisation. n. d. “Electronic Literature Organisation”. https://eliterature.org/.    Magnuson, Jordan. 2023. Game Poems: Videogame Design as Lyric Practice. Amherst College Press.  Magnuson, Jordan. 2018. “Poetic Videogames”. https://www.poeticvideogames.com/about.  Mojang Studios. 2011. Minecraft.  Mossmouth. 2013. Spelunky. https://spelunkyworld.com/index.html. Pope, Lucas. 2013. Papers, Please. 3909. https://store.steampowered.com/app/239030/Papers_Please/. 

Robert Coover was one of the most important American novelists of the 20th Century, the author of more than twenty books including novels, short story collections, plays and other writings. He was also a leading figure in the field of electronic literature, the teacher of many digital writing workshops at Brown University, the co-founder of the Electronic Literature Organization, and a tireless promoter of the field and of innovation in digital writing.  Robert Coover passed away on October 6, 2024, in the company of his family in Warwick, England, listening to “Penny Lane” by the Beatles as he drew his final breath.  This collage of voices, adapted from a simultaneously released Off Center podcast, is part of a larger project based on interviews that Robert Arellano and Scott Rettberg have been conducting with critics, creative writers, students, and friends of Coover in 2023-24, including many of the people who knew Coover’s work best. We also include a segment of a lecture titled “A History of the Future of Narrative” that Coover gave at the University of Bergen in 2008, and segments of interviews Larry McCaffery conducted with Coover in 1979 and 1999. In order of first appearance, the speakers include Robert Coover, Scott Rettberg, Robert Arellano, Larry McCaffery, Lance Olsen, Nick Montfort, Stéphane Vanderhaege, Caitlin Fisher, Thomas A. Bass, Tom LeClair, and Alvin Lu.

Off Center, the podcast, is back with a new episode. Scott Rettberg, our host, is joined by Jaroslav Švelch, an associate professor of media studies at Charles University in Prague. In this episode, they will discuss local game production in Czech Republic, gaming the iron curtain, and Jaroslav's book on monstrous antagonists in games.     References Croucher, Mel. 1984. Deus Ex Machina. Automata UK.  Namco. 1981. Galaga. Midway.  Spytihněv. 2023. HROT.  Spytihněv. https://store.steampowered.com/app/824600/HROT/.   Švelch, Jaroslav. 2023. Gaming the Iron Curtain. The MIT Press.  Švelch, Jaroslav. 2023. Player vs. Monster. The MIT Press.   Unknown. 1989. The Adventures of Indiana Jones in Wenceslas Square in Prague on January 16, 1989. Video Game.  

In this episode, Kat Mustatea joins Scott for a chat about the crossroad of technology and performance. Kat Mustatea is a playwright and technologist, and her tech-native storytelling stretches theatre into the digital age. They talk about her journey and her projects Voidopolis BodyMouth, and Lizardly in depth on this episode on Off Center.   References Mustatea, Kat & Heidi Boisvert. 2021. Lizardly. https://www.mustatea.com/lizardly.  Mustatea, Kat & Rozin, Yonatan. 2024. BodyMouth. https://www.mustatea.com/bodymouth.   Mustatea, Kat. 2023. Voidopolis. MIT Press Leonardo. 

Scott Rettberg is back with another season of the podcast Off Center. In this first episode of season 3, Scott is joined by Will Luers, a digital artist, filmmaker and writer. Luers also teaches web development, digital cinema and multimodal publishing in the Creative Media & Digital Culture program at Washington State University Vancouver. In this episode, they will discuss AI filmmaking and Luers’ previous works.   Sign up for the CDN newsletter here.   References Amerika, Mark. 2002. FILMTEXT 2.0.  Amerika, Mark. 2022. My Life as an Artificial Creative Intelligence. Stanford University Press.  Amerika, Mark, Will Luers, & Chad Mossholder. 2023. Posthuman Cinema. https://posthumancinema.com/.   Electronic Book Review. n. d. “Electronic Book Review.” https://electronicbookreview.com/.     Farrell, Lisa. 2024. Demons & Ghosts. doi: https://doi.org/10.7273/fbaj-sb31.   Johnston, Jhave. 2024. Identity Upgrade. doi: https://doi.org/10.7273/fs7n-a798.   Krauth, Alinta. 2024. The Songbird Speaks. doi: https://doi.org/10.7273/bpw7-an93.   Luers, Will (editor). 2020. Issue: 00 Digital Essayism. The Digital Review. https://thedigitalreview.com/issue00/index.html.   Luers, Will (editor). 2024. Issue: 04 AI-augmented Creativity. The Digital Review. https://thedigitalreview.com/index.html.   Luers, Will, Roger Dean, & austraLYSIS. 2013. Hypnagogia. https://will-luers.com/collage-cinema/hypnagogia.html.  Luers, Will, Hazel Smith, & Roger Dean. Novelling. https://dtc-wsuv.org/wluers/novelling/.   Rettberg, Scott. 2024. Fin du Monde. doi: https://doi.org/10.7273/m4ke-zs24.  

In the final episode of this second season of Off Center, Scott Rettberg is joined by Rob Wittig, a digital writing pioneer. Rob is an experimental writer in digital media and helped invent the genre Netprov. Learn more about what Netprov is in this episode. In this episode you find a new AI update with David Jhave Johnston, starting from 22:16. We will be back with another episode in September 2024. References de Chervantes, Michael. 1615. Don Quixote, Part Two. Francisco de Robles. Invisible Seattle. 1983-1993. IN.S.OMNIA. [Electronic magazine]. Rettberg, Scott. 2002. Kind of Blue. https://retts.net/kindofblue/. Wittig, Rob. 2002. Blue Company. https://www.robwit.net/bluecompany2002/. Wittig, Rob. 2000. Friday’s Big Meeting. [Netprov], https://www.robwit.net/fbm/. Wittig, Rob. 2012. Grace, Wit and Charm. [Netprov], http://gracewitandcharm.com/. Wittig, Rob. 1994. Invisible Rendezvous: Connection and Collaboration in the New Landscape of Electronic Writing. Wesleyan University Press. Wittig, Rob, & Marino, Marc C. 2016. Monstrous Weather. [Netprov], http://meanwhilenetprov.com/index.php/project/monstrous-weather/. Wittig, Rob & Marino, Marc C. 2016. One Week, No Tech. [Netprov], https://meanwhilenetprov.com/index.php/project/one-week-no-tech/. Wittig, Rob. 2021. Netprov: Networked Improvised Literature for the Classroom and Beyond. Amherst College Press. https://www.fulcrum.org/concern/monographs/pc289m47x. Wittig, Rob, & Wohlstetter, Philip. 1983. Invisible Seattle: The Novel of Seattle, by Seattle.

Scott Rettberg has a conversation with Alessandro Ludovico about his new MIT Press book: Tactical Publishing: Using Senses, Software, and Archives in the Twenty-First Century, and about 30 years of tracking digital culture as publisher of Neural magazine. References Ludovico, Alessandro. 2012. Post-Digital Print: The Mutation of Publishing since 1894. Onomatopee. Ludovico, Alessandro. 2023. Tactical Publishing: Using Senses, Software, and Archives in the Twenty-First Century. The MIT Press. Ludovico, Alessandro. 1992. Virtual Reality Handbook. Minus Habens Records. Neural. 1993. Neural Magazine. https://neural.it/ Rosetto, Louis, & Metcalfe, Jane. 1993. Wired Magazine. Issue 1. Swift, Johnathan. 1726. Gulliver’s Travels. Benjamin Motte.