July 15, 2006

Expressive Processing
by noah @ 12:17 pm

With my early-summer plans completed, I’ve just posted a copy of my dissertation — Expre [...]

Noah: Congratulations! Definitely looking forward to reading your dissert.

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Most studies of digital media focus on elements familiar from traditional media. For example, studies of digital literature generally focus on surface texts, relationships between texts, audiences, and so on. If interaction is considered, it is only from the audience’s perspective. This study argues that such approaches fail to interpret the element that defines digital media — computational processes. An alternative approach is proposed here, focused on interpreting the internal operations of works. It is hoped that this will become a complement to (rather than replacement for) previous approaches.

The examples considered include both processes developed as general practices (especially within natural language generation) and those of specific works. A detailed survey of story generation begins with the processes of James Meehan’s Tale-Spin, interpreted through “possible worlds” theories of fiction (especially as employed by digital theorists Marie-Laure Ryan, Jill Walker, and Jesper Juul) and compared with the results of Jay David Bolter, Janet Murray, and Espen Aarseth. Other story generation systems discussed include Scott Turner’s Minstrel; Michael Lebowitz’s Universe; Selmer Bringsjord and David Ferrucci’s Brutus; and Michael Mateas, Steffi Domike, and Paul Vanouse’s Terminal Time. A parallel discussion considers dreams of automatic authorship within the artificial intelligence community.

This study also provides the first detailed consideration of Christopher Strachey’s love letter generator for the Manchester Mark I — likely the first work of digital literature, and arguably the first digital art of any kind. In addition, this study considers works with algorithmic processes carried out by authors and audiences (rather than within the works) including: Raymond Queneau’s One Hundred Thousand Billion Poems (and other work of the Oulipo), Tristan Tzara’s newspaper poem, and Claude Shannon’s n-gram text generation. The operational logics driving non-player characters in the computer game Fable (developed by Lionhead Studios and Big Blue Box) are also discussed.

Prior theoretical concepts are engaged, including Mateas’s “expressive AI,” Aarseth’s “cybertext,” and Chris Crawford’s “process intensity.” A set of concepts and vocabulary are proposed, beginning with the simple distinction between “surface,” “data,” and “process.” Further chapters introduce the terms “implemented processes,” “abstract processes,” “operational logics,” and “works of process.”

The wedding will be a major life transition on its own, so adding the doctorate, the new location, and the new job is quite a combination.

As for the doctorate, while I can share the dissertation title (Expressive Processing: On Process-Intensive Literature and Digital Media) I can’t yet share the abstract — because I haven’t written it. The final dissertation text is due to Brown later this month, and in between now and then I have to make a few edits requested by the committee, write an abstract, fill out some forms, etc. But I do plan on sharing more of the dissertation when I can.

Meanwhile, tomorrow morning I fly back to California for another family event. But, really, I’ll start trying to answer some of that neglected email soon…

See you soon. I’ll miss you here at the bottom of the academic hierarchy…

And um, you sure you’ll have enough to keep you busy?