Russell Guerrero

210-999-8406

rguerrer@trinity.edu

Professor Explores The Ways Of Telling Stories In Cyberspace

October 27, 2000 - How has the Internet changed the way we tell a story?  Janet Murray, director of the Laboratory for Advanced Computer Initiatives, will explore the fundamental and sometimes dramatic ways the narrative form can be manipulated on the World Wide Web in a presentation titled "Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace" on Thursday, November 9, at 7:30 p.m. in the Chapman Center Auditorium.  The presentation is part of the Stieren Arts Enrichment Series and is free and open to the public. Until recently, the art of telling a story was fairly straightforward.  A writer would organize his narrative with a beginning, a middle, and an end, and a reader would read the story in the way the writer intended.  The idea that a narrative must have a fixed structure, however, has been challenged by the rise of the Internet and hypertext articles.  Now a reader on the Internet can take a more active role in deciding how a story should be organized by clicking on related links to the story. Dr. Murray's presentation will look at the emerging medium of interactive digital television and futuristic fantasies by comparing this new medium with that of films from 100 years ago.  After looking at where this new medium is situated, Dr. Murray will explore the next step in its development to include an emotionally expressive art form.  The presentation will examine elements of the coming transition from the medium's additive to expressive form. Additionally, Dr. Murray will assert her views on how the computer environments will lead us toward a more hopeful and integrated Post-postmodern vision of ourselves and of the global economy. Dr. Murray is a professor in the Literature, Communication, and Culture School at Georgia Tech and is one of the leading theorists of social and aesthetic impacts of new communication technologies. She is also a distinguished contributing interactive designer in the Center for Educational Computing Initiatives at M.I.T.  Dr. Murray has won numerous awards for her work in interactive design and recently published Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace, which has been lauded by numerous critics from around the nation.  Some of her interactive projects for learning have been sponsored by IBM, Apple Computer, the Annenberg / CPB Project, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.  Dr. Murray holds a Ph.D. in English literature from Harvard University. For more information, contact Trinity University's department of communication at (210) 999-8113.

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Last updated on November 8, 2000 by the Office of Public Relations