What new forms of storytelling are possible when we use computers to generate and curate narratives? From the strict causal logic of plots and conflict models and the dreamlike free-association found in fairytales and modernist fiction to the endless possibilities of dramatic events emerging from large scale social simulations, this talk is a beginner’s guide to the weird and wonderful world of computational narrative.
As well as introducing practical methods to generate stories and model narrative structures using the tools of systems and simulations, we’ll look at how artists, writers and researchers can incorporate these methods into their creative practice, the aesthetic consequences and tradeoffs, and the reasons why people might want to generate stories in the first place.
Speaker: Mark Rickerby – Writer, designer and programmer
Date: Thursday 17 October
Time: 1:00–2:00pm
Venue: Room 526, Meremere (Law), Ilam Campus, University of Canterbury
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Did you hear about the young farmer from Dannevirke who got his name added to a Wikipedia list of mythical Japanese monsters, and it ended up appearing in a board game? Stories like this make it seem like Wikipedia’s easy to vandalise; how much can we trust it? How do we detect hoaxes? If we were sociopathic enough to want to get false information into the encyclopaedia and make it stick, what would we need to know? New Zealand Wikipedian at Large Dr Mike Dickison has been travelling the country encouraging the public to improve the accuracy of Wikipedia, but in this one-off exclusive talk he’ll turn things around and reveal the grubby world of making it less accurate.
