Violence against women is endemic, while the creative expression of violence against women in crime fiction is popularly skewed towards ‘murder porn’, where threat becomes titillation. Can digital and transmedia literature enable crime writing to challenge predatory viewpoints and express lesser-heard voices?

As a feminist crime thriller writer who loves producing (and consuming) dark and twisty stories, I purposefully create dramatic tension and narrative interest through subverting victim viewpoints into characters embodying strength, especially those of young women or women from culturally diverse backgrounds.

‘Provocare’ (pron. Prov-oh-car-ay), enabled me to adapt a domestic noir novelette into a multimedia verse thriller. Working with collaborators Mez Breeze (design and web development) and Donna Hancox (project manager), ‘Provocare’ was an opportunity to develop practical skills in digital literature, as well as to investigate emerging issues in feminist literary theory.

Provocation: man-made and natural disasters

‘Provocare’ is adapted from an original work, Provocation, a novelette commissioned by experimental digital literary journal Review of Australian Fiction. The piece grew from a couple of ideas that kept haunting me.

Firstly, the story is dedicated in loving memory of a real-life young woman who was killed by covert violence. Her stalker had been court-ordered to keep his distance from her, her house, and her workplace. But she was dependent on medication for a chronic illness, and he put two and two together, loitering around her neighbourhood chemist. She spied him, ran home, and died there alone, literally gasping for relief. Her death was not recorded as murder. As far as I can find out, no charges were laid, and no action taken.

The other major idea arose after the 2011 Brisbane floods, a devastating natural crisis causing heartbreaking deaths and damage, which also brought out strengths and bonds in my home town that older residents compare with community responses to WWII.

My place of work in the State Library of Queensland was inundated and displaced during those floods, as were many friends’ homes and workplaces. During the clean-up, I learned the library is connected to neighbouring galleries by subterranean loading docks. Together, these docks formed a massive underground whirlpool when the Brisbane River broke its banks. Security cameras kept rolling as industrial bins were swept away like tin cans, ramming into the huge portable walls used in galleries. Fish, furniture, trash and rubble were carried from the basement of one building and deposited in far reaches of the next. Fascinated, I conducted informal staff interviews and made unauthorised tours of those docks. The destruction, the surveillance, the recovery: this became the focus for how I dealt with the trauma of the flood event.

Combining the ideas of stalking and surveillance, I created the premise for ‘Provocation’: A young woman recovering from anorexia nervosa is covertly stalked by a security guard at the premises of her dream job. This middle-aged man has access to her every move, and an array of rationalisations to justify his increasing surveillance. Her uniquely disordered thinking becomes her best defence. But the stress triggers deepening psychosis, leading to an endgame where meaning and motive are as murky as the depths of a river in flood.

The original text of Provocation by Meg Vann

Domestic Noir

‘Provocare‘ draws on two main schools of writing: crime thrillers, and digital narratives.

The crime and thriller genre includes stories that explore morality, justice and society through the kaleidoscopic vision created by breaking legal or ethical norms. ‘Provocare’ draws strongly on the Second Golden Age of crime fiction, as well contemporary crime fiction, especially domestic noir.

The Second Golden Age stems from the early 1980s when Sara Paretsky and Sue Grafton published ‘something in a new key’ [1]: books that belong both to the classical noir tradition of the crime novel and to the then emerging trend of women’s feminist fiction. Like their male counterparts, central characters are tough, poor, and flawed. But as women, they value friends and (non-traditional) family, relying on an interconnected network of relationships to survive and solve the crime at hand [2]. In resolving crimes, they problematise ‘good’ and ‘bad’ through challenging assumptions based on socio-economic inequalities and cultural stereotypes: these feisty female protagonists deliver social as well as legal justice.

Contemporary crime fiction encompasses many different sub-genres, whose writers use and subvert generic traditions to critique and challenge contemporary society [3]. The long-standing popularity of crime fiction foreshadowed contemporary cultural preoccupations with violence and criminal insanity [4]. In a world filled with terror, the psychology and deduction of the contemporary crime fiction novel challenge and comfort the reader against a background of social realism [5].

Domestic noir is one of the newest subgenres to emerge from this tradition. Gillian Flynn’s bestseller ‘Gone Girl’ is probably the best known, but I refer you to Flynn’s earlier works for a better demonstration of well-crafted thrillers based on the notion that we do our worst to those we love best. Featuring women-centred narratives set in homes and workplaces [6], domestic noir is a potentially powerful sub-genre to express and explore violence against women and children in thrilling narratives that can also serve to agitate for community safety and social justice.

Collaboration and transformation

Digital fiction is well-established but in constantly shifting nascency across artform and platform, providing stimulating constraints for the development of new work. The cultural production process for this piece was based in collaboration and transformation.

In weekly meetings, Donna, Mez and I identified a suitable piece, brainstormed possible narrative structures and publication/gaming platforms, and agreed on a design brief. The collaboration process was inclusive, flexible and decisive. Donna, Mez and I knew and respected each other’s work and talents, which made for a great project team. We aligned with the goal of producing a beautiful feminist narrative playing with the notion of ‘book’ to challenge thriller narratives through exploring lesser-heard voices.

Even with prior experience in managing and producing digital literature experiments through if:book Australia, as a writer, adapting a medium-form literary piece to a short-form multimedia environment was a creative challenge. My approach to the writing process was to:

Condense the narrative

• Reduce the word count from 10,000 to 600 words
• Strip out subplots and secondary characters
• Clarify the main storyline while preserving complexity (create a scene map to play around with)
• Compress the backstory for each character
• Move backstory to the front, providing a brief and compelling motive for protagonist and antagonist actions to follow
• Simplify viewpoint: minimise and consolidate point-of-view changes into verse structure (one POV per verse, instead of one per scene)

Respect the context

• Strip anchoring and orientation details out of the text because they are carried by design elements (I encourage you to check out Mez’s artwork in ‘Provocare‘)
• Build paratextual signposts to narrative shape (a ‘traffic light’ system signalling both surveillance areas and escalating stakes)
• Consult with relevant peers for critique: realising the new piece was developing into verse thriller form, I sought critical feedback from a respected poet who deals with domestic noir themes, Julie Beveridge
• Allow for post-production edits, but keep them to a minimum: post-design edits can be time-consuming for designers, so limit post-design edits to only non-substantive changes, e.g. removing dead conjunctions or inelegant repetitions (that often only become apparent in design proofs)

You can’t make this shit up

In choosing the format for ‘Provocare‘, I was guided by Mez’s research and Donna’s experience. We initially explored gaming platforms and reader-driven branching narratives, but assessed these as embedding a reader too deeply in the point-of-view of a stalked character. Surveillance and stalking crimes are so common, and the incidence of PTSD around these experiences are so prevalent and often poorly managed; we needed a narrative structure that provides a safe fictional framework. We decided to adapt Flipbook software to create a linear, text-based multimedia narrative, where agency vests in the protagonist, not the reader, who can then experience the cathartic thrill of identification without the threat of direct conflict.

Provocare, a digital work, created by Meg Vann, Mez Breeze and Donna Hancox.

Two years after publishing Provocation, and only two months prior to the ‘Provocare‘ commission, this article was published in Brisbane Times:

Whistleblowers say the State Government is stalling million-dollar sexual harassment claims from female State Library of Queensland staff after many women have been identified in 2784 secret close-up photographs of breasts and cleavage discovered on a government-issued iPhone and iPad in 2012.

The photographs, showing close-ups of the cleavage of women SLQ staff, women from the public and young female high-school students, were taken by a senior State Library of Queensland staff member on that staff member’s government-issued iPhone and iPad…

The Queensland Industrial Relations Commissioner has questioned why a state library worker secretly taking photographs of six co-workers’ breasts in 2012 was not considered sexual harassment. [7]

So, while I was writing ‘Provocation’, unbeknownst to me, a senior staff member was using work-issued devices to surveil and objectify women, including school-aged girls. Once discovered, the perpetrator was moved on with his anonymity mostly intact. This perpetrator is known to me; I’ve attended meetings and work functions with him. He has a miniscule online footprint, but a deep web search turns up one reference where he lists his current employment as ‘free soul’.

The protagonist of ‘Provocare‘ is a young woman who survives a life-threatening dismorphic disease, then confronts a stalker in the workplace. Both threats to her life and well-being arise from surveillance: physical, cultural, psychological, technological. In subverting these forms of surveillance, women have the potential to take control (for example, of the means of data production), empowering ourselves against the normative, pernicious, and unrecognized violence perpetrated against us.

The kaleidoscopic end-game of ‘Provocare‘ is borne of the protagonist’s psychosis, but demonstrates the sanity of her response, given the endless, invisible work women conduct to keep ourselves safe.

As an emerging writer exploring lesser-heard voices through non-traditional narratives, my pathway to readers relies on digital spaces. Both ‘Provocation’ and ‘Provocare‘ came to life through projects that are experimental across many aspects: technology, business model, creative process, narrative structure, and subject matter. Investment in experimental digital writing, such as that from QUT and Arts Queensland, is crucial in developing experimental literature to challenge predatory viewpoints and to voice women’s narratives.

All three creators of Provocare will be taking part in ‘Collaboration Nation’,  a panel session at Story +/ Brisbane Writers Festival, on 4th September 2015 at 1.30pm. Tickets can be booked via the Brisbane Writers Festival website. 

[1] Edgar Allen Poe, referring to his first work of detective fiction, “The Murders in the Rue Morgue”, published in 1941

[2] Nicole Décuré, “V.I. Warshawsky, a “lady with guts”: Feminist crime fiction by Sara Paretsky”. Womens Studies International Forum, 12: 2, 1989

[3] Susannah Thompson, Complex and Complicated Journeys: A Feminist Reading of Australian Crime Fiction. Masters Thesis. Melbourne: Monash University, 1994

[4] Sally R. Munt, Murder by the Book? Feminism and the Crime. Routledge, 1994

[5] Susannah Thompson, Op Cit

[6] Julia Crouch, Genre Bender http://juliacrouch.co.uk/blog/genre-bender

[7]http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/secret-photographs-scandal-rocks-state-library-of-queensland-20141222-12ceyg.html#ixzz3gU6WQikk

News just in! Bath Spa University are looking for three writers to join their department of Creative Writing and Publishing:

Lecturer/Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing (Creative Enterprise)

About the role: The appointment will have up-to-date professional knowledge of industries associated with creative writing, such as publishing, literary agencies and the relevant areas of broadcasting or digital media. You may be a nationally recognised writer, with a strong interest in the creative economies and professional environments that shape your industry. Or you will have a passion for writing, with a proven track record of service to the literary world as a publisher, literary agent, creative executive, or producer. You will, ideally, have experience of working within an academic environment, and be comfortable with the administrative duties involved in running courses or modules.

The successful candidate will be required to teach across a number of creative industry focused modules, including UG Creative Enterprise Modules, and our MA Modules in Professional Skills. You may also be asked to design and deliver a suite of innovative low-residency courses in creative writing at MA level, or co-ordinate all or part of a postgraduate programme, or play a lead role in the production of MIX Digital, our flagship creative writing conference and festival.

Deadline: 12 midnight GMT, 17 August 2015

Find out more here

Lecturer/Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing (Environmental Writing)

About the role: The 0.5 FTE in Environmental Writing should have an international or national reputation as a nature writer, environmental writer or natural history broadcaster. Their interests might include international nature writing, literature and climate change, literature and wildlife, and literature and landscape. Experience of teaching at university level will be an advantage. The role includes the leadership of an innovative distance-learning masters programme, with a focus on creative nonfiction, nature writing and other kinds of environmental writing.

Deadline: 12 midnight GMT, 12 August 2015

Find out more here

Lecturer/Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing (Transnational Writing)

About the role: The 0.5 FTE in Transnational Writing should have an international reputation as a writer, educator or a producer of new writing. You will have developed and delivered new writing projects and programmes within the international arena, and you will have extensive international connections, especially in Asia, Australia or America. We are looking for someone with a proven ability to deliver Creative Writing Courses and innovative creative programmes within transnational environments. The ability to communicate across cultures is essential, and you will ideally speak multiple languages.

The successful candidate will be required to develop and deliver our MA programmes in Transnational Writing and Creative Practice. You may also be asked to design and deliver a suite of innovative low-residency courses in Creative writing and practice, or play a lead role in the production of MIX Digital, our flagship creative writing conference and festival.

Deadline: 12 midnight GMT, 11 August 2015

Find out more here 

About Bath Spa University: Bath Spa University’s vision is to be a leading educational institution in creativity, culture, enterprise and education. With innovative teaching and learning, research excellence and state-of-the-art facilities, we put our students at the very centre of all we do.

Based in the Department of Creative Writing, you will be part of a distinguished team of creative writers and creative practitioners, as well as 10 internationally recognised Professors including Fay Weldon, Maggie Gee, David Almond, Kate Pullinger, Philip Hensher and Naomi Alderman.

We have a reputation as one of the country’s leading teaching and research centres for creative writing. We are home to a diverse community of writers from all disciplines — playwrights, scriptwriters, poets, nonfiction and professional writers, novelists, and digital specialists. Our graduates regularly publish their work with companies such as Random House, HarperCollins, Oxford University Press and see their work produced by leading broadcasters such as the BBC.

Now more than ever, writers are moving away from traditional narratives and towards interactive and experimental storytelling. Role-Playing Games (RPG) enable each participant to assume the role of a character that can interact within the game’s imaginary world. Participants create in-depth storylines and develop highly complex skills in character development and pacing. And with a constant, interactive audience, writer’s block is near impossible.

RPGs are a phenomenon that is rapidly gaining followers of all ages, all over the world. We spoke with 14-year-old Mathilde, who lives in central France, about how interacting with other writers in RPGs has enabled her to improve her writing and meet other like-minded writers. Take it away, Mathilde!

Can you tell us a little more about RPGs?

RPG is the abbreviation of Role-Playing Game. It is a role-play but a written role-play. The concept is to write the story of the characters that we have either invented ourselves or the characters of books, films, series that we bring alive with other writers. RPGs cover many worlds, they could be an epic quest in the world of elves, warriors, dragons, gang warfare or an ordinary life in an ordinary school or a remake of Hunger Games… Role-playing is almost like writing a book, except that the book is written by up to 50 writers and we need the other players to write and play. It is very productive, as instead of writing alone, we write and laugh together. We have great fun.

How do RPGs help you engage with other writers?

We link up with other writers because with RPGs, by writing, we reveal something of ourselves. With RPGs we can find all types of personalities. There are jokers, cynical writers, gifted writers, mature writers, young writers, depressed writers, new and experienced writers. With the range of personalities we can always find someone who can become a friend. However our best weapon in RPGs is humour. We laugh about what has been written, without judgement. Obviously we get on better with some than others. When you set out on this journey you are not aware of how close you can get, of how much you have in common and at what point the other writers are there to help and listen to you. It is the same thing when you leave an RPG for a while, they understand and give us the time that we need to come back, and when we do, we are welcomed with open arms and the role plays continue. We all have our own universes, some prefer RPGs which are realistic and others prefer more fantasy orientated universes. We often meet the same people on different forums. We are a big family and we support each other.

What do RPGs offer writers and readers that other games cannot?

The opportunity to express ourselves and to evolve. To evolve in writing and in our artwork. Many of us enjoy drawing. Some are accomplished artists and others improve day by day. Everyone participates and they draw and colour the characters that they have invented or who belong to the culture of the RPG they’re in. We progress in all ways.

Do you know the average age of the writers you interact with on the site?

I would say between 10 and 17 years. But there are some exceptions with writers of 20-30 years. I also once role-played with a young girl of 9 years old.

How do RPGs make you a better storyteller?

They enable us to explore the depths of our imagination, the reactions and the ideas necessary to progress in situations that we had not envisaged. But above all, I would say that RPGs enable us to enrich our vocabulary and improve our spelling. The great thing with RPGs is that we can see the replies of the other players, we can compare our writing styles and we can see all the mistakes. As a dyslexic, I can say that I have made incredible progress in spelling thanks to RPGs. When I read someone who writes very well and who is of the same age, I am motivated to do better and I take more care over my spelling and the vocabulary that I use. Within our RPG we are not allowed to use SMS language and we are obliged to pay attention to our spelling and the vocabulary that we use.

What do you see as the main opportunities and challenges for young writers in France today?

The challenges: The competition. Whether it is national or international, the competition is hard. You have to have at least two books edited before you can make a name for yourself.

Opportunities: In France we have a very good literary education. At school and with specialist options (Society and literature, Philosophy, Advanced Literary Studies) and a beautiful, poetic and very rich literary language

Writer’s block, is that possible with RPGs?

No. We can get fed up and not want to write and in that case you need to take a break. We can not suffer from « writer’s block » because sometimes we don’t know how to respond at a given time but the advantage of RPGs is that as the writing evolves, it moves, it lives. Someone, somewhere will reply and it will enable you to reply once your inspiration returns.

Does your involvement in RPGs interrupt your homework?

Do I really have to answer this question!

OK, homework is a question of organisation. We can consider RPGs as a reward after homework, an obsession or a way of relaxing. For me it is a way of relaxing. As soon as I get home, I go onto my computer and I read the replies and reply accordingly. Then I do my homework but I check the replies between exercises and when I have finished my homework I am free spend my free time doing what I love doing. Sometimes I spend too much time writing …

Do you think you will turn your writing in RPGs into something concrete, perhaps a novel?

Absolutely! Developing our and other’s characters, in a world that we had not imagined ourselves, enables us to add depth, maturity and credibility to our characters. I have realised that I evolve with my characters. Writing in RPGs gives me more and more ideas of stories and scenarios and I write them down on paper. We have to be careful however not to steal the ideas of the worlds and characters of other players. If we respect these rules, it is an excellent way to develop our characters.

What advice would you offer to other writers keen to try RPGs?

Don’t be afraid. RPGs can be overwhelming when you start but if you are on the right forum for you, you will be very well received. Sign-up to a new RPG or a recent RPG and you will be more at ease. Don’t start with thirty characters! It is very difficult to manage them all especially if you have the habit of writing long monologues. A final point, if you leave a RPG, which can happen for many reasons, don’t run away like a thief but communicate and keep them informed to avoid the Role Play Masters blocking your account for lack of activity on the forum.

I am very proud of being part of the family of digital writers and I am so looking forward to meeting other budding writers…see you soon…à bientôt…

Following on from his article about the first five years of the New Media Writing Prize, co-founder James Pope interviews some of the key players in the Prize’s five year history.

Andy Campbell is the brains behind Dreaming Methods, and One To One Developments; he has worked with Kate Pullinger, Mez Breeze, and Christine Wilks amongst others, on many pioneering digital projects. Andy has built and supported all the web sites and online functions for the NMWP since 2011.

Christine Wilks is a digital writer/artist whose piece, Underbelly won the Main prize at the first ever New Media Writing Prize.

Dan Franklin is the Digital Publisher at Random House  and has been a  been a judge and a speaker at the New Media Writing Prize.

Katharine Norman is a aural and visual artist whose interactive ‘installation’ Window, won the 2012 NMWP.

Chris Meade is founder and director of if;book UK and is currently working on his Nearlyology project. Chris has been a speaker, judge and sponsor of the main prize since the beginning.

Samantha Gorman and her partner Danny Cannizzaro won the 2014 main prize with their best selling app PRY.

Since 2010, when we began the New Media Writing Prize, what have you been up to? What sorts of stories have you created? How would you describe them?

Andy: Between 2010 and now I’ve started working on digital fiction projects pretty much full time. I’d describe them as experimental narrative games for the most part.

Christine: The same year I won the New Media Writing Prize for my digital fiction, Underbelly, which I created in Flash, the first iPad was released but Steve Jobs had banned Flash from the iPad. Somewhat ironically, having received one as my prize (thanks!), I was immediately struck by how the iPad would be the perfect device to read-play interactive narratives such as ‘Underbelly’. Now I am totally focused on creating apps for mobile platforms as well as for the desktop browser, which has meant abandoning Flash and learning a lot of new technologies. Besides this, as a natural progression from creating interactive narratives, my work has become more game-like, although storytelling is still the driving force. Currently, I’m in the middle of a practice-based PhD in Digital Writing at Bath Spa University, where I am developing a text-based interactive narrative called Stitched Up – it’s a psychological thriller that adapts to reader choice.

Katharine: My background is sonic arts and music composition (mostly digital/computer) and, since then, I’ve done more and more work that combines digital writing and sound and seeks to integrate them. In 2013 I went on to make Making Place, a poetic text manipulated and animated ‘live’ by the sounds from performers.

I’m currently working on another sound/digital writing piece, Paul’s Walk, for performance by Paul Roe in Dublin, in April – it’s for iPad and performer. I’m hoping to make a few pieces for iPad and performer – the idea being that they’re ‘user friendly’ for any performer, not just those who know about techy stuff.

So, basically I’m working towards integrating my work as sound artist/composer and digital writer. Also – since I won in 2012, with Window  I have programmed an iOS app version of Window, which has reached a wider audience and is on the app store – grab it! And a couple of people have written about the piece, and I have written a chapter for a forthcoming book on Art and Everyday Life (Ashgate, ed Berberich, out soon) that also examines my approach  – it was programmed (by me) in Processing and puredata, and has had quite a few live performances, and one coming up in New York this June.

How do you see the field more broadly? What changes have you observed since 2010, when we began?

Andy: The biggest change has been a wave of new media stories created for tablet and mobile devices, without doubt. And perhaps a slight rise in interest in the medium – from a reader, writer and funder POV. It’s always been difficult to know where “the field” starts and ends. I don’t think it particularly has boundaries.

Christine: There has been a resurgence of interest in text-based narrative-driven games which I think is largely to do with the popularity of mobile devices.

Dan Franklin: I think there have been some outstanding text-based games that have broken through commercially and critically – 80 Days and Device 6  spring to mind – and this reflects how indie gaming is changing and that there is an audience for a text-based experience like that. It’s encouraging.

Katharine: What I don’t see – and perhaps it’s there and I’m not looking – is much development in terms of getting the work out there, apart from things like the ELO and the amazing Leo Flores.  Also, I’m still quite often depressed by the lack of discussion, and the lack of truly inter-multi-media digital writing outside of gaming – it seems like there are only a few individuals working at a high level in non-commercial/more experimental digital storytelling. I still – and I hate to sound arrogant – find a lot of it really naive, or a bit one-dimensional.

Chris: There’s been a revolution in how we read. I remember the iPad was the big prize the first year – it was the bright new toy then, but some entrants weren’t interested. It came as a shock to those who made digital literature to find there was a potential readership and maybe even a market for their work as tablets became popular.

Samantha: Many things move in cycles  – including interest in new media writing and VR. Personal history: wider interest in hypertext, CAVE VR. But instead of an endlessly cycling escalator, starting from the ground-up, I hope that production and support of New Media Writing (like VR development) is like steps on a stairway. Each iteration of interest getting us closer to somewhere.

How has technology influenced what you are writing/making?

Andy: Between 2010-2012 I found rapid changes in technology difficult to keep up with and very frustrating. The technologies I’m using now however (HTML5 and Unity3D) can target pretty much any modern platform – from Android and iOS to WebGL and consoles – so that’s been a huge game-changer for me, having attempted to create digital fiction in almost everything over the years. Not having to worry so much about how to actually reach certain platforms has allowed the storytelling/creative part to come back to the forefront again.

Christine: As mentioned earlier, due to the rise of mobile devices, I’m designing my new work for multiple screen sizes – smartphones and tablets, predominantly, but also desktop/laptop computers. This means embracing responsive design techniques, which also has repercussions for the multimedia and multimodal content of my work. Since I’ve switched from Flash and ActionScript to HTML5, CSS and JavaScript, I’ve had to learn these open source web technologies in depth so that I can create with them. While the learning can be arduous, I find the process of authoring directly in code (to a greater extent than when I worked in Flash), as well as natural language, creatively exciting and empowering.

Dan: Technology is transforming the book industry from top to bottom and through all its functions, and has done for many decades to be honest. In terms of new types of digital product, we have come off a spree of creating products that exploit the features of a device and now focusing again on what is good, authorially led, experimentation at the core of our editorial function.

Katharine: I think in code – I have always been a programmer but even more so now, I seem to be more fluent at thinking ideas directly into code. (not necessarily *good* ideas!)

Chris: I’ve been trying to forget about the technology and concentrate on telling my story, but in the knowledge that it can include much more than text if I want it to. Now I’ve realised I want some animated text as well as songs, a game and readers’ own writing to feature in the novel, so there are positive creative reasons why it needs to be an app.

What do you think new media writers need to do in order to reach out to a wider, more ‘mainstream’ audience?

Andy: I no longer think about this – I’ve wasted too much time thinking and worrying about it.  There’s a growing audience for new media writing that is coming quietly and effortlessly, I’m sure.

Christine: Good storytelling is the key, but stories told and experienced in new ways, not merely enhanced ebooks. The user-experience design also needs to be considered so that the audience knows how to approach these works. We’re still in a highly experimental phase, the technology is changing rapidly, but some best practices and design principles are emerging. I also think the vehicle of dissemination is vitally important for reaching larger audiences and this is where mobile devices, among other things, have a big part to play.

Dan: I don’t know if they should! A lot of them are artists and are pushing the formal boundaries of the space with good use of funding and their own passion. If they want to break out more they need to think more about the audience needs, or at least what they can get their head around.

Katharine: That assumes that they need to – perhaps it’s more a case of reaching out to the audience you want? I don’t write work for a mainstream (or any particular) audience – I write it to realise my artistic vision/aims, and keep sane.

Chris: Write compelling stories and seek out the publishers/producers with the guts and vision to try to make and sell them commercially.

Samantha: I don’t think there is necessarily any one path or trajectory. The important thing is to consider your audience. To think creatively and spread your enthusiasm. For us, we are beginning to know more about the indie game community. In general, I think that advanced experiments with writing through media will be more prominent/developed by the game sector.

Are there any signs that publishers are beginning to see new media as a place where literature exists?

Andy: Again this is something I no longer really think about. Publishers have done nothing at all for me as a new media writer (or for any new media writers I know) and they do not interest me much any more. None of my funding comes from publishers. Over the years I’ve been approached by quite a few, but it’s never led on to anything concrete/worthwhile.

Christine: I have always self-published my new media works (although some have been published in anthologies too), so I’m not best placed to answer this, but, yes, I think so. However, publishers seem to be focussing more on new media as a viable form of literature for young readers rather than all ages.

Dan: I think so. The awareness is there, its more a question of whether it’s an area to actively pursue.

Katharine: I don’t see much that isn’t rather basic….

Chris: They’re obsessed with the possibility but still weedy about taking on anything but the safest most saleable classics to ‘appify’. The world still awaits a new media writing phenomenon – the equivalent of Sgt Pepper or Mad Men or Fifty Shades or … whatever it takes for a new media fiction to become essential cultural fodder. That’s what I’m trying to write, but so are lots of others.

What is your hope for new media writing?

Andy: I hope that individuals with a genuine passion for the medium and who can see the potential of it manage to find the financial backing and create space they deserve to realise their visions. It’s an extremely exciting medium with limitless potential. I hope it becomes easier to actually create work of this kind – because it can be hellishly difficult with so many platforms, technologies and complexities.

Christine: That it reaches a broad readership, no longer relegated to the fringes of culture – which is not to say there’s anything wrong with being on the fringes, that’s where exciting experimentation happens, so I hope that thrives too! I would also like to see more new media writer/makers taking up the creative challenge. The greater diversity of writer/makers, the more exciting the field of new media writing, electronic literature, interactive storytelling, whatever-you-want-to-call-it, becomes.

Dan: I hope it continues to evolve and continues to make incursions into the mainstream in one guise or another. It’s survived for many years on the fringes of literary culture and long may it remain doing its thing.

Katharine: I hope that there will be more attention and incorporation of other media than simply visual onscreen interactive text, and that there will be more multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary collaborative work – it may be going on, I’m not in the loop.

Chris: That a readership for such work grows and grows because writers get better and better at telling brilliant stories in that form: the best possible words in the best possible order in the best possible digital form.

Samantha: The future doesn’t necessarily change the impulses or inspirations at the core of storytelling, rather it adds an additional toolset for expression. It is easy to overemphasize the technological revolution, but the future lies in approaches to storytelling rather than core judgements about how stories will irrevocably alter. PRY was written with new tool sets, but it is still a very human story.

You can read James Pope’s reflections on five years of the New Media Writing Prize here.

Last week, we returned to Bath Spa University for the annual three-day MIX Digital Conference, held for the first time in the new Commons building on Newton Park Campus.

Writing Digital: MIX Digital 3, supported by partnerships with the Digital Cultures Research Centre (DCRC), The Writing Platform, and Conducttr, gave participants the chance to catch up with artists, writers and academics who are working at the forefront of where arts practice meets technology, where the artificial division between the digital and the analogue no longer exists.

Over the three days, there was a vibrant mix of academic papers, practitioner presentations, seminars, keynotes, discussions, workshops and an exhibition of the work by conference participants.

It was also the chance for The Writing Platform’s 2015 Bursary Recipients to showcase their work. Kate Pullinger, conference co-chair and co-founder of The Writing Platform, introduced the recipients: Victoria Bennett (writer), Adam Clarke (technologist), Kelly Jones (writer) and Linda Sandvik (technologist).

Victoria Bennett and Adam Clarke applied as a team and their project, My Mother’s House, used Minecraft to immerse the player in the experience of the poem and expand the idea of what literature and video games can be.

Speaking about their project, Victoria and Adam said, “Minecraft offers potential for shared expression and experience of literature in really interesting and playful ways.

“We are keen to share this work with the growing Minecraft community and see how it may seed new ideas.”

At the conference delegates witnessed a video walkthrough of My Mother’s House, which was an emotive experience for many delegates.

Elspeth Penny, tweeted: “Thanks for your touching poetry Minecraft film ‪@thecommonpeople at Mix. I am now going to join my kids on Minecraft and explore.”

The judging panel paired Kelly Jones and Linda Sandvik because, as judge Naomi Alderman prize-winning author and Professor of Creative Writing and Digital Media at Bath Spa noted, they both wanted to explore “telling a story that cannot help but be shaped by and respond to technology.”

Their project, 1.4 for copy, is an interactive sound sculpture with the ability to connect audience members throughout the conference space. Inspired by the real life meeting of Kelly’s parents on a CB radio in 1980 and the science of radio waves and their infinite but fading travel, Kelly and Linda have created a piece that takes us away from our phone screens and see’s us connecting with one another.

Kelly created a mock-up of the project in room 133 in Commons. In the discussion, Kelly took us through their installation explaining how it came about and why it was named 1.4 for copy, “1.4 is the channel but they always call it the one four…For copy means for someone to come back to me. It’s all a language.”

Naomi shared her enthusiasm for the bursary projects. “So often, in digital writing, either the ‘digital’ or the ‘writing’ ends up feeling like second fiddle, the bit that’s put in at the end when the other bit’s all dealt with. So I’m always thrilled when a digital writer has a story to tell – not just a new way to use the medium, but a story that cannot help but be shaped by and respond to technology.

“I was particularly excited, therefore, to see Kelly’s story of how her parents met over CB radio.

“It feels like precisely the thing I was looking for here – a story that is not only told via technology but is actually about how technology shapes our lives.”

The Bursary Programme has undoubtedly grown since its inception three years ago. In its first year, there were only four technologist applicants.

Joanna Ellis, co-founder of The Writing Platform, commented, “We had 218 applications for the 2015 programme, three times the number we had in 2013.”

MIX 03 highlights

Throughout the conference, there was a vibrant and diverse list of visiting speakers and discussions. Anna Gerber and Britt Iverson founders of London-based publishing house Visual Editions discussed its new project Editions at Play, a collaboration with Google Creative Labs. They hope to create a place to showcase, celebrate, and bring out digital books that are immersive, written and developed with the idea of being digital.

Chris Meade, writer and founder of if:book, kept delegates entertained throughout the conference, encouraging visitors to his pod to donate their “nearly” stories. He presented his transmedia novel in progress, What Didn’t Quite, about how we live with the things we’ve nearly done.

“Far more things nearly happen than happen,” he said. “The universe is held together by the dust of human kind’s nearlyincidence.”

‪Cardiff-based academic, Jenny Kidd took us through her collaborative research project with the creative marketing agency, yello brick, funded by REACT. “With New Eyes I see” explores whether documentary can become an experience or a journey beyond the screen. The project will research a site-specific documentary using torches, projection and RFID to trigger content as participants walk around Cathays Park in Cardiff.

Further highlights over the three days included:

• Bambo Soyinka chaired a great discussion on Digital Remediation: From Analogue to Digital with Dan Prichard, Sharon Clark and Miriam Rasch.
• Kate Pullinger’s presentation, “From dBook to pBook and Back Again”
• Naomi Alderman discussed her hugely successful apps, Zombies! Run, and The Walk
• Blast Theory – internationally renowned as one of the most adventurous artists’ groups using interactive media, creating new forms of performance and interactive art – discussed their current kickstarter-funded project, Karen.

One of the most thought-provoking events of the conference was the launch of James Coupe’s artwork “General Intellect” on Bath Spa’s MediaWall, an architectural scale portrait format gallery display, consisting of ten 55″ panels. At just under 4m wide and rising 7.5m from floor level it is uniquely positioned at the heart of the Commons building.

The project is a thirty channel video work, which uses video that has been acquired from Mechanical Turk an Amazon.com service, showing how computer algorithms can hire human beings to complete tasks that are hard for computers to do.

James says in a short video about the piece, “The work is largely concerned with labour, in particular digital labour. Most of the people on Mechanical Turk are completing tasks for which they have no idea who they’re working for or what the purpose of those jobs are.

“The work has something to say about relationships between humans and machines, between humans and algorithms, and the nature of dissociative, potentially disenfranchised, relationship with technological narratives.”

As the three days drew to a close, it became clear that technology really is transforming narrative.

Kelly Jones and Linda Sandvik are one of two teams we are supporting through the 2015 Writing Platform Bursary Programme, in association with Creative Writing at Bath Spa University. Writer, Kelly, and technologist, Linda, applied to the programme as individuals and were paired by the selection panel because of their shared interests, complementary skill and their openness to collaborating with someone they had never met. 

Kelly’s and Linda’s project is inspired by Kelly’s parents meeting on illegal CB Radio and uses physical computing to explore the ideas of connection and intimacy, ephemerality and permanence.  

We spoke with Kelly and Linda about how 1.4 for Copy came into being, the collaboration process and where they will go from here.

You can read their previous diary entries, here and here.

Tell us about your project 1.4 for copy – what is it, how does it work, and where can people experience it?

Kelly: The initial idea for 1.4 for copy came from myself being inspired by the story of how my parents met on an illegal CB radio in Dagenham in 1981. CB is a great piece of kit, the first R&D (NTW Waleslab) I did on the piece we just played with CB radio to test it capability as a performance platform. There is something so beautiful about the static of CB, you can spend hours just waiting for a voice to appear, it’s quite mesmerizing.  CB is still very much alive in Merthyr Tydfil in Wales. I met their local CB guru and we spoke about the science of radio waves and the technical side of how CB works. I think that’s informed the work.  The piece we have made for MIX is an interactive sound sculpture, that’s aim, is to connect the audience through out the conference space. Using the real sound clips of my parents and some written scenes performed by voice actors, the audience will have to work for the story.  The less people that fill the space the more distorted and fragmented the story becomes, there are CB radios in the space so they can radio other audience members to help them out.

Linda: We are using PIR sensors and arduinos on the entry and exit doors to count how many people are in the room, the more people the better you can hear the story.

What story are you telling through 1.4 for Copy and what do you hope to inspire or provoke in people?

Kelly: 1.4 for Copy is about connection. As a society I feel that we are quite disconnected from each other. Politically now is very much a replica of what was going on in the 1980s, tory government, recession, mass unemployment. In times of hardship we should be sticking together and helping each other out but this doesn’t seem to be the case. We very rarely help each other out anymore. The piece aims to take us away from our phones and social media and make us talk to one another. I hope to make people form new relationships and speak to people they may never have thought about. It’s not just about the story of two people meeting, I’d love the audience to share their own stories with each other.

How has the project evolved from when you first started working on it to the final piece?

Kelly: Originally when myself and Linda began to talk about the project we knew we didn’t want to make a website. Both myself and Linda have a love of immersive theatre gaming shows, which meant we were both thinking something a bit more audience participatory.  Originally we thought we’d make something a bit like a CB radio chat roulette. Each audience members getting CB licenses, booths being placed in different locations enabling them to talk to each other. However we both realized quite quickly that it was essentially just Skype and didn’t say what both interested us about the project. We met up to discuss the heart of the idea, why we liked the project, what interested us the most and what we liked. Which is when we came up with what we are doing for MIX. I think projects always naturally become through process what they were always meant to be.

You applied to the programme as individuals and were paired by the selection panel, what was it like embarking on an artistic collaboration with someone you had never met, let alone worked with? Did it throw up particular challenges and how did you handle them?

Kelly: At first I think I found it hard. It can take a long time to get used to a collaboration and because I live in Wales and Linda lives in London, every time we saw each other there was no time for testing each others working practice we just had to get down to business.  I think the collaboration found it’s own rhythm and actually as it worked out, we were well matched. In hindsight I think it may have been good to have arranged a workshop by an external party for us to get used to making together prior to actually making together. I don’t think the partnership didn’t work, actually myself and Linda have plans to continue working on the project together, I just wish we had more time to establish each others working process.

Kelly you applied as a writer and Linda, you applied as a technologist, what was your working process? Were their clear demarcations around who did what or was it more fluid than that?

Kelly: I’d say the process was quite a fluid one. After the initial meeting we kept chatting and batting ideas back and forth. I think for me and Linda this worked very well. It meant between meetings we had time to reflect back on what we had discussed and sift out anything that we felt didn’t work for the project.

I think my role in the project changed. I feel I started out being the writer but that quickly adapted to writer/maker. I think this helped us pull together our ideas. In my practice I am both a writer and maker so was happy that I got to use those skills. I also work quite visually and this comes from my maker background, this helped us look at the project from a different angle and imagine what the piece we were to make might look like.

What did you learn from making 1.4 for Copy? And what will you take away from your collaboration?

Kelly: Well, myself and Linda will be working together in the future, so the collaboration has helped shape a new creative partnership. I think I have learnt that when forming a new creative partnership it takes time and patience. It also means working around both of your workloads. Linda is very good at explaining the technical stuff to me so I have learnt a load about how to use a combination of gadgets to make a project work. A lot of the projects I work on have digital aspects, or at least I want them to, I have never had any idea how to execute them. I feel like I am now able to at least try to break it down in what needs to be in place in order to make it work and not just be an add on but an essential for the show.

Linda: I think what we have now is just the beginning and I’m really looking forward to working more with Kelly. When we started I had never even heard of CB radio, but the recordings of Kelly’s parents immediately fascinated me, and I was able to borrow a CB radio that I tried out.

What’s next for 1.4 for Copy?

Kelly: Well, I have a seed commission to write the play from NTW but myself and Linda have also been invited to apply for Experimentica Festival with the piece we are showing at MIX.

Linda: There are a lot of ways I want to improve/expand on 1.4 copy but most would require extra funding and money for equipment. A better way to count people using kinects would be good, as well as more walkie talkies/turning it into a collaborative treasure hunt game.

And what’s next for each of you – any projects in the pipeline that we should keep an eye out for?

Kelly: I am touring a show of mine THE DROWNED GIRL in Wales this autumn.  The Drowned Girl is a solo show about, unsuccessfully learning how to swim as a child vs. adult drowning and wading through life when grieving. It’s made up of stories from my life and a fusion of storytelling and concrete sound made up from the places in the story.

Linda: I am finishing my Knight-Mozilla fellowship at the Guardian, and dream of going to Antarctica or the Arctic and taking more aerial photographs with helium balloons and kites.

Victoria Bennett and Adam Clarke form one of two teams we are supporting through the 2015 Writing Platform Bursary Programme, in association with Creative Writing at Bath Spa University. 

Victoria’s and Adam’s project uses Minecraft to immerse the player in the experience of a poem and expand the idea of what literature and video games can be.

The final work, titled My Mother’s House, is a poem-world built in Minecraft. Since starting this project Victoria has been caring for her mother who is in the last phase of her life and the subject and form of the poem reflect the process of letting go of someone you love. My Mother’s House demonstrates how writing and gaming can come together and help us explore and engage with aspects of life that are difficult to talk about in a way that is accessible and unintimidating.

If you have Minecraft installed, you can download the free playable map.

Watch the video walkthrough of My Mother’s House by Victoria Bennett and Adam Clarke

Watch Victoria and Adam’s final video diary on the making of My Mother’s House.

Adam and Victoria will be showcasing My Mother’s House, and discussing their creative collaboration, at the MIX: Writing Digital conference on 2nd July 2015. Full conference programme and booking information is available here.

Hercules Editions is a London-based publisher of books that combine poetry and art and archival material. It emerged from a one-off creative collaboration between poet Tamar Yoseloff and designer Vici MacDonald and evolved into a small independent press.

We spoke with Tamar about how Hercules Editions came into being, her novel approach to publishing, and how she’s working to get poetry out of the ‘ghetto’.

Hercules Editions evolved out of a personal creative collaboration between you and Vici can you tell us a bit about that first project and the journey to becoming a publisher?

Vici and I are good friends, and so I know she is never without her camera. She has always photographed things that interest her, mainly shop fronts, ghost signs, urban detritus – things that interest me as well. One day I asked her if she would ever consider showing her photographs, and she was dismissive. She didn’t think anyone would be interested, the photos were just part of her personal archive as a graphic designer. I volunteered to write some poems to accompany them, just to see where it might go. I sifted through hundreds of photos, and selected ones that spoke to me in some way. I started to write these odd, sometimes quite irreverent sonnets to match the images, and we ended up with a set of 14 poems and 14 photos. I suggested we might think about making them into a book, which we decided to call Formerly (to suggest the fleeting nature the sites in the photographs, but also as a nod to the formal nature of the poems). But when we started looking for a publisher, we discovered the project fell between two stools – most poetry publishers were put off by the perceived expense of having to reproduce photographs, and publishers of photographic books weren’t that keen on the poetry! In the end, we had one publisher who might have been willing to take it on, but the project was so personal for us, and because Vici is a terrific designer, she had a very specific vision for the book. So we decided to publish it ourselves.

Once we decided we would self-publish, we had to come up with a name for our “press”. We both live in Lambeth, and Vici is right around the corner from the plaque that marks the site of William Blake’s house in Hercules Road. So we decided on Hercules Editions. Since Blake’s project was to combine poetry and image, we thought he was an appropriate guiding spirit, but it was also a bit of a joke, as Hercules Editions sounds so grandiose, and it was just the two of us making this funny little book!

We never expected to have the success we did. The book triggered two exhibitions of the photos and poems – one at the Poetry Café in Covent Garden, one at the Saison Poetry Library in the Royal Festival Hall – and it was shortlisted for the 2012 Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry. It’s now in it’s second printing.

After the success of Formerly, we felt we had located a niche, and so we decided to continue the press, with a view to publishing more books that would combine poetry and visual imagery.

What do you think sets you apart from other publishers?

Vici and I come to the project with very separate and specific skills. Vici has worked as magazine editor and art director, and she has an innate visual sense of how a book should look. For the first project, we were using her photographs, but she has worked with subsequent authors to generate imagery to compliment the poetry – not simply as illustration but as an integral part of the whole piece. I have been in the literary world for many years, so I know a lot of poets, and there were some great writers I was keen to work with. Also, both of us have had some experience in the art world, and we were interested in considering the books more as art objects, so each edition is limited to 300, and signed and numbered. We are obsessed with the materiality of the book – we want it to be a nice thing to own – but to be affordable as well as beautiful. We don’t want the books to stand alone either, and so we are programming events in venues that might not be immediately associated with poetry, such as Parasol Unit, the Black Cultural Archives and the Cinema Museum, as a way of broadening audience.

You receive some Arts Council funding but you also crowdfund on indiegogo for each book, why have you taken that route, and what has it enabled you to do?

The Arts Council encourage their clients to explore multiple ways of funding their projects, and so we considered crowdsourcing as a way of securing extra income. In this tough financial climate, many publishers are going the same route – it makes sense. The revenue we make from crowdsourcing is often earmarked for the sorts of things our ACE funding wouldn’t necessary cover, like launch events. We also find that the campaign creates a buzz around the book, it allows us to offer something more substantial to our readers, so that they feel they are more like patrons, and have an active role in each project.

Crowdfunding isn’t easy money by any means, can you give us your top tips for running a successful crowdfunding campaign for a book project?

We want to be realistic in our reach. We are not asking for huge sums, so people don’t feel burdened by a request for money, especially in these times of austerity. For each book, we offer quite specific perks. We are taking our model from the old days of fine arts subscription presses: for £20, patrons can have their names listed in the book; for £35, they are sent an additional signed poem not in the regular edition; and for £50, they are invited to an event in the presence of the author. For our last book, Ormonde by Hannah Lowe, we arranged tea with the author, and she brought along a number of original documents and photographs which formed the research for her book (which is about her father’s immigration to the UK from Jamaica). For our current publication, Silents, which presents poems inspired by early cinema, we will be arranging a screening of a film selected and introduced by Claire Crowther, the author. These events give our most generous patrons the opportunity to meet our authors, and for us to personally acknowledge their very generous and valuable support.

What do you think are the main challenges facing writers – and poets in particular – today?

The challenge is always how to sell books, how to get the material out to a wider audience. The Internet and social media are extremely valuable tools, and extend the reach of public events. I still feel that public events are the most exciting way of promoting poetry – there is nothing as exhilarating as seeing a great poet read his or her work live – but we also want to be able to broaden our scope to those outside of London. Poetry is always going to be a minority activity, so it is important to bring it into other spheres.

What next for Hercules?

As Vici and I are very much part-time, the press will always have a relatively modest output. We are still taking things on a project by project basis, but we are thinking about doing some larger-scale events in the future, perhaps a weekend-long arts festival, where we would invite visual artists, filmmakers, sound artists and musicians to participate. In the meantime, we are looking forward to the launch of Claire Crowther’s book Silents at the Cinema Museum (a wonderful hidden gem in London) on 21^st May.

You can find out more about Hercules Editions, and buy the books mentioned in this interview, on their website.

Hercules Editions is launching their new book, Silents by Claire Crowther, at the at the Cinema Museum, London on  Thursday 21st May.  All are welcome, but reservation is essential – details here. 

During the summer of 2009 I spent a week reading and writing in residence at the Elizabeth Bishop House, in the tiny and thus somewhat incongruously named village of Great Village, Nova Scotia. Readers may know Great Village as the setting of Bishop’s haunting story In the Village, first published in the New Yorker in 1953. One day I went for a walk to the village store. I was on the hunt for postcards, intrigued by Bishop’s observation: “The grey postcards of the village for sale in the village store are so unilluminating… one steps outside and immediately sees the same thing: the village, where we live, full-size, and in colour”.

caption Postcards for sale in the village store, Great Village, Nova Scotia. Photo by J. R. Carpenter, 2009.

In the back of the store, which is now an antique shop, I happened upon a well-preserved copy of a City of Edinburgh Transport Map published by the Edinburgh Geographical Institute in the 1940s. Nova Scotia being New Scotland, an old map of Old Scotland seemed a perfectly reasonable thing to find. Why I felt the need to buy an out-of-date-map to a city I’d never been to was not at all clear.

Questions of place have long-pervaded my fiction writing and maps have figured prominently in many of my web-based works. An outline of a map of Nova Scotia served as the interface for one of my earliest web-based works, Mythologies of Landforms and Little Girls (1996). In The Cape (2005), I used an assortment of maps, charts, and diagrams borrowed from an Environmental Geologic Guide to Cape Cod National Seashore published in 1979 as stand-ins for family photographs. In In Absentia (2008) I used the Google Maps API to haunt the satellite view of the Mile End neighbourhood of Montreal with stories of former tenants forced out by gentrification. My first novel, Words the Dog Knows (2008) included an impossible map of ancient Rome. I’d never set out to map a place I’d never been before, but then sometimes maps seem to call places into being.

City of Edinburgh Transport Map published by the Edinburgh Geographical Institute in the 1940s.

In 2011 I was commissioned to create a new work for an exhibition called Remediating the Social, at Inspace gallery in Edinburgh. Handily I already had a map of the city. In May 2012 I travelled to Edinburgh to begin research for what would eventually become a massive hybrid print and digital project called The Broadside of a Yarn (2012). More information on that project can be found in an article called The Print Map as a ‘literary platform’ published on The Literary Platform in May 2013.

During my research I used the 1940s edition of the City of Edinburgh Transport Map purchased in Great Village, Nova Scotia, to undertake a series of experimental walks, or dérives, in and around the modern city of Edinburgh. Dérive is a practice first explored by the Letterist International in Paris in the early 1950s and later taken up by the Situationist International. The concept of dérive was introduced by Ivan Chtcheglov in his Formulary for a New Urbanism (published under the pseudonym Gilles Ivan). Chtcheglov proposes a future city, in which “the main activity of the inhabitants will be CONTINUOUS DRIFTING” (1953). In The Beach Beneath the Street: The Everyday Life and Glorious Times of the Situationist International  (2011), McKenzie Wark suggests that Chtcheglov “sought not the rational city but the playful city, not the city of work but the city of adventure. Not the city that conquers nature, but the city that opens toward the flux of the universe” (2011: 20). The advertising copy on the back of the City of Edinburgh Transport Map hovers between these states — on one hand promoting such solid stolid institutions as the Bank of Scotland, North British Rubber Footwear, and Scougal’s Oatcakes, “Scotland’s National Food in its Most Palatable and Convenient Form” — and on the other hand issuing imperatives toward the exploration of a playful city, a city of adventure, and, read from a contemporary vantage point, a city safely adrift in simpler past:

Follow the Star of Health.
Encompass the City.
Map it Out For Yourself.
Do Not Allow Your Holiday to be Spoiled by Rain.

However many times I set out toward the flux of the universe in search of the points of interest advertised on the map — The Largest Stock of Hand-Knitted Woollies in Britain, Radiator and Mudwing Repairs and Other Sheet Metal Work, Vertical Filing Systems and Visible Card Index, and Carpenter Joiner Jobbing Specialists, orders in any part of the city or elsewhere in towns or country promptly attended to — dérive led me instead into Edinburgh’s wealth of museums, libraries, and used and antiquarian print, map, and book shops.

In the Old Town Bookshop I found an A5-sized staple-bound booklet called Walks from City Bus Routes published by Edinburgh City Transport in the late 1950s. This booklet contains twenty-two narrative descriptions of walks, each beginning and ending within easy reach of bus routes, and each illustrated by a small black and white line drawing. The preface states: “this book is designed for the visitor or the resident who wishes to have a change from the more usual places of tourist interest and to combine a little mild exercise with exploration of the lesser known parts of the city and suburbs.” The unnamed author adds that her one wish “is that those who follow these trails derive as much pleasure from them as she has done over the years.”

Many of the lesser known parts of the city and suburbs the author urges us to explore are no longer know-able. Many of the green spaces on the City of Edinburgh Transport Map have long since filled in. Time has rendered these two immutable print documents nearly nonsensical. I decided to further this process.

I created a computer-generated narrative called Walks from City Bus Routes which uses JavaScript to randomly and endlessly recombine illustrations and portions of text from the Edinburgh City Transport booklet and bus and tram route icons from the City of Edinburgh Transport Map. The term “computer-generated” is something of a misnomer here. The computer does not generate these new texts. It selects phrases from the booklet which I have typed into preset lists (variable strings) and slots them into templates (sentences). Take, for example, the following sentence:

Take the #{take} and continue #{continue}.

I went through the print booklet looking for phrases which follow the words “take” and “continue”. Let’s say the phrases which follow #{take} are as follows (there are in fact many more than these):

Take the [‘path leading down the hillside just before the monument’, ‘path that leads off to the left’, ‘broad and easy descent down the grassy slope’, ‘towpath along the side of the park’, ‘dirt road that runs uphill under the wall’, ‘road behind the Inn’]

And the phrases which follow #{continue} are:

continue [‘upstream’, ‘to follow the river’, ‘in the same direction’, ‘through the fields’, ‘as far as the roundabout’,’along the High Street to the old parish church set in a green graveyard’, ‘in a roughly southerly direction’, ‘to follow the wall’]

Here are but a few of the possible sentence results:

Take the path leading down the hillside just before the monument and continue along the High Street to the old parish church set in a green graveyard.

Take the towpath along the side of the park and continue in the same direction.

Take the broad and easy descent down the grassy slope and continue through the fields.

Though many of the paths, towpaths, grassy slopes, fields, and roundabouts referenced in the Edinburgh City Transport pamphlet no longer exist, as variables within JavaScript strings these past places are ascribed new locations in computer memory. Called as statements into this new narrative structure, these past places become potential (albeit imaginary) destinations once again (albeit for readers rather than walkers).

The result is a new guide ‘book’ which perpetually proposes an infinite number of plausible yet practically impossible walking routes through the city of Edinburgh, and and its book shops, confusing and confounding boundaries between physical and digital, reading and writing, fact and fiction.

Detail from The Broadside of a Yarn, J. R. Carpenter, 2012.

In the gallery installation of The Broadside of a Yarn exhibited in Edinburgh during Remediating the Social in November 2012, this new digital variable iteration of the Walks from City Bus Routes pamphlet was accessed by scanning a QR code embedded in a cartographic collage which remediated elements of the City of Edinburgh Transport Map and a drawing borrowed from the Edinburgh Streetscape Manual, published by the Lothian Regional Council in 1995. These visual links to the work were also reproduced in an A3-sized print map handout iteration of The Broadside of a Yarn, which was handed out freely during the exhibition and continues to circulate through gift exchange economies and postal networks.

Earlier this year I created a stand-alone web-based version of Walks from City Bus Routes, which appears in the Spring 2015 issue of The New River – a journal of digital writing & art.

Walks from City Bus Routes, J. R. Carpenter 2015.

Readers keen on bookish-drifting-wander-walking may also be interested in Wanderkammer: A Walk Through Texts a web-based collection of hyperlinked quotations from a wide range of writing on walking, accompanied by a bibliography. Wanderkammer was included in Walk poems: A series of reviews of walking projects edited by Louis Bury Corey Frost published on Jacket2 in 2011.

Writing Platform Bursary recipients showcase their work alongside keynote speakers writer Naomi Alderman, theorist Florian Cramer, and performers Blast Theory at this year’s Writing digital: MIX Digital Conference.

Mix Digital is taking place between 2nd and 4th July 2015. The full programme is available on the MIX Digital website. Tickets can be booked via the Bath Spa Live website. 

The new Commons building at the Newton Park campus of Bath Spa University will be the home of this year’s MIX DIGITAL conference. Following the success of the last two MIX DIGITAL conferences, held at Corsham Court, the University’s School of Humanities and Creative Industries continues to be at the forefront of both research and teaching of creative practice across many forms.

This year’s conference will take place from 2 – 4 July 2015 and will take advantage of the features and interactive spaces in the new Commons building where it will host a vibrant mix of academic papers, practitioner presentations, seminars, keynotes, discussions, workshops and an exhibition of the work by conference participants.

The full schedule of keynote speakers is yet to be finalised but confirmed speakers are Professor of Creative Writing and Digital Media Naomi Alderman, theorist of the post-digital Florian Cramer, and adventurous artists’ group Blast Theory.

Professor Alderman is a prize-winning author; in 2006 she won the Orange Award for New Writers, and in 2007 was named as Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year, and one of Waterstones’ 25 Writers of the Future.   In 2012, she co-created the top-selling fitness game and audio adventure Zombies, Run! which has been shortlisted for a Develop award for narrative and the Writer’s Guild of Great Britain best videogame award.