ART, GAMES AND NARRATIVE

Catalog description

This course explores the relationship between art, games and narrative during the 20th and 21st centuries. The course will begin by examining modern art and literature movements that utilized combinatory and aleatory techniques as tools in the production of texts. We will start with the Surrealists and Dadaists, and move to the Fluxists and Oulipo. We will then move to an examination of new media forms that explore the relationship of gaming and narrative, including story generation software, interactive fiction, interactive drama, virtual worlds and massively multiplayer online games. Students will approach these forms both creatively, creating and engaging in various forms of writing games, and critically, writing three short papers and a final paper in response to readings.