Kate Pullinger at RIMAD
We had an interesting visit to RIMAD on Wednesday, 17th October. Kate Pullinger, a writer originally from Canada, presently teaching Online MA in Creative Writing and New Media at De Montfort University, Leicester. She gave a lecture not only about her digital projects but touched on a variety of other subjects. Themes like writing books + writing in code, collaboration, teaching online and all what is behind the idea of creating a digital textual art were circling and whirling in the MAD Theatre. Apart from these, a famous novelist, short-story writer and digital writer did not exclude even her private experiences, building the basis for inspiration: typewriting course, a year spent working with a category B prisoners, scholarships etc. Kate did not just talk, she also showed some of her digital art as well, on which she is collaborating, apart from others, with Chris Joseph, aka babel.
The digital fictions Branded (in collaboration with Talan Memmott) and The Breathing Wall (in collaboration with Stefan Schemat and babel) refer to her interaction with prisoners – juxtapositions of ghost story, detective, thriller and love story. The latter one uses an experimental software developed by Stefan Schemat: Hyper Trance Fiction Matrix, which allows the story to respond to reader’s breathing.
We should definitely give it a try and let our breathing control what we see!
Kate went on to talk about Inanimate Alice, a multimedia online sequential novel, she and babel are parents of. Inanimate Alice is supposed to have ten episodes altogether (the fourth one should be presented this november - we all are looking forward to it 
, each of them set in another country (China, Italy and Russia so far) with Alice as narrator growing up with each new instalment. In the first one she was eight, and the reader may experience her enhanced awareness of the world with new episodes. Enhanced in a double meaning: the first one representing maturing Alice, the second one representing maturing technology. The first person narrative matches with lively break-core and bubbly-like music and the visual side is spiced by bright colours.
What is the result? A combination that leaves you full of ideas: in the sense of colours, in the sense of music, in the sense of thoughts:
“I want more!”
You can have a taste: listen to Kate Pullinger´s lecture mixed with the music from Inanimate Alice
Music from Inanimate Alice: Can Ting, Papa, Hecate, You Have The Way, Yes Yes Yes - Thanks to Chris Joseph.
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October 24th, 2007 at 9:52 pm
[…] nice report by Zuzana Husarova about Kate Pullinger’s recent visit to the Research Institute for Media, Art and Design at […]
October 25th, 2007 at 3:24 pm
Dear Zuzana,
Welcome to nmrg. Thanks for this post.
I know that a lot of the people who were in the audience for Kate Pullinger’s talk were enthralled by what they heard. I expect to see a fresh outbreak of digital writing fever in RIMAD very soon. My only regret is that I was unable to attend the session due to a teaching commitment so thanks also for making the audio recording.
I look forward to reading more posts about digital writing in future.
G
November 17th, 2007 at 9:54 pm
Nice picture !!!
I see peeps have given up on the more tag.
November 18th, 2007 at 11:34 am
Dear Adam,
Nice to hear from you.
I think the more tag will make a re-appearance in the near future as the blog is getting rather baggy.
G
November 20th, 2007 at 4:18 pm
I couldn’t understand some parts of this article Kate Pullinger at RIMAD, but I guess I just need to check some more resources regarding this, because it sounds interesting.