{"id":3717,"date":"2014-06-05T16:38:46","date_gmt":"2014-06-05T20:38:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nickm.com\/post\/?p=3717"},"modified":"2014-10-29T13:50:20","modified_gmt":"2014-10-29T17:50:20","slug":"trope-tank-annual-report-2013-2014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nickm.com\/post\/2014\/06\/trope-tank-annual-report-2013-2014\/","title":{"rendered":"Trope Tank Annual Report 2013-2014"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I direct a lab at MIT called <a href=\"http:\/\/trope-tank.mit.edu\">The Trope Tank.<\/a> This is a lab for research, teaching, and creative production, located in building 14 (where the Hayden Library is also housed), in room 14N-233. Its mission is to develop new poetic practices and new understandings of digital media by focusing on the material, formal, and historical aspects of computation and language.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/trope-tank.mit.edu\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/nickm.com\/post\/wp-content\/stuff\/TT_computers.png\" alt=\"Trope Tank computers at work\" width=\"510\" height=\"284\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The lab&#8217;s website has just been updated with some new information about our two major creative\/research projects, <a href=\"http:\/\/trope-tank.mit.edu\/slant\">Slant<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/trope-tank.mit.edu\/renderings\">Renderings.<\/a> Earlier this academic year, a <a href=\"http:\/\/trope-tank.mit.edu\/materials\/\">hardware and software catalog<\/a> of Trope Tank resources was developed by Erik Stayton with contributions from Sylvia Tomayko-Peters.<\/p>\n<p>As usual, the Trope Tanks hosts the monthly meetings of the local interactive fiction club, the <a href=\"http:\/\/pr-if.com\">People&#8217;s Republic of Interactive Fiction.<\/a> Also, the Trope Tank&#8217;s series of digital writing presentations, <a href=\"http:\/\/trope-tank.mit.edu\/purple_blurb\/\">Purple Blurb,<\/a> continued this year; I was on leave in Fall 2013, but the series was back and hosted four excellent presentations in Spring 2014. See those sites for more information about PR-IF and Purple Blurb.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s what we&#8217;ve been up to since our <a href=\"http:\/\/nickm.com\/post\/2013\/05\/trope-tank-annual-report-2012-2013\/\">last annual report in May 2013:<\/a><\/p>\n<p><b>New Works:<\/b> Creative projects released.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><i>Nanowatt,<\/i> single-loading (3.5 KB) demoscene production for the VIC-20. By Nick Montfort, Michael C. Martin, and Patsy Baudoin as Nom de Nom, McMartin, and Baud 1. Shown and awarded 2nd place on 30 November 2013 at R\u00e9cursion, Montr\u00e9al.<\/li>\n<li><i>World Clock,<\/i> computer generated novel with source code by Nick Montfort. Published on the Web 30 November 2013, in print at the Harvard Book Store.<\/li>\n<li><i>Round,<\/i> digital poem by Nick Montfort. Published on the Web 14 August 2013 by New Binary Press.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li><i>Duels &mdash; Duets,<\/i> digital poem. By Stephanie Strickland and Nick Montfort. Published on the Web 14 August 2013 by New Binary Press.<\/li>\n<li><i>The Deletionist,<\/i> digital poetry system. By Nick Montfort, Amaranth Borsuk, and Jesper Juul. 2011\u20132013. Premiered at E-Poetry 2013 in London and published on the Web.<\/li>\n<li><i>Three Rails Live,<\/i> an interactive video installation. By Rod Coover, Nick Montfort and Scott Rettberg. 2011\u20132013. Documentation published on the web in <i>bleuOrange<\/i> 7, 2013.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Trope Reports:<\/b> We have issued two technical reports.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"TROPE-13-02.pdf\">TROPE-13-02 &#8211; Videogame Editions for Play and Study<\/a> (Clara Fern\u00e1ndez-Vara and Nick Montfort)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"TROPE-13-03.pdf\">TROPE-13-03 &#8211; No Code: Null Programs<\/a> (Nick Montfort)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Exhibit &amp; Museum Event:<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Second Fridays: How People Connect, Presentation of Commodore 64 BASIC programming, Piotr Marecki and Erik Stayton, and event at the MIT Museum, February 14, 2014<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/nickm.com\/post\/2014\/02\/programs-at-an-exhibition-march-6-16\/\"><i>Programs at an Exhibition,<\/i><\/a> Nick Montfort &amp; P\u00e1ll Thayer, an exhibit at the Boston Cyberats Gallery, March 6-16, 2014<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Presentations:<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Marecki, Piotr, &#8220;Sticker literature or augmented reality literature,&#8221; David Foster Wallace Conference, Department of English, Illinois State University, May 23, 2014\u00a0 <\/li>\n<li>Marecki, Piotr, &#8220;The Road to Assland and early Polish Text Adventure Games,&#8221; People&#8217;s Republic of Interactive Fiction, The Trope Tank, MIT, May 13, 2014<\/li>\n<li>Montfort, Nick, \u201cCombinatory Media and Possibilities for Documentary,\u201d OpenDoc Lab, MIT, May 8, 2014<\/li>\n<li>Marecki, Piotr, &#8220;Polish Literature in the Digital Age,&#8221; MIT Comparative Media Studies\/Writing, May 7, 2014<\/li>\n<li>Marecki, Piotr, &#8220;Textual Caves: Expanding the Literary Writing Space,&#8221; Shapeshifters: Recycling and Literature, Department of Comparative Literature, Yale University, April 25-26 2014<\/li>\n<li>Montfort, Nick \u201cExploratory Programming,\u201d first of four major topics for the online Critical Code Studies Working Group 2014, 23 February-23 March, 2014.<\/li>\n<li>Montfort, Nick, \u201cAesthetic Obfuscated Code,\u201d Symposium on Obfusctation, New York University, 15 February 2014.<\/li>\n<li>Montfort, Nick, \u201cTen Cases of Computational Poetics,\u201d UCLA, M\/ELT, 17 January 2014.<\/li>\n<li>Montfort, Nick, \u201cComputational Poetic Models,\u201d University of Southern California, SCA Complex, 16 January 2014<\/li>\n<li>Marecki, Piotr, &#8220;Polish Literature in the Digital Age,&#8221; IAP talk, MIT, January 21, 2014.<\/li>\n<li>Montfort, Nick, \u201cComputational Literary Models for Fun and Poetics,\u201d Concordia University, Montr\u00e9al, 10 January 2014.<\/li>\n<li>Montfort, Nick, \u201cScaling Up Literary Models with Curveship and Slant,\u201d 8th Mexican International Colloquium on Computational Creativity, UNAM, Mexico City, 15 November 2013.<\/li>\n<li>Montfort, Nick, \u201cLiterary Models,\u201d 8th Mexican International Colloquium on Computational Creativity, UAM Cuajimalpa, Mexico City, 14 November 2013.<\/li>\n<li>Montfort, Nick, \u201cElectronic Literature and Other Forms of Popular Creative Computing.\u201d Keynote address at Writing Literature, Reading Society, Municipal Public Library, Krak\u00f3w, 29 October 2013.<\/li>\n<li>Montfort, Nick, \u201c10 PRINT,\u201d MIT CSAIL Programming Language &#038; Software Engineering retreat, MIT Endicott House, 21 May 2013<\/li>\n<li>Montfort, Nick, \u201cHardware and Emulation to Access Creative Computing,\u201d Preserving.exe Summit, Library of Congress, 20 May 2013<\/li>\n<li>Baudoin, Patsy and Nick Montfort, \u201c10 PRINT,\u201d Writing Across the Curriculum, MIT, 17 May 2013<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Translations:<\/b> Andrew Campana translated &#8220;The Two&#8221; by Nick Montfort into Japanese. Piotr Marecki translated Montfort&#8217;s &#8220;Lede,&#8221; &#8220;The Two,&#8221; and <i>World Clock<\/i> (via translation of the novel-generating program) into Polish, and, with Aleksandra Ma&lstrok;ecka, translated &#8220;Between Page and Screen&#8221; by Amaranth Borsuk and Brad Bouse into Polish. These will be placed online when revisions are complete.<\/p>\n<p><b>Teaching:<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The Trope Tank hosted a visit by The Word Made Digital, 21W.764, during Spring 2014.<\/li>\n<li>\u201cExploratory Programming Workshop\u201d by Nick Montfort, New York University, 14 February 2014.<\/li>\n<li>Commodore 64 BASIC Workshop by Nick Montfort, offered for MIT&#8217;s Independent Activities Period, 29 January 2014.<\/li>\n<li>\u201cWorkshop in Exploratory Programming\u201d by Nick Montfort, UAM Cuajimalpa, Mexico City, two meetings on 11-12 November 2013.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Upcoming:<\/b> In Milwaukee this month Trope Tank researchers will present at (int)7 (Intelligent Narrative Technologies 7) and the Electronic Literature Organization Conference. The presentation will be &#8220;Expressing the Narrator&#8217;s Expectations&#8221; by Montfort and Stayton at (int)7, and at ELO in the conference paper sessions &#8220;The Formation of the Field of Electronic Literature in Poland&#8221; by Marecki, &#8220;Computational Editions, Ports, and Remakes of &#8216;First Screening&#8217; and &#8216;Karateka'&#8221; by Stayton and Montfort, and &#8220;New Novel Machines: <i>Nanowatt<\/i> and <i>World Clock<\/i>&#8221; by Montfort. The ELO Media Arts show will include &#8220;The Postulate to Hyperdescribe the World&#8221; by Marecki and Aleksandra Ma&lstrok;ecka and &#8220;Round&#8221; by Montfort. Andrew Campana&#8217;s work will be part of the Gallery of E-Lit 1st Encounters.<\/p>\n<p>Many papers and even some books developed with Trope Tank support are forthcoming, but instead of trying to enumerate those, I&#8217;ll list them next year, when they have appeared.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I direct a lab at MIT called The Trope Tank. This is a lab for research, teaching, and creative production, located in building 14 (where the Hayden Library is also housed), in room 14N-233. Its mission is to develop new poetic practices and new understandings of digital media by focusing on the material, formal, and &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/nickm.com\/post\/2014\/06\/trope-tank-annual-report-2013-2014\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Trope Tank Annual Report 2013-2014&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[117,47,38,23,36,10,4,30,166],"class_list":["post-3717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-10-print","tag-academics","tag-collaboration","tag-hardware","tag-mit","tag-platforms","tag-poetry","tag-story-generation","tag-world-clock"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nickm.com\/post\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nickm.com\/post\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nickm.com\/post\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nickm.com\/post\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nickm.com\/post\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3717"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/nickm.com\/post\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3717\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3768,"href":"https:\/\/nickm.com\/post\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3717\/revisions\/3768"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nickm.com\/post\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nickm.com\/post\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nickm.com\/post\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}