Very pleased that my interactive narrative works from the 1990s and early 2000s – I Am A Singer (1996) and of day, of night (2003) were selected to be part of a trial project with The Australia Emulation Network using the EAASI emulation system to recover and access interactive digital works and games from the 1990s. More on the project here:-
As part of this important preservation project, the Australian Centre for the Moving Image will be making my works available both onsite at ACMI in Federation Square in Melbourne; and also via an online link so that they can be accessed remotely. Incredible to have these projects accessible again. Not just mine but others too!! Here are some snippets of I Am A Singer(1996) being run on a vintage Mac in Prof Dene Grigar’s Electronic Literature Lab at WSUV, USA. Soon it will be available to play pretty much anywhere. Yay!!
Handheld video snippet of ‘I Am A Singer’ (1997) running on vintage Mac in ELL lab, Nov 2019.
Well in the last few weeks I have been undertaking a writing course with Curtis Brown Creative in London ( doing it online) – Writing a Psychological Thriller. I’m in early stages of a first draft of a psycho thriller set in a university. I have to say this has been a great course, I’ve really learned a lot, and it has been excellent fun to boot. I’ve met some really good writers too. Planning to work through a large chink of this over the summer. Hopefully more news on this to come…
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A further update. Had a lot of pesky health problems last year and am currently recovering from a broken wrist, all of which have been hampering my work. BUT Catherine Wheel is closer to being finished ( haha) and now sitting at around 58,000 words. Not much more to go. And then what to do with her? Perhaps release on Googleplay, perhaps with little video snippets too… Two other book projects are waiting to begin.
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Well it has been a long time coming, but finally the article I wrote with Natalie Krikowa discussing the work we did to build digital media students understanding of Indigenous cultural competencies has been published by HERD. The term ‘Indigenous cultural competencies’ is a Universities Australia terms term concerning the need for universities to ensure that all students understand how to engage and communicate respectfully with Indigenous people, communities and organisations. The article outlines the process we undertook, in which we leveraged student engagement with mobile phone apps and content through case studies of Indigenous mobile apps, embedding the application of Indigenous cultural principles and protocols such as Respect, Agency, Attribution, Consultation and Consent, within the digital environment.
This was a really rewarding project developed in liaison with Indigenous colleagues which was also recognised by UTS with a University Learning and Teaching Award in 2019. The need to continue to build Indigenous cultural competencies in all students and across all disciplines remains. Link to the article below, and a quick summary via the pics.
Well its been a while since I’ve posted here… yeah a few things have been happening, pandemics and such. When we went into our second NSW lockdown in July 2021 I started working on a new project. It’s a post-pandemic/ post-apocalyptic (naturally) work that is likely a novella, although it’s currently at around 25,000 words so far with more to come, so perhaps is more of a novel. It may include some media elements – limited video, image etc – but I don’t want to be bound to creating lots of media for it, as that can also become an albatross. Been writing for just an hour or so a day, this being the new plan to avoid being tied to the machine for large chunks of my life and instead make time and space for real life and real humans, albeit in pandemic mode by the sea. I’m over halfway through the writing and thought I’d share the working title and a quick graphic I cooked up. Stay safe everyone.
Here is the link to the video recordings of the live traversal of “of day, of night” undertaken with Professor Dene Grigar at Washington State University Vancouver, USA. This was the culmination of a visiting scholarship I undertook in October/ November 2019 to the Electronic Literature Lab at WSUV. “of day, of night” is an electronic literature/ interactive narrative project developed in Australia, first exhibited in 2002 and published by US- based hypertext publishing house Eastgate Systems in 2005. This work is no longer viewable on current Mac’s or PC’s due to changes in hardware, software & operating systems. It has been widely exhibited internationally. The livestream traversal organised by Pof Grigar and the ELL team represent an aspect of the important preservation and archiving of digital cultural content and early electronic literature work that Prof Grigar and her team have been working tirelessly to enable. I am honoured to have been included in this and in the Pathfinders project spearheaded by Dene Grigar and Stuart Moulthrop. As the importance and relevance of early experiments in digital cultural production are now being increasingly recognised at local, national and international levels, I am thrilled to have been included in this process.
There are 5 videos in the full live stream traversal, accessible here:- https://vimeo.com/channels/rebooting. Three of the videos are included below. Thank you Deene, John & the ELL team!
I’ve just returned from an incredible opportunity as Visiting Scholar at Washington State University Vancouver, where I was embedded in Professor Dene Grigar’s extraordinary Electronic Literature Lab in order to access, document, preserve and perform my electronic literature/ interactive narrative works from 1997, 2004 and more using the beautiful vintage Macointosh’s from the ELL lab. Dene Grigar, known to so many researchers and practitioners in electronic literature through her tireless work as President of the Electronic Literature Organisation for many years, has instigated an extraordinary research facility at WSUV that is dedicated to the preservation, access and documentation of pioneering global electronic literature from the 1980s onwards.
While in the ELL at WSUV I was able to access my work from 1997- I Am A Singer- a project I have not seen for over 20 years. I can’t describe how gratifying it was to launch the work on a gorgeous old Mac and see it running like a dream. The work was originally funded by the Australian Film Commission and exhibited in Australia, France, Germany, Switzerland, Canada, Brazil and the US at dozens of media art exhibitions in the 1990s, The project, built in Macromedia Director and including Super 8, video, animation, audio, text, music tracks written by Phil Kakulas and performed by musicians of the Australian band The Black Eyed Susans, received considerable attention and won several digital media awards. I was amazed by how big the scope of the work was- novel-like as Dene said- and how much content had been packed into the minimal capacity of a single CD-ROM. With the support of Dene and her team of young researchers in the ELL lab I undertook an informal videotaped “traversal” of I Am A Singer on Friday Nov 1.
Megan Heyward and Dene Grigar discuss electronic literature history and ‘I Am A Singer’ in the WSUV ELL lab. Photo Holly Slocum.
In week 2 we did lots of documentation, interview and discussion in the leadup to a live-streamed 1 hour YouTube traversal of ‘of day, of night’ on Friday Nov 8. This traversal took place in a video studio in front of WSUV students, who were able to ask questions after I navigated and explored ‘of day, of night’ , my second interactive narrative work, again widely exhibited and also the only non-North American interactive work to be published by leading US hypertext publishers Eastgate Systems, in 2004. I also did video documentation of my 2015 iPad elctronic literature work, The Secret Language of Desire. Over the next few weeks I will post links to all of this work undertaken at WSUV including documentation and posts by Dene Grigar. Ultimately the ‘of day, of night’ traversal will be included in a chapter of Dene Grigar and Stuart Moulthrop’s Pathfinders research project.
Megan answering a question during the ‘of day, of night’ traversal, Nov 8, 2019. Photo Holly Slocum.
Handheld video snippet of ‘I Am A Singer’ (1997) running on vintage Mac in ELL lab, Nov 2019.
I’ve recently been doing some more traditional research, including writing a chapter for the forthcoming Palgrave Handbook of Screen Production, Editors: Batty, C., Berry, M., Dooley, K., Frankham, B., Kerrigan, S. (Eds.) . In it I explore the challenges faced by educators incorporating immersive VR contents into screen media teaching, and share a visual and conceptual methodology I’ve developed for the early stages of planning and conceptualising VR that I’ve been using with students. Forthcoming in Nov 2019. https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9783030217433 .
I’m also looking forward to a Visiting Scholarship with Prof Dene Grigar at Washington State University Vancouver in late 2019, to learn more about the incredible Electronic Literature Media Archaeology Lab at WSUV, and participate in the Pathfinders project via a traversal of my early interactive narrative work/s.
The Quintessence (alternate title Dark Matters) is a proposed multiplatform artwork exploring the enigmatic cosmological phenomena of dark energy and dark matter, the efforts to understand it, and the ways in which the universe continues to fascinate, confound and surprise us. Designed as a multiplatform exhibition for two NSW art galleries – one regional, one metro – using augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), location-based and gallery installation elements, the project takes as its starting point the scientific revival of the alchemical term ‘quintessence’ – medieval philosophy’s enigmatic ‘fifth element’ – to explore the intriguing phenomena of dark energy and dark matter, through integrating artistic, speculative and factual contents in unexpected ways. What exactly are these ‘dark’ phenomena, comprising such large components of the universe? Can they be seen as a metaphor for the unknowable and enigmatic nature of space, time and existence? As science upends our understanding of the cosmos, the universe becomes mysterious again.
The Quintessence will traverse and poetically engage with artistic, speculative and factual contents concerning dark energy and dark matter. It will explore potentials for combining AR and VR contents with informative, playful, embodied and located experiences to engage audiences and activate locations using a combination of familiar, accessible devices – their own mobile phones – as well as emerging technologies and devices, fostering unique cultural experiences for regional and metro audiences.
As contemporary research in astrophysics speculates on the nature of dark energy and its fundamental but mysterious role in the composition and expansion of the universe, scientists have revived the alchemical term, ‘quintessence’ to describe a hypothetical component influencing the evolution of the universe (Steinhardt 2003). This intriguing relationship between contemporary astrophysics and medieval alchemy is the starting point for The Quintessence, which teases out these hidden connections, exploring the enigmas in the world – and the ether – that surrounds us. Further information can be found at the dedicated Quintessence site.
Unauthorised use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from Megan Heyward is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given with appropriate direction to the original content.
