Janet Murray
Encyclopedia
Janet Murray is a professor
at the Georgia Institute of Technology
, where she is the director of graduate studies in the School of Literature, Communication, and Culture. Before coming to Georgia Tech in 1999, she was a Senior Research Scientist in the Center for Educational Computing Initiatives at MIT
, where she taught humanities and led advanced interactive design projects since 1971. She is well known as an early developer of humanities computing applications, a seminal theorist of digital media
, and an advocate of new educational programs in digital media.
Murray's major book is Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace, which asks whether the computer can provide the basis for an expressive narrative form, just as print technology supported the development of the novel and film technology supported the development of movies. She provides an optimistic answer. Murray’s analysis rests on an understanding of the computer as a medium of representation with a distinct set of properties. She argues that the computer is procedural, participatory, encyclopedic, and spatial, and that it affords three characteristic (but not unique) pleasures: immersion, agency, and transformation. She defines interactivity as the combination of the procedural and the participatory property which together afford the pleasure of agency. She connects research work on artificial intelligence
with cultural forms such as games, movies
, literature
, and television
. Murray’s main point is that the new computer formats expand the possibilities of expression available for storytelling.
Murray was a guest writer for Noah Wardrip-Fruin
and Nick Montfort
The New Media Reader, an anthology of articles on the new media which Janet was the first of the two introduction in the book called "Inventing the Medium." She talks about why Douglas Engelbart
is important to the new media. Janet compares and contrasts Jorge Borges's "The Garden of Forking Paths
" to Vannevar Bush
's "As We May Think", explaining the similarities and differences between the humanist approach and the scientific approach to digital media. Murray emphasizes that Borges is fascinated by the arbitrariness of language itself, whereas Bush interprets the world not as an imprisoning labyrinth, but a challenging maze waiting to be solved by an appropriately organized and clever team effort (Wardrip-Fruin, 3). She talks about the pros and cons, plus the philosophy of both Borges and Bush, as an introduction to the rest of the articles in The New Media Reader. In addition, she defines the representational power of new media into these four categories: its procedural, participatory, encyclopedic, and spatial properties, with the encyclopedic capacity having the most significance in influence (Wardrip-Fruin, 6). Finally, she goes through the history of hypertext
, video games, and World Wide Web
.
Murray’s work has been referenced by game designers, interactive television producers, filmmakers, and journalists. It has been criticized from opposing directions, by writer Sven Birkerts
as a threat to print culture (in HotWired
magazine and in a televised debate) and by ludologists as an inappropriately literary approach to games (Game Studies vol. 1 no. 1).
Murray also has an active role in developing two new degree programs at Georgia Tech which were launched in 2004: the Ph.D. in Digital Media and the B.S. in Computational Media.
Professor
A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...
at the Georgia Institute of Technology
Georgia Institute of Technology
The Georgia Institute of Technology is a public research university in Atlanta, Georgia, in the United States...
, where she is the director of graduate studies in the School of Literature, Communication, and Culture. Before coming to Georgia Tech in 1999, she was a Senior Research Scientist in the Center for Educational Computing Initiatives at MIT
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...
, where she taught humanities and led advanced interactive design projects since 1971. She is well known as an early developer of humanities computing applications, a seminal theorist of digital media
Digital media
Digital media is a form of electronic media where data is stored in digital form. It can refer to the technical aspect of storage and transmission Digital media is a form of electronic media where data is stored in digital (as opposed to analog) form. It can refer to the technical aspect of...
, and an advocate of new educational programs in digital media.
Work and contributions
Janet Murray design projects include a digital edition of the Warner Brothers classic, Casablanca. In addition she directs an eTV Prototyping Group, which has worked on interactive television applications for PBS, ABC, MTV, Turner, and other networks. She also works extensively as a member of Georgia Tech's Experimental Game Lab and is an advisor to Georgia Tech's Mobile Technology Group.Murray's major book is Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace, which asks whether the computer can provide the basis for an expressive narrative form, just as print technology supported the development of the novel and film technology supported the development of movies. She provides an optimistic answer. Murray’s analysis rests on an understanding of the computer as a medium of representation with a distinct set of properties. She argues that the computer is procedural, participatory, encyclopedic, and spatial, and that it affords three characteristic (but not unique) pleasures: immersion, agency, and transformation. She defines interactivity as the combination of the procedural and the participatory property which together afford the pleasure of agency. She connects research work on artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...
with cultural forms such as games, movies
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
, literature
Literature
Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...
, and television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
. Murray’s main point is that the new computer formats expand the possibilities of expression available for storytelling.
Murray was a guest writer for Noah Wardrip-Fruin
Noah Wardrip-Fruin
Noah Wardrip-Fruin is Associate Professor in the Computer Science Department of the University of California, Santa Cruz, and is an advisor for the Expressive Intelligence Studio. He is an alumnus of the Literary Arts MFA program and Special Graduate Study PhD program at Brown University...
and Nick Montfort
Nick Montfort
Nick Montfort is an associate professor of digital media at MIT in the Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies. He is also a poet, computer scientist, and author of interactive fiction. Montfort has collaborated on the blog Grand Text Auto, the sticker novel Implementation, and the contemporary...
The New Media Reader, an anthology of articles on the new media which Janet was the first of the two introduction in the book called "Inventing the Medium." She talks about why Douglas Engelbart
Douglas Engelbart
Douglas Carl Engelbart is an American inventor, and an early computer and internet pioneer. He is best known for his work on the challenges of human-computer interaction, resulting in the invention of the computer mouse, and the development of hypertext, networked computers, and precursors to GUIs...
is important to the new media. Janet compares and contrasts Jorge Borges's "The Garden of Forking Paths
The Garden of Forking Paths
"The Garden of Forking Paths" is a 1941 short story by Argentine writer and poet Jorge Luis Borges. It is the title story in the collection El jardín de senderos que se bifurcan , which was republished in its entirety in Ficciones in 1944...
" to Vannevar Bush
Vannevar Bush
Vannevar Bush was an American engineer and science administrator known for his work on analog computing, his political role in the development of the atomic bomb as a primary organizer of the Manhattan Project, the founding of Raytheon, and the idea of the memex, an adjustable microfilm viewer...
's "As We May Think", explaining the similarities and differences between the humanist approach and the scientific approach to digital media. Murray emphasizes that Borges is fascinated by the arbitrariness of language itself, whereas Bush interprets the world not as an imprisoning labyrinth, but a challenging maze waiting to be solved by an appropriately organized and clever team effort (Wardrip-Fruin, 3). She talks about the pros and cons, plus the philosophy of both Borges and Bush, as an introduction to the rest of the articles in The New Media Reader. In addition, she defines the representational power of new media into these four categories: its procedural, participatory, encyclopedic, and spatial properties, with the encyclopedic capacity having the most significance in influence (Wardrip-Fruin, 6). Finally, she goes through the history of hypertext
Hypertext
Hypertext is text displayed on a computer or other electronic device with references to other text that the reader can immediately access, usually by a mouse click or keypress sequence. Apart from running text, hypertext may contain tables, images and other presentational devices. Hypertext is the...
, video games, and World Wide Web
World Wide Web
The World Wide Web is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet...
.
Murray’s work has been referenced by game designers, interactive television producers, filmmakers, and journalists. It has been criticized from opposing directions, by writer Sven Birkerts
Sven Birkerts
Sven Birkerts is an American essayist and literary critic of Latvian ancestry. He is best known for his book The Gutenberg Elegies, which posits a decline in reading due to the overwhelming advances of the Internet and other technologies of the "electronic culture."Birkerts was born in Pontiac,...
as a threat to print culture (in HotWired
HotWired
Hotwired was the first commercial web magazine, launched on October 27, 1994. Although it was part of Wired Ventures, Hotwired was a separate entity from Wired, the print magazine, and had original content....
magazine and in a televised debate) and by ludologists as an inappropriately literary approach to games (Game Studies vol. 1 no. 1).
Murray also has an active role in developing two new degree programs at Georgia Tech which were launched in 2004: the Ph.D. in Digital Media and the B.S. in Computational Media.
Accomplishments
- Spring of 2000, American Film InstituteAmerican Film InstituteThe American Film Institute is an independent non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1967 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act...
named Janet Murray their Trustee as she is also a mentor AFI Digital Content Lab.
- Her projects from digital media curricula, interactive narrative, story/games, interactive television, to large-scale multimedia information spaces.have been funded by IBMIBMInternational Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
, Apple ComputerApple ComputerApple Inc. is an American multinational corporation that designs and markets consumer electronics, computer software, and personal computers. The company's best-known hardware products include the Macintosh line of computers, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad...
, Annenberg-CPB Project, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation http://www.mellon.org/, the National Endowment for the HumanitiesNational Endowment for the HumanitiesThe National Endowment for the Humanities is an independent federal agency of the United States established by the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965 dedicated to supporting research, education, preservation, and public programs in the humanities. The NEH is located at...
, and the National Science FoundationNational Science FoundationThe National Science Foundation is a United States government agency that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National Institutes of Health...
.
- Next Generation MagazineNext Generation MagazineNext Generation Magazine was a video game magazine that was made by Imagine Media publishing company . It was affiliated to and shared editorial with the UK's Edge magazine. Next Generation ran from January 1995 until January 2002. It was published by Jonathan Simpson-Bint and edited by Neil West...
named her one of the top 100 Most Influential Women in Games in 2006
See also
- Digital MediaDigital mediaDigital media is a form of electronic media where data is stored in digital form. It can refer to the technical aspect of storage and transmission Digital media is a form of electronic media where data is stored in digital (as opposed to analog) form. It can refer to the technical aspect of...
- Simulated realitySimulated realitySimulated reality is the proposition that reality could be simulated—perhaps by computer simulation—to a degree indistinguishable from "true" reality. It could contain conscious minds which may or may not be fully aware that they are living inside a simulation....
- Video game theory
- New Media ArtNew media artNew media art is a genre that encompasses artworks created with new media technologies, including digital art, computer graphics, computer animation, virtual art, Internet art, interactive art, computer robotics, and art as biotechnology...