Symbolic Activities in Virtual Spaces

This paper presents an approach to combine concepts ofsymbolic acting and virtual storytelling with the support ofcooperative processes. We will motivate why symboliclanguages are relevant in the social context of awarenessapplications. We will describe different symbolicpresentations and illustrate their application in three differentprototypes

Remnants of the past, history and the present.

The article interprets that it is hardly surprising then that philosophers of history point to the slender relationship between the raw facts of the past and understanding the past. The latter is an act of interpreting fragments from the past and not infrequently these support several points of view. This question has particular significance at a time when historians are increasingly thinking about historical materials and evidence in radically new ways that are fundamentally changing the nature of history as an academic discipline. In the light of these changes, the first part of the article sketches three different sets of epistemological assumptions that operate in contemporary history; the second applies these assumptions to a more detailed analysis of four pieces of historical material. Reflecting on the analysis in part two, the conclusion discusses the complex relations between the present and the past

Introducing a corpus of conversational stories. Construction and annotation of the Narrative Corpus

Although widely seen as critical both in terms of its frequency and its social significance as a prime means of encoding and perpetuating moral stance and configuring self and identity, conversational narrative has received little attention in corpus linguistics. In this paper we describe the construction and annotation of a corpus that is intended to advance the linguistic theory of this fundamental mode of everyday social interaction: the Narrative Corpus (NC). The NC contains narratives extracted from the demographically-sampled sub-corpus of the British National Corpus (BNC) (XML version). It includes more than 500 narratives, socially balanced in terms of participant sex, age, and social class. We describe the extraction techniques, selection criteria, and sampling methods used in constructing the NC. Further, we describe four levels of annotation implemented in the corpus: speaker (social information on speakers), text (text Ids, title, type of story, type of embedding etc.), textual components (pre-/post-narrative talk, narrative, and narrative-initial/final utterances), and utterance (participation roles, quotatives and reporting modes). A brief rationale is given for each level of annotation, and possible avenues of research facilitated by the annotation are sketched out

Fierce Compassion and Reflexivity: Transforming Practice at the University of Melbourne Archives

In 2016, the University of Melbourne Archives (UMA) commenced a program of change with regard to its records about child welfare in Victoria. This was driven by a social justice imperative to repair past harms done to Care Leavers (people who grew up in orphanages, children's homes, or foster care) while in out-of-home care, and for whom records play an integral role. UMA worked with Care Leavers, advocacy groups and support services to review their policies, procedures and practices around archival documentation and access arrangements. In this article, the authors explore those efforts through the prism of radical empathy (or rather a compassionate response to empathy) and analyze what was achieved and the challenges that remain.  Pre-print first published online 10/22/202

The 'memoir problem', revisited.

The ‘memoir problem’ revisited “That you had parents and a childhood does not of itself qualify you to write a memoir”. Neil Gunzlinger, book reviewer for the New York Times, griped in a review of yet another confessional memoir. It’s true; suddenly everyone is writing memoir, even people who only ever wrote fiction, rock music or poetry, or never wrote before. I even find myself writing memoir, but mining some of my own fictional writing for triggers and nudges, delving into old poems for clues and lines of inquiry. After all, the memory does not always linger on. Now, since revisiting this autobiographical writing as a resource for chapters of my Creative Nonfiction PhD thesis, a food memoir, in this paper I’ll discuss attempts made to fictionalise the ‘true’ events of the stories, and the uses made of them, to revitalise memoir. I also reflect on the work of controversial memoirist Karl Ove Knausgaard, whose six-volume work, ‘My struggle’, has offended members of his extended family, critics and purists, or simply bored many readers with the impossibly detailed accounts of his life, to ask again of memoir, “Should it be artful or truthful?

Moving Narration: A journey through history

The Central Pacific, as the first transcontinental railroad, is a remarkable achievement in the history of the United States. However, the story of what happened during its construction, including the struggles of the first generation of immigrants from China who built the tracks, and the resistance of native Americans to cede their lands, is largely forgotten. The California Zephyr, as a long-trip train that currently runs on the Central Pacific tracks, is not only a means of transportation but should also tell the history of survival and resistance embodied by the landscape it moves through and tracks it travels over. This thesis argues for integrating three fragmented histories, which refer to the resistance of Native Americans, the survival of Chinese immigrant railroad workers, and the train experience during the 1960s, in a linear narrative environment. However, the design strategy is different from the conventional exhibition where audiences visit the space in a specific narrative order and stare at exhibits. On this train, riders can assume the role of either straightforward passengers or audience members. There will be opportunities to acquire knowledge of history by following Chinese immigrants’ dietary habits, reading books about that period of history, enjoying and learning about the landscape and the people who tended it for thousands of years, or entertaining to learn about cultures. Meanwhile, the narrative space created on the California Zephyr will serve as a spatial prototype for moving narration that can be used to integrate history within transportation, throughout the world in the future

Narrative agency in video games:a case study on how NieR: Automata embraces its medium

Abstract. In this thesis I analyze video games as a narrative medium by focusing on the 2017 video game NieR: Automata by director Yoko Taro and development team PlatinumGames. The main argument of the thesis is that for video games should utilize narrative elements that are unique to video games, such as player interaction. Since video game studies is a relatively new field, it does not have an established theoretical framework similar to traditional media such as literature. Therefore, I present and critique historically relevant approaches related to game narratives like narratology and ludology. Ultimately, I will use neither approach since narratology ignores what differentiates video games from traditional media whereas the ludologists’ viewpoint of games not being stories fundamentally goes against the premise of my argument. I will conduct the majority of the analysis by discussing the main story of NieR: Automata from the beginning to the end while highlighting and elaborating on events that provide narrative agency, which I define as moments of gameplay with narrative significance. In addition, I will analyze these events from the perspective of genre to highlight how the video game elements enhance the rhetoric of the story. Throughout the thirty-hour story of NieR: Automata, the player experiences narrative agency by numerous methods. I will argue that the repetition of in-game events without noticeable differences besides character change provides meaningful insight into how the characters are treated without specifically stating it. In addition, while NieR: Automata has few instances of traditional agency, which is characterized as providing the player with the freedom to do meaningful actions, the player can achieve similar feelings of meaningful interaction while telling a scripted narrative with little player influence. Finally, the final ending of NieR: Automata utilizes the game medium in a unique way as the player may sacrifice all their save data to assist other players complete the game. Other media are incapable of implementing similar narrative tools and highlights the influence of narrative agency as the player is willing to forfeit their invested time and saved progress for a narrative statement.Tiivistelmä. Tässä tutkielmassa analysoin videopelejä narratiivisena mediana käsittelemällä vuonna 2017 julkaistua videopeliä NieR: Automata, jonka on ohjannut Yoko Taro ja kehittänyt pelistudio PlatinumGames. Keskeinen argumenttini on, että videopelien pitäisi hyödyntää niille ominaisia narratiivisia elementtejä, kuten pelaajan kanssa tapahtuvaa vuorovaikutusta. Videopelitutkimuksen ollessa suhteellisen uusi tutkimusala, sille ei ole luotuna samanlaista teoreettista taustaa kuin perinteisen median, kuten kirjallisuuden, tutkimukselle. Tämän vuoksi tuon esiin sekä kritisoin historiallisesti merkittäviä lähestymistapoja pelien narratiivien tutkimuksessa, joita ovat esimerkiksi narratologia ja ludologia. En kuitenkaan käytä kumpaakaan lähestymistapaa analyysissani, sillä narratologia jättää huomiotta sen, mikä erottaa videopelit mediana perinteisistä medioista. Ludologian näkökulman mukaan pelit puolestaan eivät ole tarinoita, mikä on perustavanlaatuisesti vastakkainen näkökulma suhteessa tässä tutkielmassa esittämääni argumenttiin. Toteutan suuren osan analyysista keskittymällä NieR:Automatan päätarinaan korostaen ja tarkentaen tapahtumia, jotka tuottavat narratiivista toimijuutta, jonka määrittelen pelissä pelattuna toimintana, jolla on oleellinen merkitys narratiivin kannalta. Analysoin näitä tapahtumia lisäksi genren näkökulmasta korostaakseni sitä, miten videopelien ominaiset elementit tehostavat tarinan retoriikkaa. NieR: Automatan kolmekymmentätuntisen tarinan aikana pelaaja kokee narratiivista toimijuutta monien menetelmien myötä. Väitän, että pelissä toistuvat osuudet, joiden ainoa huomattava ero on pelattavan hahmon vaihtuminen, tarjoavat merkittävän näkökulman hahmojen kuvaamiseen ilman suoraa kuvailua. Vaikka NieR: Automatassa on vain harvoja perinteistä toimijuutta vaativia tilanteita, joille on tyypillistä tarjota pelaajalle vapaus valita narratiivin kannalta merkityksellinen toiminta, pelaaja voi saavuttaa tunteen merkityksellisestä vuorovaikutuksesta samalla kun peli kertoo käsikirjoitetun tarinan, johon pelaajalla on todellisuudessa vähän vaikutusta. Vielä lopuksi, NieR: Automatan lopetus hyödyntää pelimediaa uniikilla tavalla, sillä pelaaja voi uhrata kaiken tallennetun datansa auttaakseen muita pelaajia läpäisemään pelin. Muut mediat eivät ole kykeneviä käyttämään samanlaisia narratiivisia työkaluja, minkä lisäksi lopetus korostaa narratiivisen toimijuuden vaikutusta, jos pelaaja on halukas luopumaan pelaamiseen käyttämästään ajasta ja tallennetusta etenemisestä luodakseen syvemmän merkityksen tarinalle, vaikka se ei hyödytä häntä pelaajana

Echoes of protest: untold stories of the 1984–1985 UK Miners’ Strike

This journal article will take a look at a collaborative project by artist/filmmaker Esther Johnson and filmmaker/writer Debbie Ballin titled Echoes of Protest. This research investigates the legacy of being involved in significant protest movements from a child’s perspective and seeks to understand the role protest can play in the lives of children, and to explore its aftermath. This article will draw upon oral testimony transcriptions and photography undertaken for this project to highlight a perspective of the 1984-85 UK Miners’ Strike that has seldom been explored. The stories collected are from adults remembering what it was like to grow up as a child during the Strike. They articulate the experience with a maturity they may have been unable to express at the time. The text will follow the research methodology, findings, discuss the editing process and invite contributors to reflect on their participation. Key words archive; cross-disciplinary research; documentary; exhibition; interviewing process; memory; Miners’ Strike; museums; oral testimony; photograph

A Personalized System for Conversational Recommendations

Searching for and making decisions about information is becoming increasingly difficult as the amount of information and number of choices increases. Recommendation systems help users find items of interest of a particular type, such as movies or restaurants, but are still somewhat awkward to use. Our solution is to take advantage of the complementary strengths of personalized recommendation systems and dialogue systems, creating personalized aides. We present a system -- the Adaptive Place Advisor -- that treats item selection as an interactive, conversational process, with the program inquiring about item attributes and the user responding. Individual, long-term user preferences are unobtrusively obtained in the course of normal recommendation dialogues and used to direct future conversations with the same user. We present a novel user model that influences both item search and the questions asked during a conversation. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our system in significantly reducing the time and number of interactions required to find a satisfactory item, as compared to a control group of users interacting with a non-adaptive version of the system

Linked Open Data for Cultural Heritage

This paper surveys the landscape of linked open data projects in cultural heritage, examining the work of groups from around the world. Traditionally, linked open data has been ranked using the five star method proposed by Tim Berners-Lee. We found this ranking to be lacking when evaluating how cultural heritage groups not merely develop linked open datasets, but find ways to use linked data to augment user experience. Building on the five-star method, we developed a six-stage life cycle describing both dataset development and dataset usage. We use this framework to describe and evaluate fifteen linked open data projects in the realm of cultural heritage