book party tomorrow

hey nyc rhizomers… please come to my book party tomorrow if yer free!
-ag

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Come celebrate the release of two new books on new media:

"Protocol: How Control Exists After Decentralization"
by Alexander R. Galloway

"First Person: New Media as Story, Performance, and Game"
edited by Noah Wardrip-Fruin (and Pat Harrigan)

when: Friday, Feb. 27, 6:00pm
where: Japanese Room, ITP, 721 Broadway, 4th floor, New York City.

refreshments, book signing, Q&A w/ the authors, the works!

Sponsored by the NYU Department of Culture and Communication, NYU's
Interactive Telecommunications Program, and The MIT Press.

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BLURBS & BIOS:

"Protocol: How Control Exists After Decentralization"

by Alexander R. Galloway

Is the Internet a vast arena of unrestricted communication and freely
exchanged information or a regulated, highly structured virtual
bureaucracy? In "Protocol" Alexander R. Galloway argues that the
founding principle of the Net is control, not freedom, and that the
controlling power lies in the technical protocols that make network
connections (and disconnections) possible. He does this by treating
computers as a textual medium that is based on a technological language,
code. Code, he argues, can be subject to the same kind of cultural and
literary analysis as any natural language; computer languages have their
own syntax, grammar, communities, and cultures. He doesn't rely on
established theoretical approaches, but finds a new way to write about
digital media, drawing on his background in computer programming and
critical theory. "Discipline-hopping is a necessity when it comes to
complicated socio-technical topics like protocol," he writes in the
preface. Galloway begins by examining the types of protocols that exist,
including TCP/IP, DNS, and HTML. He then looks at examples of resistance
and subversion-hackers, viruses, cyberfeminism, Internet art–which he
views as emblematic of the larger transformations now taking place
within digital culture. Written for a non-technical audience, "Protocol"
serves as a necessary counterpoint to the wildly utopian visions of the
Net that were so widespread in earlier days.

cover image: http://homepages.nyu.edu/~ag111/cover.jpg

bio:

Alex Galloway teaches in the Media Ecology program at New York
University. Galloway previously worked for several years as editor of
Rhizome.org. He is a founding member of RSG, the software development
group behind the data surveillance platform Carnivore. His first book,
Protocol, is published by the MIT Press.

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"First Person: New Media as Story, Performance, and Game"

edited by Noah Wardrip-Fruin (with Pat Harrigan)

Electronic games have established a huge international market,
significantly outselling non-digital games; people spend more money on
The Sims than on "Monopoly" or even on "Magic: the Gathering." Yet it is
widely believed that the market for electronic literature - predicted by
some to be the future of the written word - languishes. Even bestselling
author Stephen King achieved disappointing results with his online
publication of "Riding the Bullet" and "The Plant." Isn't it possible,
though, that many hugely successful computer games - those that depend
on or at least utilize storytelling conventions of narrative, character,
and theme - can be seen as examples of electronic literature? And isn't
it likely that the truly significant new forms of electronic literature
will prove to be (like games) so deeply interactive and procedural that
it would be impossible to present them as paper-like "e-books"? The
editors of First Person have gathered a remarkably diverse group of new
media theorists and practitioners to consider the relationship between
"story" and "game," as well as the new kinds of artistic creation
(literary, performative, playful) that have become possible in the
digital environment.

cover image: http://hyperfiction.org/graphics/firstPerson-large.jpg

bio:

Noah Wardrip-Fruin writes for and about new media. In addition to First
Person, he is also coeditor of The New Media Reader (with Nick Montfort)
published last year by the MIT Press. His artwork includes The
Impermanence Agent (a storytelling web agent that "customizes" based on
reader browsing habits) and Screen (an immersive VR text that interacts
with the reader's body). He is a Director of the Electronic Literature
Organization.