Features: Dec. 17, 2001

Universities Using Rensselaer Web Site To Teach Electronic Literature

Diana Slattery, associate director of the Academy of Electronic Media at Rensselaer, has combined electronic art, interactive computer game components, sound, and text in a Web-based experimental project called "Glide" that is being used around the country by universities teaching courses in electronic literature.

The project gets its name from the dynamic visual language, Glide, a key element of Slattery's speculative fiction novel, The Maze Game. The story concerns a cult of mortal death dancers who, for 2000 years, have kept the immortal Lifers riveted with the brutal beauty of combat in a maze made of the glyphs of the Glide language. The game always ends in a dance of death. As the novel begins, it is the Game itself that is in threat of extinction.

When using Glide, an interactive language editor allows viewers compose their own mazes and experiment with changing the properties and animating the Glide glyphs.

Glide is being taught as an example of hypertext literature and for its artistic design by the University of California at Los Angeles and Texas Women's University (TWU), among others.

Slattery is a pioneer of hypertext fiction, a genre that includes multi-sensory media. In hypertext fiction, hundreds of online links allow readers to navigate through the work at their whim and become more of a participant in the storytelling. Slattery's project was featured in a New York Times story last March.

"Glide pushes the envelope of what narrative is in online contexts by incorporating sound and design elements, but even more importantly through its gaming theme," says Dene Grigar, professor of English at TWU, who specializes in multimedia electronic literature.

Slattery began work on Glide in 1998 with two Rensselaer colleagues, Daniel J. O'Neil and William Brubaker. The novel, The Maze Game is completed and ready for publication. To view Glide, go to http://www.academy.rpi.edu/glide/