Center for Digital Narrative Releases Podcast Off Center

The Center for Digital Narrative (CDN) has officially launched and its research projects have been set in motion. The podcast series ‘Off Center’ will share the research from CDN with an international audience. In each episode, Scott Rettberg is joined by a researcher from the centre or other academics in the field for an interesting discussion of their expertise.

The discussions in the series are easy to follow and suitable for anyone interested in the field of digital narrativity. Each episode shines a light on another aspect of the field, making them suitable to listen to in any preferred order.

Scott Rettberg says about the podcast series: “I'm planning to talk to the researchers at the Center for Digital Narrative about topics ranging from game studies to AI to VR to new forms of electronic literature that are emerging in digital media.”

Episode 1: Introducing the Center for Digital Narrative, with Jill Walker Rettberg

In the first episode, Scott Rettberg is joined by Jill Walker Rettberg, co-director of CDN. During the 30-minute-long episode, they talk about what has inspired them over the years to start this research Center of Excellence, the concept of "algorithmic narrativity," and some of the research that the Center will focus on including digital narratives in electronic literature, computer games, social media, computational narrative systems, AI, XR and more.

“Every day when I look at the newspaper now, there is a new story about digital culture, and in fact, there's probably a dozen new stories. So a lot of the research that we're doing right now is engaging with cultural impacts that we're also feeling right now, and we'll be trying to bring that to light. We’re calling this podcast Off Center, and the reason for that is that I think we often encounter academics as sort of removed, off in some ivory tower, away from everyday life. And what I'm hoping is that we're going to be able to encounter researchers and artists working in this field as people and look at the sort of odd sides of digital culture,” Scott Rettberg says in the first episode and continues:

“The things that we normally don't think about or talk about in an academic environment. Things like funny memes, right? And how those are shaping our culture—but trying to take a slightly different angle to the questions that we're addressing and to present them in a different way than we do in things like research papers or conferences. And that goes along with what we're trying to do at the Center through events like exhibitions, where we're going to be trying to reach other kinds of audiences than you would if you were just publishing peer review journal articles.”

Where to listen

Listen to the first episode of the podcast ‘Off Center’ on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and other popular podcast platforms. In upcoming episodes Scott will be joined by researchers from the centre and academics and artists in the field. So make sure to follow the Center for Digital Narrative on social media, and stay up to date.

‘Off Center’ is supported by the University of Bergen and the Norwegian Research Council, produced by Jessie van Balkom, and hosted by Scott Rettberg.