Authors' and Contributors' Bios
Co-Authors
Dene Grigar is Director of the Creative Media & Digital Technology Program at Washington State University Vancouver, whose research focuses on the creation, curation, preservation, and criticism of Electronic Literature, specifically building multimedial environments and experiences for live performance, installations, and curated spaces; desktop computers; and mobile media devices. She has authored 14 media works, such as “Curlew" (with Greg Philbrook, 2014), "A Villager's Tale" (with Brett Oppegaard, 2011), the "24-Hour Micro-Elit Project" (2009), When Ghosts Will Die (with Steve Gibson, 2005), "Fallow Field: A Story in Two Parts” (2004), and “The Jungfrau Tapes: A Conversation with Diana Slattery about The Glide Project” (2004), as well as over 50 scholarly articles. She also curates exhibits of electronic literature and media art, mounting shows at the Library of Congress and for the Modern Language Association, among other venues. With Stuart Moulthrop (U of Wisconsin Milwaukee) she is the recipient of a 2013 NEH Start Up grant for Pathfinders. She serves as Associate Editor for Leonardo Reviews and is President of the Electronic Literature Organization. Her website is located at http://nouspace.net/dene.
Stuart Moulthrop is an award-winning designer of electronic fiction and art projects, a veteran teacher of computer game design, and author of multiply-anthologized writings on digital art and culture. From 1995-99 he served as Co-Editor of Postmodern Culture and remains on its advisory board. He was a charter member of the Electronic Literature Organization in 1999 and currently serves on its Board of Directors. In 2014 he hosted ELO's annual conference, "Hold the Light," at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where he is Professor of English and a recent Fellow of the Center for 21st-Century Studies. His digital works include Victory Garden (1991), for which he performed the very first test traversal for Pathfinders (code-named Mercury-Redstone 2), and a number of Web-based fiction and art projects spanning from the mid-1990s to the present day. His (good old) home page is at http://pantherfile.uwm.edu/moulthro/index.htm.
Research Assistants
Madeleine Brookman, who has served as Research Assistant on the project from fall 2014, is a junior in the Creative Media & Digital Culture Program at Washington State University Vancouver majoring in Digital Technologies & Culture. She has been awarded the 2014-5 Auvril Fellowship and a 2015 College of Arts & Sciences Summer Mini-Grant to pursue the development of this multimedia book. For Pathfinders she has painstakingly edited and managed 102 videos and helped to lay out and produce the book. She also created the Pathfinders' trailer found in the Introduction.Brian Keilen worked with Stuart Moulthrop on the first draft of the traversal videos, annotation of the interviews, and documentary research. Keilen is a candidate for the PhD in English at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, writing on the concept of play modes in video games. He has published several papers and book chapters on the horror genre, production-as-consumption, and other subjects in popular culture.
Rachael Sullivan advised Stuart Moulthrop on video editing and helped assemble the draft of the traversal clips, in addition to other key research tasks. In June, 2015 Sullivan successfully defended her doctoral dissertation, "Interface Fantasies and Futures: Designing Human-Computer Relations in the Shadow of Memex," written under supervision of Professor Anne Frances Wysocki, and will receive her PhD in English from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in the fall. She is Assistant Professor of Communications and Digital Media at St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia. Her continuing research focuses on feminist-critical analyses of technology, glitch aesthetics, and engaged digital literacy.
Amalia Vacca, who served as Research Assistant from summer 2013-fall 2014, is a 2015 graduate of the Creative Media & Digital Culture Program at Washington State University Vancouver. While at WSUV she was the managing director of Nouspace Gallery and assisted Grigar at electronic literature exhibits, Electronic Literature and Its Emerging Forms for the Library of Congress (April 2013) and Avenues of Access at the Modern Language Association 2013 conference. She was the recipient of the 2013-4 Norma C. Fuentes and Gary M. Kirk Undergraduate Research Scholarship for iSci and awarded a “Gray” at the 2014 Student Undergraduate Life Renewed, the interactive exhibit created for the Mount St. Helens Science and Learning Center at Coldwater Station. For Pathfinders she helped to organize the traversals and interviews and managed the lab in preparation of these events.
Technical Support
Greg Philbrook is the Instructional and Technical Support Specialist for the Creative Media & Digital Culture Program at Washington State University Vancouver and a 2013 graduate of the program. He is co-author with Grigar on "Curlew" and has contributed to Fort Vancouver Mobile, an app developed by Brett Oppegaard and Grigar for the Fort Vancouver National Historical Site.Design
Will Luers, a digital media artist and writer, has been on faculty in the Creative Media & Digital Culture program at Washington State University Vancouver since the fall of 2010. In 2008, he was invited to the university as an artist-in-residence to work with students on location-based media projects. At the CMDC, he teaches "Digital Publishing," “Multimedia Authoring”, “Advanced Multimedia Authoring”, and “Digital Storytelling.” His current research and artistic interest is in designing and publishing multimedia books as mobile apps. In general, his interests are in the proliferating forms and expressive possibilities of web-based and digital cinema, including database documentaries, multimedia hypertext, networked video, and locative storytelling. In 2010, he was awarded the The Vectors-NEH Summer Fellowship to work on his database documentary, The Father Divine Project. His video art has been selected for the Media Arts Show at the 2010 and 2008 ELO Conferences.Sound and Video
Many other artists and professionals contributed to the production of the video, sound and other elements of Pathfinders. These include:John Barber, PhD, Creative Media & Digital Culture, Washington State University Vancouver: The sound work for the audio artists' statements for John McDaid, Judy Malloy, and Shelley Jackson. Barber also had a speaking role in John McDaid's artist interview.
Aaron Wintersong, formerly a CMDC student, now Web and Graphic Designer at Evergreen Public Schools: Videography for John McDaid's, Judy Malloy's, and Shelley Jackson's traversals and interviews.
Troy Wayrynen, formerly a CMDC student, now Pictures by Troy: Video Editing for Bly's traversals and interviews.
Skizz Cyzyk, from Zinniafilms (Baltimore, MD): Videography for Bly's traversals and interviews.