https://journalofdigitalhumanities.org/author/noah-wardrip-fruin/Recent content in Noah-Wardrip-Fruin on Journal of Digital HumanitiesHugoen-USSat, 01 Mar 2014 00:00:00 +0000https://journalofdigitalhumanities.org/3-1/an-introduction-to-alex-mcdowells-world-building-by-noah-wardrip-fruin/Sat, 01 Mar 2014 00:00:00 +0000https://journalofdigitalhumanities.org/3-1/an-introduction-to-alex-mcdowells-world-building-by-noah-wardrip-fruin/<p>An influential designer changes the way others design. A deeply influential designer shifts how we think about design by fundamentally changing the role design plays in the creative process, potentially altering audiences’ expectations of creative work that ranges from architecture to computer games. Alex McDowell is a deeply influential designer.</p> <p>Drawing on a literary metaphor — “world-building” — to describe his approach to design, McDowell’s methods represent a cultural shift in his industry’s production process. Taking this metaphor seriously, we might be reminded that engaging literary fiction originates less often in plot outlines than it does in imagined worlds. Sometimes these fictional worlds closely resemble our own. Others are speculative and represent realities far-removed from the world we know. Either way, most fictional worlds present us with lenses with which to view familiar aspects of our own that have been accentuated, transformed, and lain bare.</p>https://journalofdigitalhumanities.org/3-1/media-systems-reports/Sat, 01 Mar 2014 00:00:00 +0000https://journalofdigitalhumanities.org/3-1/media-systems-reports/<p>This is the final report of the <a href="https://mediasystems.soe.ucsc.edu/" title="Media Systems Project">Media Systems</a> project held at the University of California, Santa Cruz in 2012. This gathering brought together field-leading participants working in media-focused computer science, digital art, and digital humanities, located in and across universities, industry, federal agencies, publishers, and other stakeholders in the future of media. Participants focused on diverse aspects of how new media forms are impacting culture, education, the economy, and other areas of national importance, using examples ranging from the World Wide Web to computer animation, and from video games to social media. Surprisingly — despite this diversity of background and focus — rather than struggling to explain our different fields to each other, we found ourselves engaged in deep conversations focused on a coherent set of shared activities. For the purposes of this report, the authors have chosen to name these activities computational media.</p>