About

Hello! This is Christy Dena, a PhD candidate at the School of Letters, Art and Media, University of Sydney, Australia.

Why ‘transmodiologist’?

At present, narrative and game theorists (and even media theorists!) are studing the nature of narrative and the nature of games as two distinct modes…and at times narratologists study games as narratives. What I’ve found in my research is that diverse phenomena such as polymorphic fictions need a methodology that sees more than this polarity. I develop in my thesis therefore, a model for looking at the:

  • transmodal: that which can be expressed in different modes such as narrative and game
  • transmedial: modes which can be expressed in different media
  • multimodal: the combinations of modes in a polymorphic fiction (at the intercompositional & intracompositonal levels)

I’m not a narratologist or ludologist, but a transmodiologist.

Polymorphic Fictions?

Polymorphic fictions (PMF) is a term I’ve introduced to highlight and encompass works where the employment of combinations of distinct articulations is intended for meaning. Unlike existing theories of the area — transmedia storytelling (Jenkins), cross-sited narrative (Ruppel), distributed narratives (Walker), pervasive gaming (Montola), ubiquitous games (McGonigal), the term is media- and mode-agnostic.

Available Research?

Once I’ve finished my dissertation (within a few months), I be putting an extensive bibliography and repository online. I’ve written and presented about this area in a number of publications and presentations over the last few years, but here are some samples of some academic & non-academic presentations & writings:

  • Dena, C. (2008) ‘The Who, What, When, Where, Why & How of Cross-Media‘, DIYDays, From Here to Awesome, July. [PPT contribution - online at DIYDays.com]
  • Dena, C. (2008) ‘[META] The Designer-Academic Problem‘, Electronic Book Review, [invited riposte to Jane McGonigal’s essay: ‘The Puppet Master Problem: Design for Real-World, Mission-Based Gaming‘ in Pat Harrigan and Noah Wardrip-Fruin’s edited collection: Second-Person: Role-Playing and Story in Games and Playable Media]
  • Dena, C. (2008) ‘Review of Anne Friedberg’s The Virtual Window: From Alberti to Microsoft‘, Cyberculture Studies, March
  • Dena, C. (2008) ‘Emerging Participatory Culture Practices: Player-Created Tiers in Alternate Reality Games’, Henry Jenkins and Mark Deuze (Eds) special issue on ‘Convergence Culture’ in Convergence Journal: International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, Vol 14, No 1, pp: 41-57. [Also see specially created Online Augmentation Website]
  •  Dena, C. (2007) ‘Capturing Polymorphic Creations: Towards Ontological Heterogeneity and Transmodiology’, published in Proceedings of the Australasian Conference on Interactive Entertainment, Melbourne, Dec. [Google Books]
  •  Dena, C. (2007) ‘Patterns in Cross-Media Interaction Design: It’s Much More Than a URL‘, Proceedings of 1st International Conference on Crossmedia Interaction Design, 22-25 March, Hemavan, Sweden, pp: 4-10. [Note: this paper is just a primer for my keynote speech] [PDF]

Memberships

The prehistory of this website 

In 2002, at the beginning of my postgrad research, I started a website that ended up having many names (and URLs) but which settled in the end at www.Cross-MediaEntertainment.com. Due to time constraints, rampant plagiarism and an increasing general audience, I stopped posting about the academic side of my research and posted about interesting creative projects, practitioners and researchers. When I started concentrating on writing up my PhD I closed down that blog completely and started doing vanity updates at my bio site www.ChristyDena.com and practitioner-oriented posts & podcasts at www.UniverseCreation101.com. This site is intended to be my outlet for academic discussion about the area. There is much I can’t talk about yet — until my thesis is complete & out there — but here is where I will say it!