The ARC and the Machine

Caroline Bassett is Senior Lecturer in Digital Media in the Department of Media and Film at the University of Sussex

The Arc and the machine is a timely and original defence of narrative in an age of information. Stressing interpretation and experience alongside affect and sensation it convincingly argues that narrative is key to contemporary forms of cultural production and to the practice of contemporary life. Re-appraising the prospects for narrative in the digital age, it insists on the centrality of narrative to informational culture and provokes a critical re-appraisal of how innovations in information technology as a material cultural form can be understood and assessed.The book offers a careful exploration of narrative theory, a sophisticated critique of techno-cultural writing, and a series of tightly focused case studies. All of which point the way to a restoration of a critical - rather than celebratory approaches - to new media. The scope and range of this book is broad, its argumentation careful and exacting, and its conclusions exciting.

Introduction1. Narrative machines2. 'Beautiful Patterns of Bits': cybernetics, interfaces, new mediaPart 1: The thing itself: technology and determinationPart 2: Contemporary technocultures3. Those with whom the archive dwells4. Annihilating all that's made? legends of virtual community5. 'Just Because' stories: On Elephant