TRG - Transliteracy Research Group
At DMU where Kate holds the post Reader in Creative Writing and New Media, she co-founded, with colleague Professor Sue Thomas, the research group, TRG. TRG provides a focal point for their activities in the practice of and research into Transliteracy.
Transliteracy is currently defined as ‘the ability to read, write and interact across a range of platforms, tools and media from signing and orality through handwriting, print, TV, radio and film, to digital social networks.’ However, as more people, from more fields, find the concept useful in their own work, the definition is growing and changing. There’s an active community of artists and academics working with TRG and the hashtag #transliteracy sees a fair amount of action on Twitter.
www.transliteracy.com
Lifelines
Click here to view an online demo of Lifelines - interactive short stories that bring texts alive on screen. Lifelines is a ground-breaking new programme of short stories created for the interactive whiteboard, PC or Mac. Each story brings a child’s world to life through audio, video and imagery, drawing pupils into new experiences ‘first hand’.
he series consists of two CD-ROMs, each containing nine short stories which use history and geography themes. Each story is accompanied by easy to follow Teacher’s Notes and photocopymasters to help you get the very best from the content.
For more on the series visit the publisher Rising Stars.
Flight Paths
“I have finished my weekly supermarket shop, stocking up on provisions for my three kids, my husband, our dog and our cat. I push the loaded trolley across the car park, battling to keep its wonky wheels on track. I pop open the boot of my car and then for some reason, I have no idea why, I look up, into the clear blue autumnal sky. And I see him. It takes me a long moment to figure out what I am looking at. He is falling from the sky. A dark mass, growing larger quickly. I let go of the trolley and am dimly aware that it is getting away from me but I can’t move, I am stuck there in the middle of the supermarket car park, watching, as he hurtles toward the earth. I have no idea how long it takes - a few seconds, an entire lifetime - but I stand there holding my breath as the city goes about its business around me until…
He crashes into the roof of my car.”
The car park of Sainsbury’s supermarket in Richmond, southwest London, lies directly beneath one of the main flight paths into Heathrow Airport. Over the last decade, on at least five separate occasions, the bodies of young men have fallen from the sky and landed on or near this car park. All these men were stowaways on flights from the Indian subcontinent who had believed that they could find a way into the cargo hold of an airplane by climbing up into the airplane wheel shaft. It is thought that none could have survived the journey, killed by either the tremendous heat generated by the airplane wheels on the runway, crushed when the landing gear retracts into the plane after take off, or frozen to death once the airplane reaches altitude.
‘Flight Paths: a networked novel’ seeks to explore what happens when lives collide - an airplane stowaway and the fictional suburban London housewife, quoted above. With your help, this project will tell their stories.
Flight Paths
A Million Penguins
‘A Million Penguins’ was a collaboration between Penguin Books UK and my students at DMU; we asked the question ‘Can a community write a novel?’. The wiki was open to contributions from 1 February to 7 March 2007; 80,000 people logged on, 1500 people participated. The result was… well, the result was the result. My colleagues at DMU, Bruce Mason and Sue Thomas, wrote ’A Million Penguins Research Report’, a fascinating look at the project.
Inanimate Alice
Inanimate Alice Multimedia online novel by Kate Pullinger and Chris Joseph. ‘Episode 1: China’, and ‘Episode 2: Italy’ and ‘Episode 3: Russia’ and ‘Episode 4: Hometown’ are available to view online. ‘Episode 1: China’ won the first ever prize for Digital Art awarded by MAXXI - the Museum for the Twenty-First Century - DARC, and the Fondazione Rosselli. It also won the IBM Prize for New Media (second prize, 1000 Euros) at Stuttgarter Filmwinter Festival for Expanded Media ‘Episode 3: Russia’ premiered at EIEF, Edinburgh Interactive Entertainment Festival in 2006 and is hosted by Guardian Unlimited where you can also find an interview with me. Check out the pedagogical project that now builds on Alice as a resource for teachers and academics.
The Breathing Wall
The Breathing Wall: web taster. For more information, view the press release
Branded
Branded: a collaboration with Talan Memmott
The Sticker King
The Sticker King: short story published exclusively by pulp.net
The Women’s Library
Kate Pullinger was Visiting Writing Fellow at The Women’s Library from October 2001 until June 2003. Projects from that residency include the web projects clean and Read This!
trAce Online Writing Centre
Kate Pullinger was Research Fellow at the trAce Online Writing Centre, 2002/03. You can view the archive of the year-long research project, Mapping the Transition from Page to Screen. You can read the journal Kate kept during that year.
