Grumple
Link to Work: Link 1
Age: 18 and up
Type: netprov
Language: English
Platform: Web, Reddit
Mentors: Rob Wittig and Mark Marino
Mentee: Our students at University of Minnesota - Duluth and the University of Southern California along with students at Western Washington University
Roles & Additional Authors: Netrunners: Rob Wittig and Mark Marino
Short Description: a netprov about how people construct meaning out of flimsy evidence . . . and then grumble about and gamble on it.
Longer Description: Grumple is an imagined variant of last winter’s smash hit word game Wordle. But Grumple doesn’t behave like an ordinary game. The results of play are curious, irreplicable, unpatterned. And that is making people grumpy!
We in the Grumple community gather on the chat site Reddit to celebrate the odd victory, vent frustrations, and theorize the whats, hows, and whys of Grumple — is it an intelligence test, an oracle, a rabbit hole? Whatever it is, it is definitely the site to work through grumpiness!
Mentoring Context: Rob Wittig has been mentoring Mark Marino for many years in netprov (which he claims Mark helped invent) and in basic life skills. Additionally, they introduced their students and Hayley's students to the form and practice of netprov and then invited them to jump in and play along.
Bios: Rob Wittig plays at the crossroads of literature, graphic design and digital culture. A Silicon Valley native, he co-founded the early, legendary IN.S.OMNIA electronic bulletin board with the Surrealist-style literary and art group Invisible Seattle. From this came a Fulbright grant to study the writing and design of electronic literature with philosopher Jacques Derrida in Paris. Rob's book based on that work, "Invisible Rendezvous," was published Wesleyan University Press. He then embarked on a series of illustrated and designed email and web fictions. Many of his projects are now taught in Electronic Literature curricula around the world. Alongside his creative projects, Rob has worked in major publishing and graphic design firms in Chicago, leading R&D teams. Rob is a proud Master of Digital Kultur from the University of Bergen, Norway, and is Assistant professor in the Art & Design and English, Linguistics and Writing Studies departments of the University of Minnesota Duluth. His latest book, Netprov: Improvised Literature for the Classroom and Beyond is out now and available for free or pay!
Mark C. Marino (http://markcmarino.com) is a writer and scholar of electronic literature. His works include “a show of hands” (http://hands.literatronica.net), “Salt Immortal Sea” (https://saltimmortalsea.gestionweb.nt2.uqam.ca/) with Joellyn Rock, John Murray, and Ken Joseph, "The Ballad of Workstudy Seth" (http://www.springgunpress.com/the-ballad-of-workstudy-seth), and Mrs. Wobbles and the Tangerine House (http://markcmarino.com/mrsw/). He also teaches writing at the University of Southern California where he Directs the Humanities and Critical Code Studies Lab (http://haccslab.com). Mark is the Director of Communication of the Electronic Literature Organization.