Research Seminar - Forking paths, simultaneous timelines and river monsters: an origin-story artist talk from early hypertext to XR storytelling machines

Forking paths, simultaneous timelines and river monsters: an origin-story artist talk from early hypertext to XR storytelling machines

Presented by: Prof Caitlin Fisher (York University, Canada)

Date: Friday 24 October 2025
Time: 12-1pm
Location: Online via Zoom and in-person at the SCA Writer's Studio (Level 6, Michie Building)

Abstract

What if identity isn't a straight line but 17,000 links holding contradictory selves in tension? This artist talk journeys from early feminist hypertext experiments to contemporary augmented reality storyworlds, exploring how digital technologies become philosophy machines. Through haunted cabinets, magic mirrors, and city-spanning narrative palimpsests, discover how forking paths and simultaneous timelines embrace the monstrous, the hybrid, and the unresolvable. 

Presenter

Caitlin Fisher directs the Immersive Storytelling Lab and the Augmented Reality Lab at York University in Toronto, Canada, where she is also Professor and Chair of the Department of Cinema and Media Arts in the School of the Arts, Media, Performance and Design. She is an award-winning digital storyteller and poet, working mostly in XR. A co-founder of York’s Future Cinema Lab and former Fulbright and Canada Research Chair, Caitlin’s current funded research projects include bringing the power of storytelling to the global health crisis of antimicrobial resistance through a new XR Museum project, serving as co-investigator on an indigenous-led Pluriversal Worlding Projects and creating a series of XR works under the umbrella of the Grand Hotels Project – an homage to both Joseph Cornell and Robert Coover. Caitlin serves on the International Executive Board of HASTAC and is immediate past President of the Electronic Literature Organization (ELO), dedicated to investigating and supporting future storytelling disseminated on digital platforms. She is also an affiliated professor with the Centre for Digital Narrative at the University of Bergen.