Rats and Cats / Katter og rotter
Roderick Coover
Scott Rettberg
Citation : Coover, Roderick and Scott Rettberg. “Rats and Cats / Katter og rotter.” Hyperrhiz: New Media Cultures , no. 12, 2015. doi:10.20415/hyp/012.me03
Abstract : A blind date between an American epidemiologist and a Norwegian woman takes place on a transatlantic Skype call. While trying to impress his potential paramour with his important work in studying contemporary epidemics, the clumsy American steers the conversation terribly wrong, toward a discussion of the Plague and all the devastating historical memories it entails.
Rats and Cats / Katter og rotter was filmed on the Norwegian shoreline, on the banks of a US northeastern city, in a science laboratory, and along the shores of the UK, from which ships carrying plague-diseased rats were said to have come.
View Project : VIEW Rats and Cats / Katter og rotter
Credits
Direction: Roderick Coover
Writing: Scott Rettberg
Translation by: Jill Walker Rettberg
Voices: Jill Walker Rettberg and Rob Wittig
Technical: 9 Minutes, HD 16:9, Color, Stereo.
About
Roderick Coover
Roderick Coover b. 1967 is a filmmaker/artist. Coover is the creator or co-creator of works of digital, interactive and emergent cinema such as Toxi•City , Hearts and Minds: The Interrogations Project , Three Rails Live , and The Theory of Time . He is also the maker of documentary films and interactive, documentary research projects such as The Unknown Territories Project , From Verite to Virtual: Conversations On The Frontiers Of Anthropology And Documentary Film , The Language of Wine: An Anthropology of Work Wine And The Senses and Cultures In Webs: Working In Hypermedia With The Documentary Image. His works are distributed by Video Data Bank, Documentary Educational Resources, and Eastgate Systems and his book, Switching Codes: Thinking Through Digital Technology In The Humanities And Arts is published by University of Chicago Press. Coover is Professor of Film and Media Arts at Temple University and Founding Director of the MFA-PHD Dual Degree Program in Documentary Arts and Visual Research. He lives in Philadelphia. roderickcoover.com .
Scott Rettberg
Scott Rettberg is the author or coauthor of novel-length works of electronic literature including The Unknown , Kind of Blue , Implementation , Frequency and others, an author and co-producer, with Roderick Coover and other collaborators, of a number of films including The Catastrophe Trilogy , Three Rails Live , Toxi·City: A Climate Change Narrative , Hearts and Minds: The Interrogations Project and Penelope . His work has been exhibited both online and at art venues such as the Venice Bienalle, International Society for Electronic Arts, the Bergen International Film Festival, the Human Rights and Human Wrongs Festival, and others. Rettberg frequently publishes critical and theoretical work related to electronic literature, digital culture, and digital art, including Electronic Literature (Polity 2019), described by N. Katherine Hayles as a “significant and important book by the field’s founder that will be the definitive work on electronic literature now and for many years to come.” Rettberg was the co-founder of the Electronic Literature Organization, and led the ELMCIP (Electronic Literature as a Model of Creativity and Innovation in Practice collaborative research project that ran from 2010-2013. Rettberg is professor of digital culture in the department of linguistic, literary, and aesthetic studies at the University of Bergen, Norway and in 2023 was appointed as Director of the Center for Digital Narrative, a Norwegian Center of Research Excellence.
ORCID iD: 0000-0002-7401-5075