Textual Media

After exploring around the website for Alternumerics I am still puzzle about the intent and purpose of the creation of alternumerics.  I am still trying to figure out how this website or the invention of laternumerics ties in with interactive fiction. 

Alternumerics seems to have artform or different ways to represented the typed (printed) alphabets and numbers.  It is another means to speak two different message in the same passage, similar to the idea of a coded message. I decoded the first paragraph in Self Portrait as a Font–Print, the art form have a message because I am curious about the original message behind the coded alphabet.  It turns out to be a message from a chinese zodiac superstition  stating, "Happy Belated Chinese New Years. It-s the year of the snake, so beware of weasely types and people who can swallow rodents whole".   The original message does not appear very awe inspiring, however going through the code, the alphabet representation have an undertone of apologies and excuses.  For example, the letter n stands for "apologize", s stands for "plain forget", r stands for "don’t mean it" and so on, giving the idea that the person writing the letter titled "Letter to a Friend Who Doesn’t Seem to Want to be My Lover" is full of apologies.  Nonetheless, the nonchalant message after the decoded phrases are taken out does not match with one another. 

A similarity I can make between alternumerics and interactive fiction is that both forms can be read at different layers and level.  Nonetheless, I cannot see how alternumerics is very interactive, for each letter of the alphabet already have a set representation of a phrase and didn’t change from reader to reader. 

Another splash of random color, another set of random lexia;  yet this "Color of Television" is painted with a purpose. The art appears, initially to me, as a mess of colors, confusing to the eye and unforgiving in its change of pace. This version this mode of textual media differs in most ways from the lexia I have examined in previous assignments. More color, I see, more LIFE, more energy it seems. Perhaps the others- Michael Joyce’s Afternoon, a story, or even Italo Calvino’s If on a Winters Night a Traveler- included a form of energy. Perhaps, the type of energy I speak of includes one that excludes a death of some kind, an adulterer or the word sex. Ha, perhaps I have failed to encounter ALL of the lexia this genre of textual media has to offer.

One portion of the text did, however, catch my attention.

“And now the agitating chaos on the many screens slows and settles. A pattern begins to emerge, clearer every second. It is a color wheel: red within blue, blue within green, green within white, white within red.

Gracefully and deliberately, the wheel begins to spin.”

The meaning of this kind of interaction between reader/creator and its audience is suspended in the very meaning of the title: The Color of Television. What is the color of television? Is it one solid layer of color, or is it a spectrum of colors, layer upon layer; is it this layer definition, this color of television that includes variable pieces, pigments of color that alone may seem questionable, but some how,forming togther the very picture we view regularly? Yes. This textual piece reflects the mechanics, the science that supports the very workings of a television screen. The entire picture, the make up of the projected image is composed of tiny pieces- just as each story each color or hue to the entire meaning of the story- creates, establishes the very scene that we, as the audience, is to gather from the picture. The pigments, PIXELS of color could be representative of the arrangments of placements of each lexia, lending to the meaning or thematic element of the story.

"You Do Not Know Us, Nor Do You Know Our World. Cyberspace Does Not Lie Within Your Borders. Do Not Think That You Can Build It, As Though It Were A Public Construction Project. You Cannot. It Is An Act Of Nature And It Grows Itself Through Our Collective Actions"

"The Color of the Television" by Moulthrop reiterates image of putting a jigsaw puzzle to describe one of many reading experiences in hypertext fiction.  With each new link comes a new piece of information that might or might not fit into the whole narrative.  Every new paragraphs one have to hunt and search for clues to try to make some sense of what is presented before our screen. Since three different narratives seem to be put together on the same lexia, sometime by hunting around one can find clues that contain semblance of previous narrative.

The different thing about this hypertext fiction from previous ones we have read in class are the little quotations and factual information outside of the fictional story narrative located on the side of the page.  Many of them explain the definition of hypertext fiction.  One of the quoations I found interesting is:

"Following" a link means leaving it for another lexia; "gathering" a relation means bringing things to a central place: whereas the disjunctive link is associated with travel, the conjunctive relation is associated with locus, with an inherently structured lexia." Link to Quotation

The above quotation encapusalate another experience of reading hypertext fiction.  The above quotation seem to differentiate between a disjunctive link and a conjunctive relation.  In this hypertext "The Color of Television", is he creating mainly disjunctive link or conjunctive relation?  Many times from one link to another it seems that the idea of gathering a relations instead of simply following a link.  Nonetheless, I think that it requires both to read hypertext fiction because one can passively follow a link to whereever it leads you, but if the information does not appear as expected one must gather the information there and save it for later to see if it fits into another part of the narrative. 

A readers may have to suspend a narrative from a certain characters for a while in order to gather more information surrounding the primary narrative one is reading to open more paths. As Moulthrop writes in another aside quoatation from the fictional narrative is,  "READING SHOULD BE A SEAMLESS AND UNINTERRUPTED EXPERIENCE. ITS CHOICES PROCEED FROM THE EXPRESSION OF POSSIBILITIES AS A NARRATIVE MEDIUM, AND DEPEND UPON THE COMPLICITY OF THE READER IN THE CREATION OF A NARRATIVE. READING IS DESIGN ENACTED." Link to quotation  Reading "should be seamless" but in hypertext fiction it is interrupted at almost every paragraph and the readers must gather up clues along the different lexia.

The Color of Television was an interesting hypertext for a few reasons.  First off, I found the actual writing itself to be pretty good.  At times, it reminded me a lot of Calvino, especially in the way that pages would end right at the climax, forcing you to click around to try and find the continuation.  It was also interesting that there were a few different stories going on at once, all on the same page, simply differentiated by color and text.  This allows the reader to either pick which story they want to try and follow, or to read each story but to know when they’re reading a different story.

My immediate thought when I opened The Color of Television was "wow, the design of this page isn’t very good".  As I read through the pages, I remembered that the page was designed in 1996, almost ten years ago.  When I continued to read, I realized that different colored text identified different stories, and that didn’t make the design so bad.  As a hypertext the design works, you can identify individual stories; you can find the links that take you to different lexia, etc.  I thought it would be interesting to see that site redesigned by today’s web design standards, and to see if it would have the same effect and impact as this original version.

Pax was slightly confusing.  I read the "about" page, so I had a slight idea of what I would see when I began to click through the page.  As I began to work my way through the page, I honestly got a little bit bored.  The amount of clicking necessary for the small amount of text received wasn’t giving me enough quite the satisfaction I was seeking.  Similar to The Color of Television though, it was easy to recognize when a different character was speaking, mainly because their face would pop up in the bottom right of the left segment of the screen as the new text popped up on the right side of the screen.  As I continued to click through Pax, I started trying to pay more attention to the words appearing and changing in the background.  It was hard to read the words in the background and keep track of the text appearing on the right side of the screen, but I was wondering if those two separate pieces of text had any relation.  That is to say, if what appeared in the background related to what was showing up on the right side of the screen.  I feel like I would need to spend a whole lot more time with Pax to figure out if the two pieces of text had any relation. 

The Color of Television has a lot of similarities to a lot of the other hypertexts that we have read so far this semester. First of all, there are many different storylines going on at once. Here, they are differentiated by different columns and different fonts, with both varying font type and font color. There are also hyperlinks that you can click that will take you to different places within the text. These hyperlinks are not only words, but also symbols. This hypertext also contains graphics within the text.

There seems to be a fragmented main storyline, broken up by a side column with quotations in it. The quotations have hyperlinks within them that take you to different places in the text. The hyperlinks within the text are symbols instead of words.

With most of the other hypertexts that we have read, such as "Hegirascope" and "Afternoon", different fragments or ‘pages’ of the text are given a separate page. In The Color of Television, many fragments are run on the same page, and the only way we can differentiate between them is the fact that either they have their own column or the text color is different.

Interestingly, like "Hegirascope" and "Afternoon", The Color of Television also seems to have a preoccupation with war, especially nuclear war.

The first thing I noticed when I started to read The Color of Television were the symbols within the text and the side comments.  I decided to follow the symbol which is the same for BioHazardous Material because I was hoping it would take me somewhere more interesting than what would appear at the surface to be a routine life between Harry and Lorraine.  Another reason I chose this icon was because at first the story reminded me of Space Odyssey 2001 back in the 1950’s and 1960’s.  The biohazard symbol brought to my head the voice of the robot repeating "Danger Will Robinson."  Another reason I was brought back to this show is because it describes and there is an illustration of the old tubes that used to go into Televisions before cable and satellites. As a result a wierd sense of nostalgia emerged.  It is also ironic, because Space Odyssey 2001 looks into the future while The Color of Television looks back in the past at technology before super computers and references to Stalingrad. 

Eventually I got to a scene where Saul (I assume the son perhaps?) strips a woman.  He strips her down to her bare bones.  Saul is insane and acts more like a beast than a man.  Just as a beast would tear off the muscles from the bones.  It is also mentioned that he eats a cockroach.  In combination with the judgement statements that are made in the margins of each page and Saul’s behavior towards a woman coming on to him in a shop, I drew the following interpetation:  Saul is a representation of the modern reclusive male.  Men today, including young men, have become infatuated with the internet, chat rooms, online dating services, and XXX sites.  As a result, many men become frustrated in "real life" situations, such as courtship or other social relationships, because they don’t know how to act because technology including television and mostly computers have isolated them.

Ultimately the color of television, just like the 18 varities of eyes that can be purchased, is just an illusion of reality.

The Color of Television is another story in the line-up of novels/stories we have come across this semester that is a collection of one or two or maybe more stories put into one medium.  This one is via the Internet.  There seem to be two plots going on in this website.  One seems to be in a blue colored font, the other in a reddish, burgundy color.  One page has paragraphs that feature both colored fonts.  As I read the first page, I noticed how the two didnt’ quite fit together, and then wondered if perhaps they each represented a different story, and if they were intertwined within the website like that.  As it turns out from the more I read, this was proven to be true.  What caught me on to this was that I noticed when I’d click on a link, it would take me to a page, but wouldn’t necessarily take me to the top of the page.  I found this out when I accidentally scrolled up and noticed there was more text.  So as I kept on reading, I was conscious of where in the page I was brough to.  Even then though, the further you read, it doesn’t promise that everything matches up the way you like it.  I think the author has done this as a way for us as the reader to become interactive readers.  That is to sit and think about why they have done this.  I was a bit frustrated while reading this, however, because of the fact that it didn’t seem to sync together well.  Also, I was overwhelmed by the different possible links to click on.  There were a few on each page at times, and each one took me to a different place.  I didn’t know where to start when I came across these situations. 

In Pax, I was a little stumped as to what we had to read.  Naturally, I began to click around and found that when I would click on certain things — such as a flying body — I would then be presented with something to read on the right hand column.  By clicking on different people, you were able to meet them.  You were given their name and told a little bit about them.  If you were to again click on the same person floating in the background, you would get another blurb that I’m assuming is said by the character that is being presented.  The large, faint words in the background is also pretty interesting to look at.  The word is never quite there, but the letters at one point or another are there, so your mind is somehow able to make sense out of the words that are being shown.  This is definitely an interactive text because it relys on the user to click on the characters floating around.  After we do this, we are able to see a little bit about them.     

On the textual subject of The Color of Television and Pax, I found that they both resembled the other textual media that we have studied.  The on that I choose was The Color of Television; I choose it because of the color format.  Plus it did not have a lot of different links on most of the pages it mostly dealt with color combining. 

  Ok, I checked out the color of Television and Pax and these were different than what we’ve see so far, although Pax was somewhat similar to the statue game.  Except that you are given several possible characters to choose from.  However before I get into that I wan to mention that as of yet The color of television overwhelms me I don’t know what to follow or think yet. There are multiple stories on each page and side tracks explaining the text or simply quotes from unknown sources, the bible, literature, etc.  I read the initial story but could not find my way back to that particular story but i did find the fellow who ate a cockroach, ick! doing eye replacement surgery later on.  (Ick again) I can handle the ick, it’s just going to take a little more time in this exploration. I spent a little while with that but I needed a change of pace, and was happy to see that Pax was game-like, I like that kind of involvement. 

Pax stands for peace in French I beleive and there were many ideas dealing with war politics and peace.  I read the instructions first so i would have a good idea what i was dealing with.  I beleive this was made by one of the same writers of the last hypertext The color of television.  Though it was very different except for the inclusion of multiple stories.  I soon found people who’d thoughts I enjoyed.  My favorite little jokester was Susi K which I later found out stood for something else.  She was sarcastic and young.  I also liiked Butcher’s insights he was introspective and deep but with a hint of cynicism.  Another I often chose was Mirabella who was an introspective type. 

There was a soldier, scientist, doctor, a president and the oddest was Agnieska R.  Agnieska, I’m assuming is Polish or something because there is a Polish girl I work with named Agnieska. Though most likely she was Russian because the Author had said something about Russian ideology and causmonauts. She said nothing ever, but sometimes she just repeated the last thing that was written, no matter how many times I chose her, nothing original.  I thought maybe she doesn’t speak english but wouldn’t something appear?  The four different sessions had different feeelings a time progression in a twighlight zone type death?  Many simple statements came from numerous characters.  I enjoyed exploring the characters but often wished I could get more distinct characteristics from them.

They both seemed rather kaleidascopic especially pax because te themes change and it depends on when you choose a character.  The color of television was like a combination of Hegirascope and Afternoon a story.  That’s all the insight I have at the moment.  I look forward to discussing them in class. ;)

They had taken photographs of each other almost all of the time- immediately reading this line, I paint an image of white sand, tough by the coral and ridges produced by frequent runners….Runners in love, runners that frolicked during happier times. It is them, the divorced couple, that protrudes through my mind. This was my beginning lexia- this was my first time coupling and meddling with the text.

The sea is amazing, not too far off to exclude the dreamer or the wanderer, but distant enough to attract us.

I wander, naturally to this word “sea”. “…and, almost always, there is the sea—or what the sound gives us of the sea—in the distance. It took the place of perspective for us, benign and ever changing.”

A relationship, the writer and his affinity, his struggle and disgruntled relationship with the sea, foretells the relationship he has with his memory- memories of his wife, their love, like the dreamlike escape of happier times on the beach.

A photograph should have captured such a time, but was it real? Was it genuine? The meaning of one PLACE appears relevant to this particular lexia- its meaning to an individual, and the apparent frustration it has as it correlates with the temperament of one memory.

I click on PLACE, and am taken to another location entirely. He is romantic. Romanticizing the faint pictures of his love life, tainted by salty relations, much like the cold water that soaked his very toes against the shores of a distant beach. He wishes to have gone back to that love- that memory of conversing happily with a beach- what should have been, was not. Or so was it? It is sad. I am sorry for him. “No matter how scrutinized these pictures now I cannot find the truth,” (from the previous lexia). The truth of his marriage is faulty, washing back and forth like the crashing waves on a shore- it was here, and now it is gone.

The faded memory dances off his heart, playing with his emotions. For that reason, I click on DANCERS.

Though not of much significance, I was brought to another location. “There isn’t any story here. It’s as Tolstoy said, the genuine drama occurs on the upward or downward slopes, never at the apex. The controlling myth of her marriage was Snow White.”

So it’s settled- his marriage was a myth- not an ounce of truth, only what his memory or imagination allowed. The term dancer and place all form a network of interpretations of the text- One that can almost be formed into a sentence: His memory of a particular place danced in his head much like the graceful yet made-up dancers of a nutcracker production- it was ALL a production; soon, he finds that the truth of this memory is merely a myth. (the term myth having linked me to “Even so, as manufactured myths go, this one is accurate.”…. All of the terms (place, dancers, myth) and the texts that follow compose a story of faded love, past memories, questioning truth, and remembered images.