Articles by aostman

After reading Krisztian’s post on “Implementation” as a literary reflection of counter-cultural movements, I’d have to agree that the piece is more about how a counter culture works rather than about the social themes it claims to react against. In my opinion, “Implementation” is part of a new genre of urban literature that can include the reactionist billboards we looked at in class, as well as city-wide graffiti. Though the latter examples aren’t cohesive narratives, they still exist in order to speak on behalf of an organized minority’s ideologies. In a way, they are like miniature visual speeches that inspire a reaction that amplifies the absurdity of social norms and conventions. When I was thinking of incorporating some of the characteristics of “Implementation” into my Textual Media Experiment, I thought about trying to reinforce this idea of “guerilla” literature by creating a broken or cohesive narrative to be dispersed in an urban environment much like “Implementation”.

Jason Nelson’s “Game, Game, Game, and Again Game” utilizes some of the same aspects as his other work, “The Bomar Gene”. Both creations incorporate multiple different forms of media, generating an amalgamation that is puzzling both in appearance and in its context. With “The Bomar Gene”, viewers can only speculate as to what each “gene” means based on its presentation on the screen and the different elements contained within it. However, after watching the interview with Nelson, it seems that the genes can only truly be understood by him. Most of them are references to Nelson’s own childhood and family members, and upon hearing this I realized that my own speculations about what a few of the genes meant was - in truth- a load of crap. I was frustrated by this realization, and felt that I had been the butt of Nelson’s joke - but then again, so is everyone else who reads too much into his work. After watching the interview, “The Bomar Gene” transformed from a perplexing cipher to a critical commentary on its audience. I think, perhaps, in his effort to confuse us, Nelson also wanted to point out that maybe some art isn’t as sophisticated as some people think it is or should be. “Game, Game, Game, and Again Game”  similarly pokes fun at its audience. The more desperate we become to understand it, the more we play into Nelson’s hand. We can try to interpret the home movies that pop up occasionally, but only Nelson knows their significance (or maybe even satirical insignificance) in the piece. I think that Nelson is fascinated with altering the events of his life into seemingly non-sensical pieces of electronic media for his audience to attempt to dissect. 

Moving on from my own bitter frustration with Nelson’s methods, I think that “Game, Game, Game, and Again Game” is a hybrid of both the conventional and counter game that we discussed in class. It challenges the ideologies of both, sometimes fusing the opposing characteristics together. In terms of its image, “GGGAG” rejects transparency and favors the foregrounding of its construction. As a result, this adds a sort of messy aestheticism to the piece, while simultaneously providing the user with gameplay. The graphics may be poor in comparison to conventional games, but they are still functional (just under their own “rules”). Like counter games, “GGGAG” uses visual artifacts such as squiggly circles and hand drawn bombs. There is no representational modeling beyond the outlining of certain recognizable shapes like buildings, doors, and crosses. Also, “GGGAG” makes use of invented physics. There is no linear path to follow, instead, the user’s “character” moves up and down and sideways and backwards to get to his/her destination (the glowing door). Like conventional games, “GGGAG” employs interactivity. Depending on what visual artifact we come in contact with, the landscape of the game changes. Distracting text suddenly appears, random home movies begin to play, etc. I would argue that our relationship to these changes in the game is one of non-correspondence. Though the game relies on our interaction for it to move and progress, it doesn’t assist in our interpretation of it. In Super Mario Bros., when we hit a  block and a mushroom is produced we are “super-sized”. In contrast, the visual artifacts produced by our actions in “GGGAG” neither help nor hinder the playing of the game. They simply exist as modes of distraction from the assumed objective (get to the end). In this sense, “GGGAG” does display gamic action. There is an objective to reach the glowing door in each level, until we reach the final level and finish the game. However, its rejection of formal and conventional gameplay lends it the radical action of counter games. “GGGAG” calls attention to itself as a game, in effect critiquing our own definition of what constitutes as a “real” game - a complex mission? precise objective? impressive graphics? multiple levels? choice in direction and decisions of character? “GGGAG’s” interplay of the characteristics of both conventional and counter games brings us to this very question. Again, displaying Nelson’s work’s self-deprecating humor. In making fun of itself, it makes fun of the conventional genres to which we compare it.

Our recent explorations in class of the “Oulipoems” and the list of the some-thousand most frequently used words reminded me of the Dadaist movement of the early twentieth century and their emphasis on “non-sensical” art. The art of the Dadaists meant nothing, and everything at the same time. It was a response to the senselessness of World War I, and their seemingly “meaningless” art was designed to capture the irrational chaos that war projected on society. 

One of the techniques of the Dadaists was to use found objects in their work. Artists removed ubiquitous objects from their utilitarian context and transformed them so as to place them in an aesthetic light, in effect, modifying the public’s perception of these everyday “cultural artifacts”. The effect of “context” and “subjective perspective” on art is mirrored in the aforementioned media texts. If one reads the series of most frequently used words in the context of its statistics, the list simply appears to be just that - a long list of numerical statistics accompanied by words. However, if one views the list in the context of a piece of electronic literature, some of the various word associations that one discovers at random begin to make sense. This, of course, relies on how one interprets the information provided to them. 

This is a perfect example of Hayles’ theory on the relationship between the machine and the body that we just discussed in our second media inquiry (or at least how I interpreted this interface between mind and machine). The collective network of the machine provides the user with this list, but it is ultimately up to the mind of the viewer to make sense and find meaning in the information provided to them on the screen. Without this interaction, the list is (once again) just a list.

I’ve spent my entire life covered in freckles, from head to toe. When I was younger, my round face resembled the top of a celebratory cupcake, covered in flesh-toned sprinkles. However, as I got older I developed the habit of wearing sunscreen on my face everyday- and gradually,the tiny adolescent specks faded away. Unfortunately, this Coppertone themed remedy did not work for the rest of my freckles. Though I would cover myself with Spf 40 at the pool, or wear long sleeve shirts and jeans on sunny 70 degree days, I could not eradicate the population of freckles on my arms and legs. They were like a band of persistent troops, eager to invade any vacant areas of skin. To date, I’ve probably got thousands of freckles on my arms alone. Some of them I hate, and some of them I’ve become quite attached to. One gathering resembles the Little Dipper constellation, while others form geometric shapes that seem to float across my shoulderblades.  My favorite though, is a trio of freckles that are strangely symmetrical. One is on the left corner of my right hand, another on the left corner of my left foot. A freckle on the left corner of my right knee marks the midsection of the invisible diagonal line they create. I’ve always been strangely fascinated by this symmetrical duo, probably much in the same way that Shelley is fascinated with her scabs and scars. Like her, I’ve also come to embrace the “curiosity” of my natural flaws- and now my freckles aren’t as much of an annoyance as they are just another piece of me.

Scott McCloud’s educational graphic novel, “Understanding Comics”, explores not only the historical inception of the “comic” tradition, but also its legacy as a genre in literature. Defined as “juxtaposed pictorial and other images in deliberate sequence”, McCloud argues that comics (or sequential art) tell a story similar to those in books (pg. 9). Rather than relying strictly on words, comics incorporate pictorial images to enhance the action of the plot and its characters. The separation of frames and sequences creates an abstract visual timeline upon which the comic is read. Unlike traditional literature, comics also make use of the “icon”. McCloud defines the term as meaning “any image used to represent a person, place, thing, or idea” (pg. 27). Comics make use of a broad range of icons in their language. Symbolic icons, pictorial icons, and communication icons are among the many that contribute to the construction of a comic’s readable language (the “written” words and signs, not the accompanying graphic images). 

McCloud argues that often under-appreciated medium of comics is just like any other artistic medium. In Chapter 7 he describes the six steps of creation: 1) Idea/Purpose, 2) Form, 3) Idiom, 4) Structure, 5) Craft, and 6) Surface (pg. 170). This path begins with an impulse to arrange specific content (an idea) in a specific way (form), and ends with the stylistic execution of the creator’s composition. If the creative process is so similar to that of painting, drawing, filming, etc. - why does the term “comics” still remain a dirty, neglected word in contemporary culture? McCloud frequently laments on the comic’s inability to secure itself as a legitimate literary genre. He argues that, unfortunately, comic artists themselves reject the term - and that the disdain of “comics” is a self-perpetuating (and self-fulfilling) prophecy (pg. 18).  Until those who are actually involved in the field stand up to support it, their audience will continue to ignore it. 

I admired McCloud’s dedication to educating his readers about the comic’s history and its purpose in literary culture. His justification of the comic as a legitimate form of textual media was accomplished through his application of a comic’s “graphic theories” on other forms of art - renowned paintings, narrative tapestries, ancient wall art, and woodcut novels among the few. As an art history major myself, I found his knowledge and inclusion of artists like Wassily Kandinsky and Paul Klee fascinating. His ability to actually connect these groundbreaking artists to the comic genre through their similar artistic ideals was a comparison I would never have thought of.

As I read through Michael Joyce’s hypertext fiction entitled “Afternoon”, I came across one central motif in several of the pages: love. The story I read began with the narrator’s conversation with a younger, cynical friend named Wert. The initial series of pages revealed him as a callous husband, constantly admonishing his wife Lolly. With each belittling comment, Wert would watch to see if the narrator chuckled along with him. However, our protagonist appeared to disagree with Wert’s jealous nature, and refused to participate. Through their conversation, the story reveals that the narrator is/was romantically involved with Lolly’s friend, Nausicaa. Later, the story provides brief narratives that describe the inception of their relationship with one another. Each fragment of the narrative is tied to the rest in some shape or form. On one page the narrator identified the relationship between the quartet of characters as something that “was messy. When Nausicaa left her husband, Wert hired her. And so, on the one hand, he felt some mystical and lofty attachment to her, as if she were linked to him through Lolly. It was a loyalty almost like incest, flesh of his wife’s flesh. Although she was my age, nearly old enough to be Wert’s mother she said, I think sometimes he thought of her as his daughter.” This particular excerpt not only reveals the tension among the characters, but also speaks on the nature of love and the different emotional needs each character has. The narrator and Wert both express a certain longing to connect, though they express this in very different ways. Wert talks with distance, as if he is afraid to expose his vulnerability. The narrator is also somewhat guarded, but more in the way of a man who is either afraid of losing or has already lost something dear to him. The narrator continues to describe Wert’s subconscious relationship with Nausicaa: “On the other hand, [Wert] wanted [Nausicaa] for himself, as if in some dim way he and Lolly contended for her love. Thus when I began to see her, he was at the same time both jealous of us all and certain that we each knew secrets kept from him.” If one diagramed the relationship of the four characters, they would find that Nausicaa would be the central node. She is the narrator’s object of love, Lolly’s intimate and sensitive companion, and Wert’s object of desire (whether this be emotional or physical desire). It is in this mapping that one can assume Nausicaa to be at the center of “Afternoon, A Story.” She represents the dangers of love -from acting as a subtle temptation to our narrator during their first “afternoon meetings”, to acting as the heartbreaking woman whom the narrator cannot keep. The moment of realization of the failure of the relationship is expressed by our narrator in one page where he states, “I thought some idea of culture would keep her when I couldn’t any longer. [But lectures and orchestras couldn't replace talk.] You see the flaw, of course. It was neither my task to keep her, nor to think she could grow by my wishing.” This statement alone illustrates the ambiguous relationship between free will and love. Ultimately, the narrator had to accept that Nausicaa could choose to leave the relationship just as she chose to enter it so long ago. 

Another piece of the narrative that struck me was the author’s own interjection through the voice of his protagonist. On one page he used the voice of his narrator to  write, “I’m not sure that I have a story. And, if I do, I’m not sure that everything isn’t my story, or that, whatever is my story, is anything more than pieces of other’s stories.” This statement captures the complexity of narrative, that it is a construction made up by multiple authors, in a way. Within “Afternoon”, the narrator is writing his own story. But the entirety of it is not just his story. Rather, it is also composed using the stories of others (such as Wert and Nausicaa). In some sort of abstract preface to this statement, Joyce also interjected his interpretation of a Tolstoy quote, ” 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 human drama in “Afternoon” is captured by the moments of struggle, promise, and downfall.  Because the interactive novel resists closure, there are no moments of victory or absolute failure that would risk stabilizing the “genuine drama” of the piece.

Ultimately, I didn’t feel that my particular Choose Your Own Adventure book really created that many adventures for the reader. My final mapping revealed that the book had only eleven possible endings (two in which I died, nine in which I lived). When I went back to my map and read the endings, none of them seemed to resolve any of the issues that the beginning of the book addressed. In the endings where I lived, the author gave my character an exit point- but no real conclusion to the narrative. Instead, he concluded that the protagonist would go on to avenge the death of his family, continue his search for his hero, or wait around until the war in China was over. Each possible narrative was left open-ended. Judging by other’s books, I think my choice (”Chinese Dragons”) was one of the more rare ones in terms of its short length. Everyone else’s books seemed to have more endings and more paths to choose from.

In his photographic and textual montage, author Jason Lewis reveals his struggle with the concepts of personally constructed and appropriated identities using nine squares to lead the viewer on an immensely abbreviated journey of his life. In his preface, Lewis compares his life to the age-old adage of cats and their “nine lives”. Lewis argues that people, too, live many different lifestyles during their one lifetime; with each temporal fragment contributing to the collective self at its most present state. In “Nine”, we are first introduced to Jason via his “native, original” identity: Edward Gutherie. However, shortly afterward we are reintroduced to him via his “white, adopted” identity: Jason Lewis. The sequential presentation of these two identities creates an opposition - who is the author? Jason or Edward?. The piece continues to argue that perhaps it is impossible to choose just one identity, and (judging by his pen-name, Jason Edward) I would say that presently Jason has combined both of his pasts to create who he is today.

In the beginning of “Nine”, we are introduced to a young man who is haunted by his mysterious past. Though he was aware of his origins, the protagonist did not reach out to his Native American brethren until 1988 while he was in college. Despite his attendance to a powwow, Jason still felt somewhat out of place. As he states, “Among other natives, I’m native…somehow“. The lengthy distance between his past and that present moment proved to be a problematic barrier in his quest for self-discovery, though. Struggling to create a connection between his two seemingly different personas, Jason began defining himself simply by his surroundings. If he was around natives, he was native - if he was in Berlin, he was somehow Turkish - and if he was in Indonesia he was some “rich guy from Jakarta”. However, defining himself by his physical and cultural location was merely a means of escape, and soon his past began catching up with him. As Jason concludes, “My brothers and my sisters from the island are chasing me”. 

There is not an obvious reconciliation of Jason’s two identities at the end of “Nine”, instead the struggle of identity replays itself for the viewer-while simultaneously morphing the images into various mismatched puzzles. If we judge by Jason’s name used in authorship, we might assume that he has come to terms with the duality of his past. But then again, perhaps the puzzle replays itself as way of saying that is never an absolute reconciliation between our diverse personas. Maybe the struggle with identity is an ongoing process, the makings of those “nine lives”, that lasts throughout our entire lifetime.

The structural composition of “My Boyfriend Came Back From the War” reminded me a lot of “Hegirascope”, with the exception of its use of a single screen. As one clicked on the textual link that interested them, a new window frame appeared on the screen, creating a visual mosaic of disjointed phrases. As I read through them, I got the impression of a conversation between a girl and her boyfriend who has just returned from deployment. I read phrases concerning infidelity, marriage, forgiveness, and trauma. The static nature of the large frame with the picture of the girl and her boyfriend to the left helped to secure their presence in the narrative - an aspect of “character preservation” that was never evident in “Hegirascope”. In contrast, the characters of “Hegirascope” changed with each new page on the screen. By keeping the couple in view of the text in “My Boyfriend Came From the War”, Lialina asserted their presence amidst the fleeting idioms that seemed to give an intimate glimpse into the couple’s frustrations.

In reference to its graphic layout, “My Boyfriend Came Back From the War” utilized multiple illustrative effects to create an atmosphere of darkness – perhaps an attempt by Lialina to amplify the viewer’s own obscurity when it came to interpreting the text. The monochromatic nature, miniature square story frames, and intense saturation of the screen all reminded me of a virtual comic book. As I went from square to square, the action of the narrative flowed from box to box (just like the progression of action in a comic book or graphic novel). Like “Hegirascope”, the story seemed disjointed - but at the same time, I could use the abstract fragments to create my own story that read of a lover’s betrayal and struggle to maintain her relationship with her estranged boyfriend. The chaos of the language reminded me of how someone suffering from post-traumatic syndrome might talk: disoriented, agitated, and deceived. It seemed like the text/conversation was being replayed in the mind of someone who felt disappointed and confused – most likely the mind of the jilted boyfriend. His struggle to understand his girlfriend’s infidelity paired with his return to a war-less society was an emotional coupling the young man was not yet prepared to endure. Lialina gives us a peek into this anxiety, replicating the chaos and alienation of her male protagonist. 

In the early twentieth century, a group of artists in Zurich, Switzerland created an art movement by the name of “Dada” that utilized non-sensical imagery to communicate deeply textural and evocative concepts to a devastated and war-torn society. An admirer of this particular movement, I was initially intrigued by the “Hegirascope”. The mere chaos of it resembled the Dada ideology: because nothing in the world makes sense, neither will the art that attempts to reflect it. However if one pursues a further study of Dadaist pieces, they will find that many of the artistic works have a politically charged undertone to their near unrecognizable form. Therefore, members of the Dada sect did rely on some sort of representational meaning in order to portray an intensely evocative theory on the state of the world after World War I. When I think of “Hegirascope” in these terms, it suddenly doesn’t fit in at all. Although it can be argued that each segment is somewhat representational, the entire piece functions as a disjointed, abstract draft containing a vast variety of miniature plots that dream of assembling into an extended narrative.

Upon closer examination, the “Hegirascope” functioned as a sort of stream of consciousness. At each screen we abandon the center text when we wander to a particular link that had succeeded in distracting us from the central text. In an interesting comparison, Ryan says the text gave her the “impression of a loose collection of drafts and writing samples”. Like Ryan, I imagined that if we were able to break open the mind of a creative writer, the many textual fragments of “Hegirascope” would be what we would find. Each screen contained a cohesive idea, however before one could completely articulate that idea-the screen changed and a new thought was presented. To me, the web engine was a writer’s worst nightmare: capturing a moment to later build on only to lose it to another incoming idea. The “Hegirascope” acted as a controller, choosing when its thoughts were finished and moving onto the next (even if its reader was not ready for the shift).

In class we discussed Marie-Laure Ryan’s interpretative strategies for reading new media texts. Within her framework, I would probably describe “Hegirascope” dually as a “kaleidoscopic performance” piece. The “stories” the “Hegirascope” constructs are all made from the same fragments; however, with each new refraction the evocative meaning of the piece changes and a new narrative mosaic is created. 

Collectively, “Orson Whales”, “Jabber”, and “Firefly” are all pieces that can be considered to be forms of “new media”. However, the application of the term “new media” changes with each piece.

“Orson Whales” is a compilation of film, text, audio, and art. When combined, these various artistic mediums create a sort of performance art that is wildly unique. Technology allows them to coexist with one another, and therefore stimulate both the auditory and visual senses. Together, these several types of media extract a multi-sensory reaction from the audience (something that neither illustration nor text can do alone).

This chaotic amalgamation also illustrates the dynamic relationship between representational meaning and evocative meaning. On its own, the representational meaning of the text “Moby Dick” is obvious. The book is easily read on the surface level as a story about a whale. However when Orson Wells’ voice, Led Zeppelin’s lyrics, and Alex Itin’s art are all projected across the visual image of the text, the evocative meaning of the work becomes slightly more difficult to read. The book alone can be analyzed page by page; but analyzing the text, the song, the voiceover, and the art suddenly becomes an unmanageable task put forth by the “new media” compilation piece. Though the representational meaning of the text remains the same (as it has since its inception), the evocative meaning suddenly changes with the inclusion of multiple other interpretations. “Orson Whales” isn’t Orson Wells’ interpretation of the text, nor is it Led Zeppelin’s. Rather, “Orson Whales” is Alex Itin’s own reading of the renowned tale.

By using outside sources to help narrate his vision, Alex Itin brings into question the notion of artistic integrity. Who truly gets the credit? The piece in its present form could not exist without the contributions of Led Zeppelin, Orson Wells, or Herman Melville. Alone, Alex Itin’s illustrations would not be so easily recognizable as a visual reading of “Moby Dick”. Just as “Orson Whales” relies on the interactive relationship between multiple artists, so too do most other forms of “new media”. “New media” depends on the interaction of several different perspectives simply because it has transformed into a means of universal communication in a technological world.