Electronic Literature:
The first few times I read this it was in relation to the second media investigation so I did not pay too much attention to Nippon itself but rather the context of the text itself. Having taken a course on Milton, on page 122, I found it extremely “copy-like” to that of the story of Adam and Eve. Eve looks in the lake and falls in love with herself and in that story it goes on for several additional “books.” It is interesting to see where an author has possibly gotten his or her ideas and puts it into a particular perspective.
Nippon:
Right off the bat I noticed something familiar that ties into YMCHI’s other works, the 10, NINE, 8 number count down; however in this instance some of the numbers are spelled as words where as in BUST DOWN THE DOORS! they are all numbers. Also in this piece, it counts all the way down to one where as in the Doors piece, it always stops at three, I am not sure what this signifies in the overall sense of both works but I think its worth noting.
The work itself is presented in dual languages, on the top, I would assume its Korean and English at the bottom, the two primary colors are white and red vs. the black and white in the Doors piece. In the initial “highlighting/inversion” there is also some green and black but it appears only briefly. The music is much more lively, almost like what you would hear at a dance or some sort of play. The red and white color evokes a different emotion, I cannot pinpoint it but it seems to go well with the text. Even though I cannot read the Korean, I must say some of the text seems to “dance” or “appear” to the beat of the musical notes in some instances. After a few moments, the synchronicity between the top and bottom is lost and if one could read both languages, it may become difficult to follow. For example, usually with subtitles in a movie it follows very closely to what is verbally said. However, having to follow two subtitles in separate languages may be cumbersome, one would assume that the same thing is being said in both languages but without knowing Korean, I cannot investigate this any further.
The story itself that it tells is very interesting, it seems like its about someone giving advice to a woman telling her to “sex things up a bit” and that she is the reason that a married man leaves his house. Then they share a cigarette and they get romantic at a dinner(?) table while others are watching. The text itself generally refreshes MUCH faster than the Doors piece and one must not take there eyes off the piece for a meer second or they may miss something. Overall, it seems like a romance between a married man and a mistress and the author is giving advice to the woman, I may be totally off base here but that is what it appears like to me. The final note I will mention is the ominous ZERO “0” in-place of all O’s in this and the Doors piece, what does that signify? Does it have meaning?