When watching Bust Down the Doors! I thought that the music, movement, and the pacing of the text worked together to build tension in the reader. Initially, I was expecting each iteration to have different music, but I think the same music throughout the piece made the text more dramatic and unexpected. Of course it was easy to have the general idea of what was going to happen next, but the reader never really know who the next scenario was going to involve.
Because each iteration was different, each story line had a different effect on me. Hayles writes, “In the endless cycle created by these possibilities, the user becomes implicated within the recursive cascading processes of interpretation, at once reflected in the work and reflecting upon it, that give meaning to interpretation.” (p. 122-123) The words flashing on the screen do not have much meaning to them at first glance, but after understanding what is being said and attaching emotions, comes meaning. For example, I was more entrenched with iterations that included “you” or “I”. These iterations had me unsettled, while other iterations that included “they” or “her” or “she” or “he” made me feel concerned for them, but not overly empathetic.
The iteration including, “They open the door while you sleep,” especially made me disturbed. I put myself in the position of lying in bed alone, awoken by two people that were going to take me outside to hurt me. I would think that this scenario would make many people anxious, as it is all too common in today’s society.
Another iteration that affected me included myself as the intruder. “We open the door while they sleep,” was also disturbing, but in a completely different manner. I imagined me and a friend, or perhaps a relative, taking someone hostage that has hurt us in the past. Unrealistic, of course, but a lot more thrilling.
As the iterations continued, I could not tell whether the pace of the text or the music sped up. If it did, then this would probably cause the reader to read faster and more franticly. I also could not tell if the word size increased. Hayles writes, “Although the work appeals to hyper attention through its speed and context, deep attention is required fully to comprehend the work’s narrative strategies and the synergistic interplay of text, music, color, motion, and animation, to say nothing of how the similarities and differences between tempos relate to one another, as well as the nuances, connotations, and implications of the two different languages.” (p. 128) The pace, music, and size of the text made it difficult for me to read. It wasn’t until the fourth or fifth iteration that I fully understood and read all of the words.