Author: elizstern

I (sort of) forgive Nelson because he used sock puppets…

Jason Nelson’s “Weather Visualizer” was an extremely jolting experience for me. I used to be a weather girl (long story best saved for another time) and specifically recall rattling off the scientific data that created some sort of idea for the audience of what the weather was like, in addition delivering the predicted forecast. I remember explaining things like tornado warnings, barometric pressure, and warm and cold fronts. It was customary to discuss temperature highs and lows. Now, encountering “Weather Visualizer,” I was confronted with perhaps the most abstract concepts of how one might visualize the weather. I was particularly confounded (and amused) by the “Video” option of visualizing the weather, because it portrayed Jason Nelson in various ways doing inane and ridiculous things. He would allude to the actual weather every now and then, describing days that made him want to do nothing or using sock puppets to explain that it was “partly cloudy” and 25 degrees Celsius. I also couldn’t help but find it memorable when he peered into a box and asked if it was “cloudy in there.”

However absurd or arbitrary many of the visualizations seem (“Abstract: Noir” – really???), there is something to be said for Nelson’s artistry and creativity in making such an innovative work. To take an everyday thing, which could hypothetically be seen as a “found object” and turn it into a work of art of sorts truly breaks traditional concepts of both the found object and art itself. By using weather as a found object, Nelson reinterprets the concept of the found object because it becomes a constantly changing “object” representing the changes in data being fed into the database of “Weather Visualizer.” The idea of an “object” is redefined – no longer is it a static material, such as a piece of aluminum foil, a collection of silverware, etc. In turn, the concept of art is re-defined. Though the definition of art is perhaps unaltered by “Weather Visualizer,” regardless of how avant-garde the work is, it is ever-changing in that it continually encompasses a growing number of ideas and representations. Additionally, in the “Prose: Poetics” visualizer, Nelson similarly re-interprets literature by relating it to changes in the weather and corresponding these changes with sentences that are seemingly very convoluted and confusing. Perhaps he is implying the complex nature of the weather.

The most realistic representation of the weather can be found in the “Animated” option. Nonetheless, it is a cartoon-like and rudimentary representation of the weather, as if a five-year-old had created it.

What is Nelson’s intent in creating “Weather Visualizer”? It is difficult to have strong convictions about any claim in particular, although some are more likely to point to the root of Nelson’s creative intentions. It is my contention that Nelson wanted us to delve deeper into the work, traveling from its representational meaning and into its evocative meaning(s). Nelson may be creating art for art’s sake; he may be attempting to assert his opinions about the weather and what it means to him; he may be doing a combination of both or something else entirely. While his creative intentions are unclear, to say the least, Nelson certainly provides us with an evocative work worth examining. I use the word, “worth,” quite loosely in this sense, however…

P.S. No matter how senile Nelson may be, I LOVE the sock puppets used at times in the “Video” visualizer.

“Lovelines” Leading to an Internal Narrative

“Lovelines,” like “We Feel Fine,” is, of course, a database, at least per the parameters Lev Manovich sets. In the statement of the work, the statement’s author clearly indicates that he used the same “data collection engine” to acquire the material that pops up on the page before the reader’s eyes. However, I feel as though “Lovelines” is in an interesting look into the dispute between whether or not a work is merely a database or a narrative. “Lovelines” seems to look deeply into the eye of the human condition, particularly because it is less randomized than “We Feel Fine.” By dragging the gray heart across the line at the bottom of the web page, the reader can develop a sense of what love and hatred mean in our society. The beginnings of the statements range from “I love,” “I like,” “I want,” to “I hate,” and so on. While we are often aware of our own opinions on various matters, it is unlikely that we would have any sort of opportunity to voyeuristically peer into the desires and dislikes of others if it were not for a database like “Lovelines.” Perhaps by eavesdropping, one could do such a thing, although it would be a different experience from interacting with “Lovelines.”

When I wrote about “We Feel Fine” for the media inquiry assignment, I briefly mentioned the concept of an internal narrative taking place within the reader’s mind while interacting with the database. I feel as though this is more likely to occur, however, with “Lovelines.” As people, we are inclined to be at least partially influenced by the opinions, desires, and dislikes of others in relation to our own. For example, I can relate to one blogger who writes, “I love Family Guy I love Family Guy I love Family Guy.” I feel a connection to what seems like a person because I am aware that this statement was attached to a person in that they wrote it. Another example might be that one blogger writes, “I hate when I start reading a book and then have to put it aside.” While it had not previously occurred to me in a conscious way that I hate student loan companies, I agree with this statement and therefore have identified something that already existed within myself without my even knowing it.

One major difference between the influence one might feel while interacting with “Lovelines” as opposed to everyday human interaction deals with peer pressure. In a group, one person might say, “I hate ___” or “I love ___” and perhaps the rest of the people in the group concur, so one who does not necessarily agree will say that they do for the sake of fitting in or continuity. In the realm of the Internet, there is nothing at stake whether the reader agrees with a particular statement or not, though it is likely that some form of internal narrative will take place, regardless. The anonymity of, as well as the level of control the reader has in “Lovelines” allows the reader to engage in a deeply introspective internal, personal narrative that is evoked by interacting with the “Lovelines” database.

terrible, terrible, terrible and again terrible…but still a game

I contend that “game, game, game and again game” (also known as “terrible game”), upon further consideration, is, in fact, a game. While it is decidedly not among the more “conventional” games, such as Super Mario (as we discussed in class), it has a different set of objectives. There are multiple goals that game developers incorporate into their works, including but not limited to: story-telling, mimicking real life, allowing for an escape from real life, and then there is the category of games that exist for the sake of the player simply enjoying him or herself.

Clearly, “game, game, game and again game” does not fall into this last category; nonetheless, it presents obstacles which the gamer ostensibly wants to overcome due to natural instinct. For example, in the first segment of the game, the gamer must “fall” down a hole into a depiction of the sun in order to reach the door to enter the next level. Now, instinctively, the gamer would assume that, in order to reach safety and get to the door that he or she should use the space bar to jump over the hole. I, personally, performed this action several times before realizing that I merely needed to allow the black hairball avatar essentially “fall” down the hole to reach the door, which acted as a portal into the next level. I came to realize that the “point” or goal of the game, however trivial, appeared to be, primarily, getting from point A to point B.

Essentially, this game falls under the genre of games known as platformers, or platform games, such as Donkey Kong. Additionally, it was clear that the game was intended to act as a catalyst for reflection on religion and, more abstractly, morality and its ties with humanity in general. Throughout the game, we encounter various examples of these themes. There is the representation of a cross surrounded by fish, which is clearly representative of Christian symbols or imagery. Parodies of scriptures appear when the avatar hovers over these fish. What appear to be home videos evoke the concepts of memory and family values. In one of the levels, the images of trembling rockets with the background of various buildings seem to suggest humans, as well as evolution.

Interestingly, one of the text bubbles reads: “where walls hide the frameless, a community served as soft and temporary, they open windows to brick and still.” The idea of a community is deliberately brought to the gamer’s attention, even though the word itself is crossed out—the temporality of humanity becomes an idea at this point in the game. Intriguingly, however, no score is actually kept and it is impossible for the gamer’s avatar to “die”…instead, an ominous voiceover says, on each level, “Come on and meet your maker.” It is as though religion becomes its own entity, despite its ostensible links to humanity. On another level, a bubble of text reads: “Perception is cell death,” while the word, “cell,” is crossed out. Another text bubble in another level reads: “this happens to be life-threatening and pretty and religious, the mechanics of a railroad life within antibiotics.” Finally, we are told, in the last level, “your life is really the end.” Clear and distinctive themes of morality and humanity come into play as central focal points of this game–even as they are not “goals,” per se, but rather, meaningful components of the game.

While provocative and visually stimulating, “game, game, game and again game” is, ultimately, overly visually stimulating and only provocative if read into with an extremely open mind, to say the least. It raises an overwhelming number of questions, which are neither answered nor even articulate. In the interest of finding something to do the other night during a spell of boredom, I showed two friends, who are avid video gamers, “game, game, game and again game.” First, one of them said, “This game wouldn’t exist without the Internet, because no one would pay for this game.” The other responded that the game was “easy…stupid…but then again, I’m not a very artistic guy. I’m sure to someone, that’s a window to the infinite soul of beauty, but really, it’s just annoying.” I thought both of these to be astute observations.

Tachistoscope: The Conscious and the Subconscious

Hayles writes that “literature…activates a recursive feedback loop between knowledge realized in the body through gesture, ritual, performance, posture, and enactment, and knowledge realized in the neocortex as conscious and explicit articulations. As the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu has shown, robust and durable knowledge can be transmitted through social practices and enactments without being consciously articulated” (132). This concept comes into play, particularly when considering William Poundstone’s Tachistoscope. Because of the element of subliminal messaging and the way the text is constructed in terms of color, multimedia, and symbolism, the reader is, in effect, approaching a text that is almost dream-like, greatly engaging the subconscious realm of the brain.

While Hayles offers her own assessment of Tachistoscope, her explanations for various symbols are subjective and her analysis of the work itself seems cursory, functioning more appropriately as a summary of what the reader is to encounter while interacting with the text. After going through Tachistoscope several times, the text became much more cohesive as a story. While I did, as Hayles predicted, attempt to “screen out…‘extraneous’ information” (142), I also attempted to force my consciousness to integrate it into the work and understand the underlying meanings of the symbols and subliminal pictures and messages. The white words, superimposed by larger black words, generally appeared on the screen at a pace that was too fast for me to process. However, I did notice images of faces in these sequences, as well, which may have subliminally provided context in the form of characterization. Were they the faces of people who had fallen into the bottomless pit? Were they the faces of people from the town where the pit had been formed? I could not be sure, although these questions came to mind. I also took into account the use of color and how the colors made me feel. For example, dark blues appeared to signal tragic events, such as people falling into the bottomless pit. I also noticed that the orange spheres increased my anxiety as I read the text. 

As for the symbols behind most of the words (e.g. the knife and fork, the cross, the martini glass), I was unsure of what to make of their meanings. Hayles’s inferences as to what their meanings were did not come to mind while I, personally, was interacting with the text. The symbols seemed to denote the man-made objects and, perhaps, their implications, both negative and positive. In the work, there are symbols depicting construction work—perhaps referencing the main plot event at hand, which has caused irreparable damage, not just to the area of land itself, but to the town in which it exists and the people who live in that town. There are also symbols like keys and planes—perhaps alluding to the idea of escape. The population of the town does eventually dwindle, as the text reveals. Additionally, I felt as though the symbols alluded to a sense of historical context. I understand that this is a far reach, but the Afro pick, for example, reminded me of Civil Rights events in the 20th century, while the bomb reminded me of war. I associated the crown with medieval times, and also associated the key with the distant past, because of its shape and form. 

For me, the symbols placed the words flashing across the screen within the context of culture that was ever-evolving and ever-changing. This may have also been partially due to the nature of the music, which contained a series of chord progressions that, at its climax, seemed uplifting by providing the reader a sense of movement within the text—a feeling of being propelled forward during the crescendo and the addition of music that was more melodic than the repetitive notes played at the beginning of the music’s cycle.

The music, I found, was the most compelling aspect of the text, rather than the imagery. I did not feel as though the images had much of an effect on me other than the fact that I found them distracting. Perhaps because, as humans, we have an innate desire to make sense of our experiences and observations, the subliminal messaging along with the use of symbols in this piece became frustrating components of the work for me. Nonetheless, it was an interesting exploration; trying to find meaning within the symbols used, as well as the subliminal messaging. I felt somewhat detached to the literal text of the piece because of the symbols and subliminal messaging, which I thought was interesting. Rather than responding emotionally to the text, I felt myself responding to it from a more analytical standpoint. For this reason, the symbols and subliminal messaging most likely contributed to the tone of the piece in my experience of interacting with it.

Body Part: Long Hair

My hair used to be so long that I could sit on it. My mother’s hair was just as long as mine–it was something that we shared. Hers was blonde, and she called mine “chestnut.” She washed hers everyday and combed it into a beautiful, straight, and flowing cascade down her back. For days, I would go without brushing my own hair, and it would weave itself into a red and gold highlighted mess, which I refused to take care of. My mother and au pair would insist that I brush it, but I resisted, kicking and letting tears spill down my cheeks whenever someone tried to drag a brush through the matted knots of my hair.

But, when I was four years old, my grandmother, a no-nonsense and distinctly pragmatic and practical woman, insisted that my hair finally be cut. My mother and I were visiting her in my grandparents’ house in Faribault, Minnesota. It was snowing outside. She had, time after time, insisted upon brushing my hair whenever she had visited our family in D.C. I sat silently, crying, knowing I could not kick and scream with her the way I did with my mother or au pair. I was to be silent, compliant–obedient to her tugging and pulling away at the roots of my hair, making me feel as though my scalp was on fire. Tears streamed silently down my cheeks onto my pajama shirt.

We drove through the snow to the stark, undecorated hair salon where I would have the curly tendrils of my hair cut into a bob. Afterwards, my hair would grow straight, with only minor variations that could be misconstrued as curls or unruly waves. Its beauty was suspended–perhaps even gone.

The color of the walls in the salon was an ugly mustard. I remember quietly hating that color–but saying nothing. I smiled as we piled back into my grandmother’s station wagon, pretending that I did not want to cry, sob, collapse into an Ophelian heap.

To me, my hair is an essential part of my being. Besides that one time when my grandmother insisted that it be cut, my hair has always been long;an extension of myself. I hide behind it, I toy with it, I curl my fingers around it to be coy, I absently distract myself by playing with it…it is as though it is a living and breathing part of my body, just like a lung or an artery. It identifies me…my long hair is sacred, it is romantic, it is high-maintenance, it is beautiful, it is luxurious, it is girlish.

I wonder if there will be a day when I cut it all off, like some women I have known who once had long hair. “I feel free now, like I can’t hide,” a friend of mine said to me, after cutting her shoulder-length hair and getting a pixie cut. I could not, for the life of me, believe or understand what she had said to me. I only understood the separation between us in that single moment.

Understanding Comics

I was clueless as to what to expect when opening Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art, and, in fact, found myself embarrassed to be walking around with a book I had yet to open and, therefore, barely considered a textbook. I had flipped through the book, noting its comic-book-like structure, and dismissed it as a “nerdy” discourse on comics. I didn’t want my friends to see me reading what was perceivably a comic book, because, as McCloud points out, there is a particular stigmatization of comics and a lack of recognition in terms of how significant a genre comics comprise. He even notes that comic artists are reluctant to refer to themselves as such. He writes, “For much of this century, the word ‘comics’ has had such negative connotations that many of comics’ most devoted practitioners have preferred to be known as ‘illustrators,’ ‘commercial artists,’ or, at best, ‘cartoonists’!” (18). It wasn’t until I read the assigned chapters that I grew a deep appreciation for and of comics, and how relevant they actually are to our everyday lives.

While I initially resisted the form McCloud chose to present his ideas, it grew on me very quickly, creating the suspense, sustained interest, and enjoyment that I had forgotten I had once experienced when lightly perusing comics like the Archie comic books I read at summer camp as a young girl. Never before, though, had I realized that there were so many different aspects germane to the genre of comics. By illustrating his points in comic-book form, I was better able to understand the various themes and concepts McCloud introduced throughout the various chapters.

I became deeply interested in the concepts he proposed which applied even to everyday life. At first, I was deeply struck by the idea of the face as a mask (36-7). McCloud was correct in his assumption that I probably would be less engaged in the material presented in the book unless the narrator was “practically a blank slate” or “a concept.” I also had not consciously thought about how we, as humans, are programmed in such a way that “our identities and awareness are invested in many inanimate objects every day. Our clothes, for example, can trigger numerous transformations in the way others see us and in the way we see ourselves” (38). McCloud further grabbed my attention when he wrote, “Since viewer-identification is a specialty of cartooning, cartoons have historically held an advantage in breaking into world popular culture” (42).

Previously, I had not realized that the imagery of icons, time frames, and even the way we react to different line strokes was so deeply ingrained in our collective cultural subconscious. Additionally, I found the third chapter, “Blood In the Gutter,” to be very interesting in terms of how it presented and defined different ways of characterizing the passing of time. McCloud articulated how several different mechanisms of space, the use of lines, et al, could represent a schema of time. While perhaps on a subconscious level I had recognized these devices before (such as elongating a rectangle or repeating the single image of the pondering man), I had never been so acutely aware of how much thought, work, and intellect went into creating these dimensions of time.

Overall, I enjoyed this read, and, as I have mentioned, have gained a new appreciation for a genre that, previously, I had barely considered to be a genre at all. Now I see it as a rich and fascinating genre offering a wide spectrum of ideas, theories, and appreciable artistry in both the written and visual forms.

“afternoon,” the concept of closure and Joyce’s notions of hypertext

It was not simply the lack of multimedia present in “afternoon,” as opposed to that in “Hegirascope” which I found somewhat irritating while reading “afternoon.” Yes, I found it bothersome that the screen was comprised largely of white space with some black text at the top and there was very little to aesthetically stimulate the reader. However, unlike in other hypertexts we have read, I found myself thinking more and more about “closure” and realizing that there were several fragments of “afternoon” which I found to be very eloquent, provocative, and led me to want to read into the particular fragment more. In general, this did not seem possible, as the reader chooses to focus on a specific word or link that leads to another fragment or simply press the return key, from whence the reader is thrown into the proverbial cold water of attempting to decipher a new text.

Relatively early on, I resigned myself to the fact that I would have some level of difficulty understanding the various voices, narrators, ‘he’s and ‘she’s, as well as the relationships between the characters. My attempts proved futile, even after exploring the text for extended periods of time, and even after returning to the text following a break from it. Nonetheless, I found much of the dialogue intriguing, as well as the narrator’s descriptions of places. [4 what I see] paints a picture of glinting glass where, ostensibly, a car accident occurred. I am left with the image of gurneys leading up to a place where bodies lay, and then, wanting to know more, I am inevitably swept away into other dimensions of “afternoon.”

While there were moments when I felt connections between story fragments, they were few and far between. Some of these threads lead to “endings,” but they are cliff-hanger endings, such as [I call], in which the narrator takes a pill and calls Lolly. One cannot enter the return key any longer. I can still navigate away from the page by clicking on the links button, but it does not alleviate the tension many of these fragments precipitated for me.

I’d rather not argue whether or not “closure” factors into “afternoon” so much as it simply provided an unsatisfactory reading experience for me in that I wanted to know more about several things and find a sense of resolve somewhere in the story. One of the speakers in [*me] asserts that “I’m not sure that I have a story,” which I found interesting. It led me to deeper questions about the text and what Joyce’s intentions in creating it were. In the interview provided in the instructions, Joyce mentions the “music of the word within our story spaces.” Given the interesting dynamics between the speakers and the diligent care evidently used in word choices, the concept of the “music” of the text certainly resonated with me. The music of the text in “afternoon,” I felt, was key to its value, at least in my interpretation of reading through it.

Additionally, Joyce refers to the transcendental nature of hypertext as opposed to traditional print text. Although I cannot say I had a “transcendental” experience while reading “afternoon,” I can understand why one might, perhaps, in that one explores a completely new set of pathways that don’t resemble the linear paths of print texts. It is a structural maze within which one can get lost in a way that may be satisfying for some.

Ultimately, after pondering the idea of “closure” as it pertains to “afternoon,” I heeded my convictions of considering its value as a musical, or lyrical, text. I lingered over well-chosen words and well-written phrases, points of interest and tension, intriguing dialogue, and so on. This greatly helped me to more deeply appreciate the text.

Blog #4: Vespers

I think Krisztian brought up an interesting point about “self-reflection and questioning our true selves.” I found this to be relevant to a certain degree while attempting to navigate through Vespers. Unlike in The Baron, I was unable to make the same sort of interactive choices which would significantly impact my outcome, although I felt as though I was an atmosphere which was clearly defined by a set of morals, specifically the Christian religion.

I had great difficulty getting to an ending in Vespers as I tried to interact with the brothers of the monastery who seemed to have grave mental issues and disorders. I visited and re-visited several sites around the church, examining various objects and pathways. Something was clearly affecting those brothers who remained at the church, and it was obvious that some sort of traumatic event had occurred on the grounds of the church, as evidenced by the ruins, ashes, et al.

I felt like I was attempting to navigate through a particularly elaborate maze, as I found myself in many rooms (the Cloistery, the character’s room, the hallway, and so on) and felt as though I kept running out of choices to examine, touch, or otherwise interact with the data that might be available to me. As with many of the other Interactive Fiction narratives, I found myself frustrated and confused.

This confusion was not lessened at all by the supposed “hints” that popped up, sometimes too quickly for me to read them, at the top of some of the screens. Most of the messages appeared to be religious in nature, ostensibly coming from the Bible. These hints did little to help me, and, in fact, I found none of them useful. One, which was about laughter, foreshadowed a future dialogue with Matteo, in which he laughs, seemingly, at nothing in particular, or at least in a manner that is nonsensical. None of the brothers of the monastery seemed to provide any real clues as to what path the character was supposed to follow.

Perhaps this was a particular trail I took and others were able to find other ones, but the only ending I could come to was one that took me to the top of the Belltower. In this ending, the character talks to the brother, Matteo, but their conversation is quickly exhausted and little to no information is revealed by the end of their exchange. Suddenly, the character feels a scratch beneath his skin. I tried several commands, such as “scratch itch,” “touch skin,” and so on. Finally, I decided to navigate north. Apparently, I had made an “unlucky” choice, and found my character plummeting to his death. I was informed that he had committed suicide. “Hell has a special place for those who commit suicide,” the screen read. 

Ultimately, Vespers seems to be a story of despair and loss, though I was unable to come to a true realization or conclusion about the meaning of the story. The other characters are listless, crying, and mostly absent from the story other than acting as further indicators that something is ostensibly very wrong with this church and that something terrible has happened. In terms of Interactive Fiction, I feel that Vespers is a richer, more complex text than most of the ones we have encountered so far. Nonetheless, I am still unsure of the message it is trying to send, exactly. Perhaps if there are other potential endings which are more easily accessible, I would better be able to acquire an understanding of the text.

CYOA Reflection

I came into this assignment utterly daunted by the idea of mapping out several possible, potentially inter-connecting outcomes from one segment of the book to another in House of Danger. Unfortunately, my nervousness was not unfounded in that I had great difficulty being able to complete my map. Several times, I found myself at various endings (whether they included death, an uncertain ending involving other dimensions/etc., or safety.) Still, I could not make my way to the end of the book–while reading through it repeatedly, I could not propel my character towards the latest pages in the book, which I found extremely frustrating.

Just as this book was clearly written for the reading level of a sixth grader (approximately), I felt like one, as well, because I felt helpless in trying to complete my map and finish the book overall. Each day, however, I was able to approach it and find myself further down various paths.

As a reader, however, I did enjoy the book in the sense that it inspired me to attempt to create a project like this of my own. Daunting as it must be for a reader, it must be adventurous and perhaps quite daunting for the author, as well. Nonetheless, the concept of the book interests me and it was an intriguing introduction into a genre of literature with which I had not previously been familiar.

It interested me that risky, sometimes-altruistic choices led to speedy deaths, whereas timid, erring-on-the-side-of-safety choices resulted in my character living longer or ending up in an entirely different reality (several plot lines were in play in my book.)

Blog #3: Photopia

Eventually, I came to a dead end in Photopia after spending about 45 minutes to an hour playing around with it. However, after becoming accustomed to what commands the program could process, it became a relatively easy process overall to navigate through Photopia. I enjoyed the fact that I played a relatively passive role in my outcome—I was more focused on exploring each scenario as much as possible, making the program less plot-based and more interactive in the sense that I had the illusion of choice-making. As the person interacting with the text, I was able to “explore the field of the possible” (211) as Marie-Laure Ryan discusses. By typing commands such as “listen,” “go north,” “examine ____,” et al, I felt included in the reading of a story, and I was allowed to make choices in terms of the order in which I learned elements of the story.

I feel that Ryan would place Photopia in the category of “electronic, interactive, nonergodic texts” (209), because of the inevitable outcomes of the various scenarios presented, though the allowance exists for the reader to make certain choices in the ways in which these scenarios unfold.

I am curious about the intentions of the author, however, due to the abrupt changes in plot lines. A screen will appear with a block of color that is somehow related to the story to come. For example, an all-black screen with a yellow bar that reads “gold” proceeds to lead into a story where the landscape is a shore with golden sand. Perhaps it is as simple as the author wanting to create a distinct barrier between each differing story line.

I understand that Krisztian felt that there was something left to be desired in Photopia, although I am a novice to almost all interactive text and enjoyed many of the elementary aspects of the program. However, I was deeply unimpressed by the lack of graphics and visual stimuli. In MBCBFTW, though I was disinterested in the story itself, I felt that it was greatly enhanced by the multimedia incorporated into the text.

Photopia does not seem to lend itself to a deep level of interpretation, especially since it seems intended for a younger audience. I felt that this was indicated by the fact that several words were defined for the reader of the text. Additionally, there’s very little that’s aesthetically stimulating about Photopia, as I mentioned earlier. It is an extremely simple, straight-forward presentation of text, with the only added creativity being the incorporation of different color schemes. It was almost like reading a book online (though one is able to interact with it personally) due to the large amount of narrative that will frequently pop up after a user command. The program also seems to act as a rudimentary video game, with the user collecting an inventory of items, such as a seed pod and a shovel.

Eventually, the game does exhaust its ability to be entertaining. It seems to become repetitive, even as different story plots emerge after “missions” are completed. Each story is a version of another story in which one must gather information, collect additions to one’s inventory, and complete some sort of mission. By the time I had come to a deadlock in the game, I felt like I understood the game well enough to understand its purpose as a source of interactive entertainment, rather than cyber art (i.e. MBCBFTW) or more complex hypertext, such as Hegirascope.

Blog 2: Boyfriend

I felt that “agailes” brought up a point that was at the forefront of my mind while navigating through MBCBFTW, in terms of whether or not Lialina’s piece could be considered “literary.” While I agree that MBCBFTW is certainly more literary than Hegirascope (though I realize that the nature of subjectivity as it relates to discerning what is literary from what is not is certainly up for debate), I saw MBCBFTW mostly as a piece of “cyber art,” so to speak. I did feel that there was some sense of a story being told, even if it was often disjointed and fragmented. To Lialina’s credit, if one is to assume that Lialina presents a literary piece, one might take into account that our sequences of thoughts function, in general, in a nonlinear fashion. The speaker may be intending to show the way our trains of thoughts are typically disjointed, fragmented, and may not appear to have any real pattern, which could potentially be considered as some sort of literary device.

I cannot truthfully say that the piece evoked any emotional response from me. In fact, I found it to be somewhat irritating and boring. Flat, even. Despite the variety of multimedia-related aspects present in the piece (animation, drawings, hyperlinks, and so on), I felt that, because the text itself was pretty one-dimensional, that there was very little to stimulate me in an intellectual sense. It seemed to me that what Lialina was attempting to create art for art’s sake and, while it might be moving and seem innovative to some, it won’t necessarily be received the same way by others, such as myself.

In terms of trying to relate MBCBFTW to the text written by Marie-Laure Ryan, it did occur to me while coursing through Lialina’s piece that there was a particular quality to it that reminded me of walking through a museum. Perhaps this was because of the various forms of multimedia presented. However, it was clear that the person interacting with the piece had to eventually go through each “exhibit” to come to the end. In comparison to Hegirascope, there was clearly less opportunity for the person interacting with the text to make choices about producing different outcomes. However, MBCBFTW had the benefit (as I see it) of ostensibly containing some sort of plot or story. While there appeared to be certain threads which were related to one another in Hegirascope, it was clearly much more randomized than MBCBFTW. I think story and plot were key components to Lialina’s, whereas this was not a concern for the maker of Hegirascope.

While I have lingering questions about Hegirascope, I also have to wonder why Lialina made some of the decisions she did in MBCBFTW. For example, I wonder about Lialina’s intentions in presenting various sequences of “plot” elements, as well as some of the aesthetic choices she presented: the clocks, the Fox television network logo, etc. Why use only black and white? The sparse nature of the story continues to leave something to be desired, at least for me. Perhaps its simplicity allows the story to have more flexibility in terms of the various pieces of the story fitting together in some understandable way. Either way, both texts leave me feeling somewhat lost and curious as to how to interpret the significance of each one.

Jabberwocky: Words and Meaning

Although it has been reiterated several times already, I will attempt to define the representational meaning of Neil Hennessy’s JABBER. The Jabberwocky Engine generates a collection of letters from the English alphabet which float seemingly aimlessly across a white screen. Over time, these black letters collide in order to create blue word fragments (some of which are real words, some are not) or red “garbage” words. Then, two word fragments combine to create green “nonsense” words. Despite the fact that the green words do not exist in the English dictionary, Hennessy is, in essence, using the medium of language as a figurative playground by randomly combining letters and word fragments that sound, at varying degrees, as though they could plausibly function as actual words. He deposes the meanings of words and breaks free from the establishment of language as it is manifested in our cultural consciousness.

The user, “scarterb,” brought up the interesting idea that Hennessy could be “commenting on the arbitrariness of the English language.” Immediately, it occurred to me that the words currently in the repertoire of my vocabulary all sound, in some way, like what it is to which they refer. I realize that this is an abstract idea and may be difficult for me to articulate well. I will try my best…

I am not sure if others share similar experiences, but I feel that words have a tendency to correspond with their intended meanings—perhaps due to masculine or feminine undertones in a word or, say, because of certain emphases on the vowels and consonants in a word. For example, the word “blossom” (as it relates to a flower opening) sounds (at least, to me) exactly like its meaning, whereas the verb “execute” sounds very severe and harsh—the opposite of the implications of a flower blossoming. “Shatter” also seems to harmonize with its intended meaning in that the pronunciation of the two ‘t’s sound almost like an object breaking. Hennessy may be toying with the notion of words and their common associations through JABBER.

It is my contention that Hennessy may be challenging the way we associate words with their meanings, although I do not think his purpose in creating JABBER is exclusively for this reason. He may also be indicating the ever-changing nature of language (i.e. how words become antiquated, and also how new words are added to a language as time passes.) Nonetheless, it is possible Hennessy is attempting to show how words can be separated from meaning and connotation. Perhaps he is attempting to break the traditional notions of the significance of words and how they are tied to their meanings. He may be proposing one or several questions, What is really in a word? What is the significance of a word? How do we mentally process the concept of words?

I realize that this is a rather grandiose and perhaps far-reaching opinion. I am also aware that there is an obvious problem with my argument in that, from a young age, we, as human beings, are indoctrinated with the meanings and connotations of words. Therefore, it is nearly impossible to tell whether or not words are, in some way, deliberately connected to that to which they refer. Most likely, a (rather infeasible) controlled experiment would need to be performed in order to even begin determining the validity of my opinion—or inquiry, one might call it. One may look to etymology, but it is not sufficient in this case for explaining how and why sounds are combined to create words. Nonetheless, it certainly piqued my curiosity when considering JABBER, its purposes, and the questions it raises.