Author: lgolden3

In my opinion, Whale Hunt is a database that is also a narrative.  According to Lev Manovich, a database is a structured collection of data.  Whale Hunt meets that criterion.  Manovich quotes Mieke Bal, defining a narrative as a cultural object ” ‘that should contain both an actor and a narrator; it also should contain three distinct levels consisting of the text, the story, and the fabula; and its ‘contents’  should be ‘a series of connected events caused or experienced by actors.’ ” Further, Manovich asserts that a new media narrative is usually interactive.  In the case of Whale Hunt, the work is interactive.  Since the work is a documentary rather than fiction, I’m not sure how that aspect fits into Bal’s definition of narrative.  More important to me is the fact that Jonathan Harris considers his project to be a narrative.  On the “Interface” link, Harris explains the challenge he faced related to creating the interface.  The database includes 3,214 pictures.  Harris wanted an interface that would preserve the story and minimize picture download time.  He definitely achieved the goal. 

Taking each of Bal’s criteria one-by-one:

• Does Whale Hunt contain both an actor and a narrator?  In my opinion, Jonathan Harris is the primary actor, and Michael Moore, through the lens of his camera, is the narrator.
• Does the work contain the distinct levels of text, story, and fabula?  It is commonly expressed that a picture is worth a thousand words.  Although a text does not accompany the pictures, enough information is given in the “statement” that a story naturally forms through the sequential presentation of the data.  Related to the term fabula, I cannot find a definition for this term. 
• Is the content a series of connected events caused or experienced by actors?  Whale Hunt definitely fits this criterion.  The entire narrative relates to the experience of Jonathan Harris.

Based on my application of Mieke Bal’s definition of narrative, Whale Hunt conforms to the model and is a narrative.

Whale Hunt is truly a spectacular experience.  As a person who loves nature and the outdoors but also respects the unique ways of life represented by indigenous peoples, I was spellbound by this piece.  Harris’s trip is the experience of a lifetime-an experience that everyone can share through the database of Whale Hunt.

Like Birds Singing Other Birds’ Songs, Nio empowers the user to cue the sounds and determine how many will play simultaneously.  Each time I clicked and initiated or clicked and froze a chorus, I felt like I was conducting an a cappella group. The music created by playing a combination of the choruses reminds me of Rockapella, but there is a difference.  Nio sounds more like an amalgamation of tribal music and contemporary jazz. I like the clock-like arrangement of the visual cues.  For me, it represents the order of the piece.  As the introduction states, the artist purposed to create layers of expressive, primal sound that he calls music poetry.  That is accomplished.  Just as Maria Mencia associated the visual representation of the birds with the phonemes related to their calls, Jim Andrews applies the same technique.  The letter graphics that accompany the sounds relate to associated phonemes or their syllabic nuclei. 

The “Song Shapes” experience is similar.  The “Round Poem” is created with a counter clockwise motion that begins with syllabic nuclei.  The motion is continuous and, in time, creates a visual image that is basically round but has the dimension associated with layers.  On the left side, there is a slight deviation in the continuum that possibly represents the end of a line in poetry.  As the graphic progresses, the deviation becomes less and less noticeable.  “Ound Poem” presents a continuous, winding ribbon of phonemes that creates a textured blue mass.  For me, the addition of “Mango Approved” bridges the divide between the cold and distant electronic world and the reality of the warm, human blood-coursing-through-our-veins world.  The fact that Jim Andrews would include this link convinces me that he cares about the connection people make with his art, unlike other artists who have an “I don’t give a damn if you get it or not” attitude.  An artist who appreciates the response of a user through the eyes of his kitten is not a cold, distant machine.

“Now and Then” reminds me of x-rays or MRI images.  Generally, in an x-ray, the densest tissue is the darkest in the image.  Modern technology can capture one area of the body from many different angles, like the images in these frames.  For me, this link evokes the idea of the anatomy of a poem. 

The Source Code link tells me a lot about Jim Andrews.  The fact that he makes his code available to the public proves that he is an unselfish artist.  It is inspiring that he is so willing to share his hard work with others. 

By the time I finished exploring this work, I realized something that I greatly appreciate.  I WASN’T A NERVOUS WRECK!  Nio really is an enjoyable experience.  Again, I attribute this effect to the fact that the user maintains control of the pace of the experience and therefore is not forced into sensory overload.  Also, the graphics in the work are orderly and peaceful.  The flowing blue images in the visual poems are calming and remind me of the gentle movement of fish swimming in an aquarium.

In my opinion, game, game, game and again game by Jason Nelson is aggravating.  There isn’t one aspect of this work that appeals to me.  Regardless of the statement it makes, I would never want to engage it again, and I probably would not recommend it to anyone.  Unlike Hamlet, Othello, Romeo and Juliet, and the Bible-one of the most enduring works of all time and a work that Nelson ridicules-game, game, game and again game most likely will not stand the test of time.  (I couldn’t stand it for 15 minutes.)  Related to our class, I find myself questioning over and over, what is art?  And I keep coming back to my own personal criterion:  Does the experience make me a better person?  Writers like Shakespeare, Tolstoy, Booker T. Washington, and Harper Lee have contributed to my personal growth and have enhanced my life.  I can honestly say that their works have made me a better person.  Nelson has the opposite effect on my psyche.  He successfully irritates me.  I am more attracted to some form of beauty than any form of annoyance.  And, yes, I think it is true…beauty is in the eye of the beholder. 

I appreciate the exposure to textual media, but I can’t help but notice something curious.  Electronic literature is not overwhelmingly popular.  Most everyone is familiar with Asteroids but not Arteroids.  Most everyone is familiar with Orson Wells but not Orson Whales.  When television eclipsed radio, the new technology was better and everyone wanted to own a television.  I can remember when a high school friend told me that cassette tapes would replace albums.  I couldn’t believe it, but within two years, I had purchased a cassette tape case and had filled it with cassettes.  I am building a personal library of books that I love-Shakespeare, the Bible, Anna Karenina, To Kill a Mockingbird, etc.  I want to include all of Kenneth Branagh’s Shakespeare films in my DVD collection, but…I don’t think I will include the Bomar Gene or game, game, game and again game. 

Today, when we discussed the difference between conventional games and counter games, I (finally!) began to see that many of the game related works we have explored are deliberately the antithesis of what I naturally expect and enjoy.  I guess I’m a little slow, but this finally helps answer another question I have frequently asked myself, “WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF THIS?!”  Art that is counter to the norm has a more jarring effect than art that conforms to the norm.  Prof. Sample used the term upside down related to counter games.  Shakespeare employed an upside down device in his works.  It is called topsy-turvy (referred to in I Henry IV.i.83) and dates back to Saturnalia.  So, this is a technique that has proved to be effective in art through time.  (In the Hunchback of Notre Dame, Victor Hugo employs the same idea related to the Feast of Fools.) 

Electronic literature definitely turns things around and shakes things up.  Sometimes it’s dizzying! 

Just in case anyone is interested in exploring the topic, Leo Tolstoy wrote an essay entitled “What is Art?”  Excerpts can be found on-line at  http://www.csulb.edu/~jvancamp/361r14.html

I am intrigued by the idea of a work of art being based on the transcription of bird sounds into phonemes.  I love to listen to the different sounds birds make.  Even within a genus like gulls (Larus), there can be a wide variance of sounds produced by birds of different species.  In the summer, I live on Hatteras Island and witness this fact.  Bonaparte’s gulls make a “cherr” sound.   Ring-billed gulls call “hyah hyah.”  Herring gulls have a longer call that sounds like “ow ow ow keekeekee kyow kyow.”   Lesser black-backed gulls make the same sound but in a lower pitch.  Great black-backed gulls make a low “cowp cowp cowp” sound.  My favorites, laughing gulls, make a high pitched call that sounds like laughing.  In Birds Singing Other Birds’ Songs, humans voice the linguistic interpretations of bird sounds.  In a variety of creative ways, these sounds are merged with a corresponding visual image of a bird.  In each image, the analogous phonemes are represented.

When I first watched and listened to this piece, I was disappointed.  I have heard people mimic bird calls with accuracy, and that is what I was expecting.  Although the introduction stated otherwise, I still wanted the shape of each bird to accurately correspond to the sound it makes. But it seems that Marie Mencia had something else in mind.  Clearly, Mencia wanted the emphasis to be on the human voiced phonemes and morphemes not the accuracy of the birds, thus the difference between what I was expecting and what I experienced.  The piece is interesting and to some degree thought provoking.  I love nature and couldn’t help but think of other animal sounds that could be transcribed, like the sounds made by marine mammals.  Although it would be challenging to transcribe whistles, they could be scored like music.  The click is already a recognized phoneme.  The songs of whales and other marine mammals have been recorded and graphed.  Another idea would be to create a system of applying consonants and vowels (or other symbols) to points on the graph that would translate into a language code.  

For me, Birds Singing Other Birds’ Songs is a more enjoyable engagement than many of the other works we have explored. I appreciate the fact that Mencia assigns control of the experience to the user.  The ability to select the entrance and exit of the birds with a stop and start button allows each user to experience the piece in her own way.  For me, this empowerment circumvents the frustration and agitation that result from a bombardment of overstimulation that cannot be regulated or controlled.  True to nature, Mencia does not force her users into sensory overload.  She presents the work and politely invites us to participate.  Whether you choose to focus on just one or two birds at a time or invite a cacophony of sounds to enter your sky, Birds Singing Other Birds’ Songs is an enjoyable experience, like a pleasant day outside. 

Just in case anyone is interested, this link is to a page of recorded marine mammal sounds http://www.whoi.edu/science/B/people/kamaral/Sound/MammalHits.html

Since reading our last two assignments in Electronic Literature, I have become more aware of the many ways our contemporary life is interconnected with computer technology.  Hayles talks about that interconnectedness related to the fact that “all communication…is mediated through some kind of digital code.”   That is true, and, in reality, almost every facet of our lives is intertwined with digital code. My new computerized toaster oven has to be programmed in three steps before it will toast or bake.  Gone are the days of just pushing a button or turning a dial. Walking on campus yesterday, I observed the people around me.  Many people I passed were either talking on a phone or listening to an iPod.  Daily, we acquiesce in our coexistence with technology and plug ourselves in.  Although I am not dependent on a cell phone, I do depend on my laptop.  It is my nerve center.  This is where I store and access some of the most important information in my life. Two years ago, I learned how critical my personal computer “nerve center” is to my well-being.  One week before finals and with all of my lecture notes on my hard drive, a power surge damaged my desktop.  I could turn my computer on but could not boot up.  Like a Siamese twin, as my computer lay comatose, I was panic-stricken for my own life.  (The story ends well.  My chivalrous computer geek neighbor was more than happy to flex his techno muscles for me and gallantly retrieved the most important documents from my hard drive.)   The encroachment of technology in our lives is not limited to the machines we choose to touch and hold.  Technology permeates our existence.  Computer chips are embedded in everything from our cars to our pets.

So, it makes sense that our interconnectedness with technology would become reflected in our art.  As we have seen this semester, the way technology is expressed in art is as diverse as the people who create it.  The relationship to the Dada cultural movement has already been made.  And clearly, some of the works we have explored are more abstract while others are more realistic.  As we learned in ARTH 101, the world of art includes expressions that can range from a crucifix in a jar of the artist’s urine to the Mona Lisa.  Not all expressions appeal to everyone.   I find myself drawn to works of art that in some way relate to or express my own life.  My Boyfriend Came Back from the War has been my favorite so far.

My hair is brown.  My hair is free.  My hair has not always been free.  When I was five, I was moved from foster care in Virginia to an orphanage in Washington, D.C.  Immediately, my hair was sheared with an electric clipper.  I was humiliated.  I looked like a boy.  As my humiliation intensified, so did my determination.  One day, my hair would be free.   When I was ten, I was moved to a different home.  My first question-“Will you let my hair be free?”  The answer -“Yes.”   With each passing year, my hair grew about six inches.  By the time I was the tenth grade, my hair was below my waist.  My hair was finally free.  My best friend, Jude, had free hair too.  We would meet at her house to iron our hair before we went to school.  The straighter we ironed our hair, the longer our hair appeared to be.  When Jude got her driver’s license, we started making trips to Georgetown to shop the boutiques.  We bought Mexican peasant tops, embroidered with bright colored flowers.  We bought leather purses, boots, and belts, and silver jewelry.  We were so free.  The last time I saw Jude, her hair was still long, but she wasn’t free.  I cut my hair five years ago.  My daughter cried.  I am still free.

Until this class, I thought that Choose Your Own Adventure books were simple children’s stories, and I thought that comics/cartoons were the bottom rung of the graphic arts ladder.   Mapping our books convinced me of the complexity of ergodic texts, and reading Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics has convinced me that comics are multifarious.

McCloud gives relevant examples of the development of comics from the earliest forms, like the record keeping symbols of the Sumerians, and explains how these symbols evolved into language.  I didn’t realize that many common symbols actually originated in comics, like @#?!  (That one comes in handy on a bad day!), sounds – like ssss and zzzz, as well as commonly recognized representations of facial expressions and gestures.  The symbols of comics are an evolved and evolving language.  Further, it is significant that the language of comics is unique to the culture of the artist(s).  To demonstrate the differences, McCloud gives examples of Japanese comics.  He attributes the differences to the fact that Japanese comics developed in isolation from the West.  This fact is true of other art forms as well.  (Now, my recall of Art 101 is coming in handy!)  This same isolation is evident in the development of perspective.  While the West was developing techniques such as foreshortening and atmospheric perspective, Asia developed isometric perspective. Although not as realistic, this perspective is useful and still applied to video games.

I like McCloud’s discussion of the versatility of line.  This visual element is as significant to comics as any other art form.  Directional lines – implying movement, stabilizing horizontal lines, assertive vertical lines, dynamic diagonal lines, and implied lines are powerful tools in any artist’s hand.  As McCloud points out, line is so much more than visual.  Throughout time, line has evoked an emotional response.  McCloud’s examples of Expressionism (“the unseen world making itself visible”), such as Munch’s Scream and Van Gogh’s Portrait, demonstrate the power of line to evoke a strong emotional response.  According to McCloud, comics merge time and space, and unite the senses to evoke emotional and sensual responses.  This sounds like a powerful medium to me.  Then, I started thinking about comics in my life, my world.  Has any comic ever evoked an emotional response from me?   The answer is yes.  For years, my favorite comic strip was B.C.  I looked forward to reading it every Sunday in the Washington Post.  After so many years of enjoying Johnny Hart’s* creation, I was shocked when the Washington Post banned B.C. from the Sunday comic section.  The reason?  Johnny Hart’s use of Christian symbols on Palm Sunday, Easter Sunday, and Christmas.  So, McCloud’s assertion is correct.  Paper and ink, arranged in rectangular panels, with added symbols, splashed with a little color, evoked the ire of the editorial staff of the Washington Post. Comics are powerhouses, wrapped in the guise of simple ink drawings, word balloons, and symbols.  In reality, not so simple after all.

 *Johnny Hart died in April last year.

Based on my experience with Afternoon and reflecting back to our maps, unlike the arborescent pattern of Choose Your Own Adventure books, Afternoon has a network structure.  In my opinion, this is where some cohesion and clarity are lost.  My first experience with Afternoon, I clicked words that interested me.  The second time, I used the return key.  The experiences were totally different; however, I read some of the same links using both methods.  This tells me that the paths are uni- or bidirectional.  The third time, I used the return key again but experienced a different sequence of pages.  Most, I had not seen before.  Now, I’m wondering if the program was purposely designed, like Hegirascope, to create a new narrative path with each experience.  

Regardless of how I navigate Afternoon, aspects of the text are confusing.  I have had difficulty identifying the changing narrator.  I also find it difficult to sort out the complex and entangled relationship(s) of Lolly, Nausicaa, Lisa, Peter, and Wert.  Also confusing is the fact that most of the pages are peppered with pronouns but contain few or no antecedents.  Who is “he” or “him?”  Who is “she” or “her?”  Who is “I?” I am also confused by incorrect grammar – wondering if it is deliberate and has meaning or if it is a mistake?  Ex.  The page “Lovers”: “…sometimes weeping for all the guilt her feels…”

The pages relating to Dataquest puzzle me as well.  For example, the page “Dream Pools”:  Dataquest is compared to sex that uses – as in prostitution.  Is this a figurative description of the workers and their relationship to the company, or is the speaker (Nausicaa?) really turning “tricks?”  Why is Dataquest important to the narrative? 

 I am intrigued by the name Werther.  Is Joyce’s choice of this name deliberate in relationship to Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther?   Are the entries/pages of Afternoon supposed to be a collage of entries from the perspectives of all of the characters, a multi-faceted epistolary of sorts but not recognizable as letters?   Or is there even such a thing?  Reading Afternoon, I have more questions than answers. 

At this moment, I have a renewed appreciation for Tolstoy, and nothing seems more appealing to me than curling up in my favorite chair with Anna Karenina.

The one aspect I learned from my map that astonished me is the fact that well over 100 distinct, complete, coherent narratives can be created from a text that consists of only 122 pages. This is astounding. At first glance Choose Your Own Adventure Books appear to be simple children’s books. But they aren’t simple at all. Their design is quite complex.