Author: rburgos1

While not one of my favorites Implementation did seem to stand out above the other pieces we have examined through out the semester. It stood out mostly because the project could stand alone without any use of electronics. The gorilla sticker attack the creators did on the city could easily be looked at as a piece of literature or art all alone. This differs from the other pieces because without computers or technology they wouldn’t exist. They relied completely on the use of technology to get a message or theme across. Implementation used computers to enhance its project. It was used more as tool to help to viewer see the bigger story but did not solely rely on it to get its purpose across.

This just seemed to be unique in comparison to things like electronic poetry or interactive fiction. It just made me start thinking about where things are going in or could possibly go in the future. I can remember being in elementary school and needing to know the how to read card catalogs to find a book, now all you need to do is type in a title into a search engine and there you have it. I just think it’s funny that I found a project where word was on paper to be unique. Before this class I know I wouldn’t have had that mentality, it would’ve been the other way around. It very interesting to see how the written word has progressed and changed with time but has also stayed true to its roots. I think Implementation was a great example of combing new and old ways of telling a story.

i found some of the compalints interesting while reading the blogs on Young-Hae Chang’s hypertexts. One that really stuck out was when somone said it “made me feel stressed and anxious.” this comment was said as a negative towards the piece. but i found this interesting becuase i feel it shows how well the piece works. the mixture of the fast paced words and music are suppose to convey these feelings to the viewer. I think Young-Hae Chang wants you to feel stressed and anxious so you can be put in the place of the characters in “bust down the doors.”

the hypertext works on many levels and the combination of text, pace and music all help to accomplish this effect. if you were to just read the peice as a book it would be completely different. your emotional reaction to it would be lacking because you would be reading the text at your own pace and you would set your own tone to it. But by taking this power away from the reader and by adding things like music and flashing text the power is given to the machine and your emotional reaction to it is elavated, making you feel stressed and anxious. i just thought it interesting that what someone didn’t like aobut the piece was what the creator wanted the person to get from it.

I remember pumping my legs as hard as could, the pedals giving me resistance as the tires worked their way through the soft dirt. I knew as I hit the jump that I didn’t have enough speed the clear the gap. I closed my eyes and just prepared for the inevitable impact that was sure to come. I felt my front tire hit the landing ramp and body being tossed over the handlebars. I turned my head slightly and felt my head smack into the now not so soft dirt. I laid there in the ground for minute feeling the pain building slowly through my body, each nerve beginning to be lit by flames. I then felt liquid running down my face. I can’t start to cry, I thought, people are watching. I felt a need to hold back these tears that were running down my face to prove I was strong. But they weren’t tears. The liquid was too thick and warm to be tears. I lifted my face up and rubbed my eyes. I looked at my hands and saw a thick paste of blood and dirt in my hands. The side of my head had a hit a rock and split my scalp open. I needed to stitches to stop the bleeding. To this day whenever I get my haircut there is a small part of my head that doesn’t grow hair. People usually poke fun because they think its do to a bad barber getting a little to close with the clippers. It’s always a nice conversation piece and a good reminder to always wear a helmet.

I went back and forth on my feeling for the Bomar Gene. As I interacted with it I for the most part liked it a lot. I found the stories to be very interesting and fun to read. They reminded me of things like Unsolved Mysteries and Ripley’s believe it or not.But as much enjoyment that I got from the readings I got almost the exact opposite emotion from the games that supposedly correlated with them. I wanted so badly for the games to give the stories more meaning or to add something more to them. But the more I played with them I only found myself getting frustrated with them.
It wasn’t till our class discussion that I felt like I got something from Jason Nelson’s piece. As we all talked about it and what we thought of it, I began to rack my brain and came up with a conclusion that I was satisfied with. Most of the stories in the “Bomar Gene” hint that these characters had an almost superpower, an ability to do something no one else could because of a certain gene. This got me thinking that maybe we all have a special gene. It may not be as distinctive as the ones Nelson plays with but maybe it’s something as small as the impression we get from his work. Maybe we have a certain gene that will change the way we look at the “Bomar Gene” or interact with it. It just got me thinking of how everyone is different and everyone’s opinions of things can be different and maybe it can be correlated to our genes. This concept also got me thinking back to Michael Joyce’s afternoon and his idea on matching minds. Most of these hypertexts we interact with are hard to explain to say the least. You could spend hours interacting with them and never come to the conclusion the creator originally aimed for. But I feel like that’s ok. I feel like the creators put this art out at a halfway mark between them and you. It is then our job to meet them halfway. We do this by interacting with their work and attempting to get some message, meaning or life lesson from it. I think that as long as we take something from their work, whatever it maybe, that as artist they have succeeded. And I think everyone, creators, and interactors can be content with that.

I have very mixed emotions about afternoon. It’s almost like a love hate relationship if I must say. I went into Afternoon with a very open mind and no expectations. I started by reading the directions and was very intrigued about what the writer had to say. I liked the part especially when he said “the lack of clear signals isn’t an attempt to vex you rather an invitation to read either inquisitively or playfully and also at depth.” I liked these options going into the game. I felt like it was something I could enjoy at many levels and would get back from it the amount of work I put in. And so began the story…
The first thing I felt before I even started to read was, this is it? No color? No pictures? Boring! But then I began to read and realized you didn’t need any of those. Joyce writes beautifully, appealing to the readers senses. It was like reading poetry. There were descriptions about what you could see, what was heard. I could paint a visual image of the surroundings in my head. I then began to click words. I clicked words that sparked the most emotion to me while reading. I tried to pick words that I felt that particular page focused on the most. The words I choose usually lead me to a page that correlated to the words I choose. For example on the first go around I clicked the word secret and It lead me to a page asking if “I was sleeping with her” another time on a completely different page I clicked on the word jealous and it asked me the same question. This lead me to believe I was the right track and I had found a sort of pattern. But the more times I played the more I seemed to lose interest. I wanted there to be consistency. I wanted to know all of one part of the story before I was told about another. And this is where the hate came in.
I loved Joyce’s writing and the stories seemed interesting. I even liked the concept of clicking whatever words I liked. I just felt like there wasn’t enough consistency. I got frustrated when I had to start at the beginning again. It’s like we talked about in class I wanted closure and I never really felt like I got that. At the same time I think my frustration mirrors some of the emotions the character in the game feels and I think Joyce consciously did this. There’s one line in the game that made me think this and it said “I do know what you feel, you make some choices, you begin to see a pattern, and you want to give yourself into believing despite the machine.” I think this is how I felt. I thought I was getting somewhere, finding a pattern, and then it started all over again. And this brought me back to what Joyce said in the directions matching minds’. I felt like I had made a connection with something in the game that I had matched my mind and a specific emotion with the character. Maybe I was reading to inquisitively or at depth but that’s what I got from Afternoon. And I think that’s ok. I think Joyce invites to you to play this game and take what you want out of it. I think it’s an individual experience and everyone’s understanding will be different. Whatever you get out of it depends on you, either way it’s not a bad way to kill an afternoon.

This was my first interaction with interactive fiction. Before two days ago i didn’t even know what it was. But after playing around with it for a little awhile ive come to the conlcusion i could of probably lived my life completely fine without it. it seems to be stuck in the middle of a CYOA book and a video game but its not nearly as fun as the two. its to slow paced to be as fun as a game because half the time the computer didn’t recognize my commands leading me to become frustrated. and frustration isn’t my idea of a good time. Then its similar to CYOA book but theres more work involved. There are already a few set paths i going to have to take. but instead of being told what my chioces are i have to narrow them down by typing North, south, east and west. If i can’t go south or west just tell me my choices are north and east. Don’t make me waste time pushing keys for no reason. On the flip side all this work and frustration did leave me with a sense of accomplishement when all was said and done. I felt like i worked hard to get to the ending and getting there was rewarding. i do feel, however, i worked a little to hard to get there. maybe what they should do is have different levels of interactive fiction. Like youth, young adult, and adult. that way people like me can get the benefits of interactive fiction without as much work.

The mapping process crystallized two things for me. The first is that it really showed how lengthy and complex the CYOA books can be. Seeing all the paths and decisions you as reader can take was quite amazing. Secondly it showed me that there was no real coloration between the choices you make and the conclusion. Like if you pick to not do something every time that the outcome will be the same. It was disappointing to find that there is no strategy to have good endings.