Author: scarterb

I thought I’d post some musings I had about the Textual Media Experiment on here. I think I’ve settled on one idea (finally).  At the outset, I thought about using some of my own writing and creating something along the lines of my body – a wunderkammer.  However, after looking at Implementation, I started thinking about graffiti. One thing led to another, and I started thinking about visual images, images in media, and images in technology. I came to the realization that we’re a culture surrounded by visual images. I then began thinking about photography and how a picture is supposedly worth 100 words. I’m still a bit skeptical, but I thought hey, why not try to prove it? Then, I started thinking about technology and how pervasive technology is in our everyday lives.  With that said, I have decided that I’m going to attempt to document how many times I come into contact with technology over the course of one day (or maybe more).  I’ll have to carry my camera along with me everywhere I go, but I think it’d be interesting to see just how much of my life revolves around technology. I’m not quite sure what medium I’ll be using, but I’m leaning towards creating something in Flash. I’m still not sure if I’ll be adding text to the work, but I’m definitely going to incorporate some music to go along with the images. This idea isn’t set in stone yet, and I’d really appreciate some feedback about what you guys think.

Our discussion about Implementation reminded me of graffiti art, which also seems viral in nature, as it spreads like wild fire in various cities all around the world.  I agree with Krisztian’s argument that Implementation might be more about “how a counter-cultural movement begins and works” than psychological warfare, for instance.  I think one of the main goals behind the project is to get people involved in the story-making process.  The sticker idea encourages a collaborative effort and offers people the opportunity to add their own meanings to the work.  According to Montfort and Rettberg, “We hope that this form of interaction will engender new and unanticipated meanings as Implementation is situated in specific public spaces that resonate with the texts in different ways.”  In other words, the ways in which people choose to situate and photograph the stickers add new meaning to the work.  A passerby who reads a sticker in Philadelphia, for instance, would interpret the text differently than someone reading the same sticker in Tokyo.

At the same time, however, it’s difficult to piece the different texts together and construct a complete, full-blown narrative, just as it’s difficult to form a narrative from various graffiti tags across New York.  I think it’s almost impossible to fully grasp all of the major themes of the work.  However, as we discussed in class, individual stickers can be effective and thought-provoking on their own.  The story begins to take shape as more and more people take action, too.  Although I don’t think that Montfort and Rettberg wanted their audiences to uncover the full narrative, the Internet helps us put some of the pieces together.  If it wasn’t for the Web, we probably wouldn’t know that this project even existed.  With the image archive, we can see stickers popping up all over the world and compare stickers side-by-side.  The same holds true for graffiti art.  You can find archives full of graffiti art online.  Here’s an example: http://www.graffiti.org/.  With the help of the Internet, we can at least form some kind of coherent narrative.

It is clear from the video we watched in class that Jason Nelson is a little bit wacky.  This wackiness surfaces in his works The Bomar Gene and game, game, game and again game.  These works don’t seem to make much sense, and Nelson’s long, drawn-out explanation of The Bomar Gene complicates things even more.  However, I think that’s the point he’s trying to make.  There’s something intriguing about the oddity of his works.  Nelson is not seeking to entertain or satisfy his audience.  In fact, the creepy sound effects and disorienting graphics are meant to dissatisfy and even repulse readers, in a sense.  The Bomar Gene and game, game, game and again game are considered countergames because they do not entertain players and leave them complacent, but they push people out of their comfort zones and force them to think about belief systems or genetic codes, for example, in a different way.  In short, Jason Nelson’s works seek to change the way we approach particular subjects by creating dissatisfaction or displeasure among audiences.  I’m not saying that his works are deeply touching, but I do think that Nelson’s approach raises interesting questions: How are our lives governed by genetic codes?  What does it mean to be an individual?  Why do people need belief systems?   By raising these questions, Nelson forces us to reflect on ourselves and on the world in which we live.

Although it is considered an anti-game, I still do see some gaming aspects in game, game, game and again game.  The idea of death is trivialized in the work, much like it is in conventional mainstream games.  In games like Pac-Man and Super Mario Bros., for instance, the player meets his or her death multiple times throughout gameplay.  However, the player reappears on the screen almost simultaneously and goes right on eating as many dots or collecting as many gold coins as he or she can.  The same can be said for game, game, game and again game.  There isn’t really a penalty for dying.  In this way, the emphasis is placed on the illustrations, the different text and video.

Although I think each new media text we have studied so far has something meaningful to offer, my favorite piece of them all would have to be my body – a wunderkammer.  I became interested in the genre of creative non-fiction in high school, and I’ve always wondered about new ways to present my creative non-fiction writing.  I enjoy reflecting on my past experiences, especially those during my childhood.  I’ve found that creative non-fiction writing can illuminate a lot of things about yourself that you tend to overlook.  This kind of writing also allows you to step out and “make the familiar strange,” as they say.  Creative non-fiction writing can really give you insight on how you position yourself in the world, how you develop relationships with others, or how you view a particular issue.  There’s also a sense of relief when you get it down on paper or, in Shelley Jackson’s case, complete the html code.

I was very impressed with Jackson’s approach in my body, and I’m considering the work as an example for my own media project.  Instead of simply choosing to write a memoir, Jackson chose to create a hypertext in which she recounts her memories.  The fact that each body part is linked and readers can pick and choose which body parts to explore gives readers the sense that they are interacting with the work.  We actually feel as though we are taking a glimpse into Jackson’s life.  Presenting the memories in a digital work makes it more pleasurable for the reader.  If we had to sit down and read a book about Jackson’s life, we would probably find it dull and boring.  Some parts of that book might be dry, and we’d have to sit through all of it, instead of just picking out the parts we enjoy, the parts that we can relate to.  It’s a totally different experience with my body.  Jackson boldly presents readers with a picture drawing of her body, encouraging them to click where they please.  I, personally, gravitated towards the body parts that held some significance in my own life.  (I clicked on the ear first, since I have a funny story about the time I stuck a pearl in my ear.)  In this way, readers can find ways to relate to Jackson’s work. 

I also enjoyed Jackson’s candid tone.  She seems comfortable talking about anything and everything, and at times her story seems fantastical and fabricated.  For me, the line between creative non-fiction and fiction is blurred in the work.  I still found it intruiguing, though.  Also, I thought the sound and illustrations were nice touches.  The drawings were visually stimulating, and they served as a break from the actual text.  In addition to the text, the drawings provide a glimpse into Jackson’s life.  They show readers how Jackson perceives herself and her body.  She mentions drawing in a lot of her anecdotes, so she’s infusing more of herself into the work by including these drawings.  I feel that my body is an up-close-and-personal piece – from the heavy breathing that accompanies the title page to the “wunderkammer” idea that seems to encourage readers to explore this body.  At the same time, however, Jackson seems very inviting.  She wants readers to be able to relate to her work.  Presenting her memories in this way not only reaches a larger audience, but it also encourages readers to reflect on their own experiences.

I thought Arteroids was a great example of a work that teeters on the line of game and art.  It prompted some questions that I think are worth exploring:  Can a game be considered a piece of artwork?  What about game as literature?  That’s the question I keep coming back to.  I think it’s safe to say that Arteroids can be considered both game and art.  What’s art anyway?  If we just consider art to be something that’s visually appealing, Arteroids would definitely be considered art.  Even if we act more as players than readers, we have to admit that we are hypnotized by those words and phrases, which seem to twirl aimlessly in a never ending space.  

If we say that the function of art is to make some sort of commentary on a particular issue, Arteroids would still be considered art.  As Professor Sample pointed out in class, Arteroids illustrates the fragility of language.  It plays on some of the same ideas as Neil Hennessey’s JABBER: The Jabberwocky Engine.  If you think about it, these two works comment on the arbitrariness of the English language.  The phrases in Arteroids are free flowing.  This free movement symbolizes the looseness of words.  By this I mean that their meanings are very loose, as interpretations vary with each player or reader.  As you get more and more wrapped up in the gameplay, you start to notice that the words don’t mean very much.  You just want to destroy as many as you can with precision and accuracy.  The message comes with playing the game.  The fact that Arteroids comes in game form fits in with the theme.  In essence, Jim Andrews is trivializing the English language by making it into a game.  Andrews is saying that words don’t mean much at all.  Words are merely representations of concrete things.

I can only describe the process of going out and getting my first tattoo as awkward.  I initially wanted it above my right hip bone, but the tattoo artist suggusted that I place it lower, so the tattoo wouldn’t stretch out if I ever would decide to have children in the future.  His reasoning sounded logical to me, so I agreed. To be honest, however, having children was the last thing on my mind at that moment.  I had to unbutton my jeans and expose my underwear, which was a little embarassing. After all, I was showing my underwear to some random guy that I had met just a few moments ago.  He was like a dirty roach moving in on my personal space with every vibration of the needle, although I had no one else to blame but myself. 

It’s funny, because although the process was exposing, the tattoo wouldn’t be visible to anyone else but me, and that’s the way I wanted it. The only thing that mattered was that it held some meaning for me.

Although I’m not an avid comic book reader, I really enjoyed reading Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics: An Invisible Art.  I thought it was a smart idea to write the book in the form of a comic, instead of feeding audiences the material in textbook form.  I think structuring the book as a comic makes the overall experience much more pleasurable for the reader.  Considering the fact that McCloud has created a comic book about comics,  it’s no surprise that I often found myself reading the material and then unconsciously applying it to my own reading.  However, McCloud does make it a point to remind us that we are in fact reading a comic, forcing us to notice what’s happening and what tools are at work.  I also enjoyed McCloud’s lively, conversational tone.  It makes the book even more animated and fun to read. 

My favorite chapter so far was Chapter Two, in which McCloud talks about icons — Why do creators use pictures that are representative of the “real thing” instead of just using realistic images?  Why do icons appeal to us?   McCloud suggests, “We humans are a self-centered race.  We see ourselves in everything.  We assign identities and emotions where none exist.  And we make the world over in our image” (32-3).  So very true.  We make up a culture that revolves around symbols and icons, and we often attach personalities to inanimate objects like our cars, our clothes and even our iPods.  After all, these objects are symbols for our identities.  In short, comic creators use iconic images so it’s easier for readers to see themselves as the characters in the comics.

I also thought McCloud’s discussion of “closure” was quite interesting.  I think he’s right when he says that we often observe parts and perceive them as a whole.  We don’t have to see something to know that it’s there.  McCloud then goes on to discuss the “gutter,” or the empty space between panels.  He notes that “here in the limbo of the gutter, human imagination takes two separate images and transforms them into a single idea” (66).  In other words, readers fill in the gaps using their own imagination.  In this sense, interactivity is inherent in comic books.  This made me think about the different hypertexts we’ve looked at in class.  When “reading” these hypertexts, the reader must fill in the blanks, much like he or she does when reading a comic book.  But I’m skeptical of the term “closure” to describe this phenomenon.  Readers might be making mental connections between images, but do they really achieve a sense of closure?

I can relate to some of the frustrations about afternoon, a story not having a clear story line.  Some pages of the so-called “story” don’t always relate to subsequent pages, and this caused me to feel a little bit stumped while I was reading.  I would say that afternoon doesn’t fufill our need or desire for closure, but I do think that this was Michael Joyce’s intention.  The work raises a lot of questions for the reader – something I think all enjoyable texts do.  It’s ironic, however, that although we desire closure, we are also intrigued by ambiguity and uncertainty.  As readers, we like to ask questions about the larger meanings behind a work.  What is the writer doing here?  How does he or she do it?   What is the significance of this particular character, object or scene?  How does this apply to the real world?   There’s something appealing about a text that leaves readers on the edges of their seats and gives them the feeling that they want more.  Just as afternoon doesn’t have a clear story line, our lives don’t follow a predetermined path.  Our life experiences are often scattered and disconnected and leave us feeling baffled, like afternoon does.  This is perhaps why the hypertext appeals to us and why we can identify with Peter’s character, who doesn’t seem so stable.

So one thing that intrigued me while I was perusing afternoon was the different references to tigers.  The character of Nausicaa mentions them when she reflects on a businessman she once met in India who “kept white tigers in a chrome steel cage surrounded by orchids.  Afternoons his servants would walk them through the gardens on long leashes.”  Nausicaa then recounts her dreams of the “white tigers in the cool garden.  [She] would think of them stretching their flanks, their paws like velvet across the cool stones of the garden paths, their tongues slowly lapping the curved surface of the gold radio.”  Another reference to tigers comes when Peter describes the humidity – “Four full days now it has crouched over us, the humidity like the exhalation of tigers, scratch of tough leather across the piss damp concrete.”  I thought the juxtaposition of hard and soft was interesting here.  By this I mean that when I usually think of tigers, I think of them as hard, aggressive animals.  The mention of the “chrome steel cage” also evokes the idea of hardness for me.  On the other hand, the mentions of “orchids,” “long leashes,” “dreams” and “velvet” evoke the idea of softness.  It’s an unlikely combination, and I’m not quite sure what the meaning  behind it is.  However, I think the releasing of the tigers from the cage and into the garden might be symbolic of Peter’s unraveling or unpacking of memories that might reveal that he did in fact witness his son’s death.

So, yeah.  I’m still trying to wrap my head around it.  The big debate concerning interactive fiction – story, game or both?  I think Photopia could be considered both story and game, because it uses both narrative elements and interactivity.  However, I would argue that Photopia is leaning more towards being a story than a game.    Photopia  is a story about a girl named Alley.  You can think of the colors as the glue or “narrative arc” that holds everything together.  It is interactive in the sense that the user assumes different roles as the story progresses.  You become Alley’s mom, Alley’s father, even the boy who asks Alley to the school dance.  The point of view shifts and changes, but that’s something that can happen in a narrative too.  Photopia is also interactive in the sense that the user has to connect the dots, but the story ultimately remains the same.  In other words, the user cannot change the outcome of the story. 

So, I went into Photopia searching for this “big secret.”  I went through it, waiting, waiting, waiting… and nothing.  My big revelation didn’t come at the end, like I was expecting, but it came in the middle, a little bit towards the end.  I didn’t even notice it until after I was finished.  I think after you’ve gone through Photopia once, you should go through it a second time.  All of the pieces seem to fall into place after that.  Anyway, I think telling the story in the form of an interactive fiction piece definitely makes the reader or player think outside the box.  The fact that you assume these different roles means that you can look at the story from a variety of perspectives.  In this way, the text engages the user.  It keeps us interested.  It’s just a bit frustrating when you can’t get the story to progress.

While mapping my CYOA book, I realized how rich it is with different narrative paths.  The map gives the reader the impression that he has a lot of room to wander and explore.  Although there are several different paths to take, however, the map also illustrates the limiting aspects of the book.  The branches in the map are independent of each other.  In other words, one branch leads to a unique narrative path, another branch leads to a different narrative path, and so on and so forth.  The reader has only some control over how the narrative unravels.  The reader can choose the path he or she takes, but where the path leads never changes.  In other words, the reader doesn’t have the option of going back to the decision point once the narrative has ended.

My first impression of Olia Lialina’s My Boyfriend Came Back from the War was that it was similar to Hegirascope in that both hypertexts are a bit scattered and disjointed.  As interactive readers, we form our own meanings and interpretations about these works, meanings that are formed through the different experiences we might have, or rather, the different paths we choose to take.  But it gets more complicated than that.  If we control the order in which the texts and images appear on the screen, are we molding Lialina’s story and thus making our own stories out of it?  Or, is the story the same although it can be read in a different order every time?  I’d say we uncover bits and pieces of Lialina’s story as we go through and click on different links and images.  We “fill in the blanks,” if you will, wherever the blanks need filling.  This is Lialina’s story and nobody else’s story.  What can be pulled from the hypertext, on the other hand, depends on the reader. 

As readers, we often approach stories with the expectation that there will be a back story.  In the case of MBCBFTW, there is no back story – We’re just thrown right into the mix.  Therefore, we approach the hypertext with our own back stories, stories that affect how we interpret Lialina’s own personal narrative.  What really happened while her boyfriend was at war?  Did she cheat on him with her neighbor?  Who knows.  We also approach stories expecting them to have a clear point of view.  In MBCBFTW, however, the point of view is not clear.  Is this a dialogue between two people?  Are these the innermost thoughts of two different people?  Just one person?  If so, who?  You can see that the work raises a lot of questions. (I have a lot of blanks to fill in.) 

The format of the hypertext reminded me of a puzzle.  If you click and follow the links in a particular frame all the way through, you’re left with an empty frame.  This could be a representation of the work itself.  Although you feel like you’ve accomplished something when there is nothing left to click, like you’ve completed that part of the story, you’re still left with just a bunch of empty boxes in the end.  The work leaves you without a sense of closure. 

I agree that the images help in establishing a sort of dark theme, as someone mentioned below.  The images also offer readers even more opportunities to create their own meanings or form their own assumptions about the story.  That’s actually what I thought of when I saw the image of the window – the work is a metaphorical window of opportunity that we have to open.