On the surface Jabberwocky seems quite meaningless; it is literally a machine that generates jibberish. As someone who does not have the technical saavy to make the software needed to produce such a machine, I can appreciate the technical know-how involved. To create this generator involves quite a lot of rules and possibilitiesin the encryption, but the outcome is meaningless. The words in the output are nonsensical and useless, and although a few real words are mixed in, a reasonable person would find this generator random and stupid. Looking deeper at the representational meaning, I see how this could be seen as art. In this new, “textual media” forum, I see the Jabberwocky as a piece that could be seen in an art exhibit at a museum. Having read the biography of the creator, I realize that he sees himself as an artist in this new realm and his productions as pieces of art. Just as many pieces of “traditional” art can leave many confused, in the abstract the meanings of the piece can be endless.
This brings me to the evocative meaning; I don’t see any larger politcal statement being made, but simply a playfulness formatted in a sophisticated way. I imagine young children, who are far more computer literate than I was at their age, use the output from Jabberwocky as a code for a secret language. Perhaps Jabberwocky is a statement on the state of society as a whole, and its future direction. If kids resort to a computer generated machine to come up with a secret language, what does that say about their level of imagination? Sure they are well versed enough in computers to find and use the Jabberwocky, but it certainly takes the fun out of sitting around with your siblings and friends, and acting silly and goofy while making up words.
Category: Reflections
Blog #1 Evocative and Representational Meaning in Jabber
With Jabber, the representational meaning is obvious; this is an engine that signifies the malleability of the English language by using physics to form random letters into strings of nonsense (and less often, real) words that could potentially (read: phonically) see regular use as a member of the language. This word engine speaks to the random and often quizzical nature of our language, as well as exhibiting a type of chemistry, where certain fragments can connect to form a plausible string, while others will disintegrate after a few moments.
What Jabber says evocatively, however, is less concrete. It seems to raise questions about how our language is added to or amended, as when literary characters become adjectives or ideas based on their written personae. Jabber also seems to play on the evolution of language itself, as with slang or colloquialisms we begin to hear and read more and more words that don’t exactly make any sense within their context; how can 30 inch rims be “ballin'” or new sneakers be “fresh” or “dope”. While Jabber affirms this sort of nonsensical usage by providing an engine through which strange words can be formed and documented, it also hinders its own evolution by the creator imposed algorithms that make certain strings of letters impossible to form.
While some form of regulations is necessary, so that all of the letters don’t simply clash together and form some ultimate nonsensical language pangaea, to truly push the evolution of language you need to relax some of the phonetic and pronunciational guidelines. While this might be analogous to expecting a bear to grow wings, i’m of the opinion that the English language has always been about nonsense rules and complexity, so why not throw in a few more.
“X” before “D” and “Z” after “K”, let the Jabber engine lead the way.
Blog #1 Orson Whales
Orson Whales is fairly apparent in its use of multiple media outlets to formulate a representational message. The connection between each media type is held in the popular nineteenth century novel Moby Dick. While the author, Alex Itin, uses the pages of the novel as a backdrop, he also uses another popular form of work connected with this context, a Led Zeplin song with the same title. With the combination of these two forms of media and his own artistic handiwork, Itin tells a tale in which anyone with some sort of cultural knowledge of Moby Dick would be able to correlate. These different artistic forms combine together for a both visual and auditory stimulation of Ahab’s hunt for the great white whale.
The multitude of media outlets are also used to form a more evocative meaning of the text. I believe my long and tiring studies of this novel in previous English courses has led me to formulate an evocative meaning that might be unseen to those that haven’t studied the novel. Itin uses these media forms to interpret the novel from, as it seems to me, Ahab’s own point of view. The pace at which the pages turn and the beat of the song flow together to stress each other while the artistic imagery and the words spoken to the song tend to mimic each other in tone as well. While with the first viewing in class I found myself more in awe over anything else at the way in which these media forms were drawn together, a second viewing gave me a greater sense of connection between the literal and physicalness of the media and its connection with this more interpretive meaning. The overall combination evoked a feeling of urgency, chaos, and a sort of more subtle loneliness. These evocative feelings I believe are meant to portray captain Ahab’s own emotions and flaws as a sailor. The images and sounds help bring to life the inner workings of Captain Ahab’s tragedy as well as provide us with a stimulating mixture of art and media.
Representational vs. Evocative Meaning: Firefly
The textual media example that stuck out to me the most in class was the Firefly example. While Orsen Whale’s piece had sound, and Jabber had an unknown and exciting mystique, Firefly was interactive. This involvement peaked my interest the most, and will be used in to explain the differing dynamic between the representational meaning and the evocative meaning.
Upon first click, the representational meaning draws us, as readers, into Firefly. We are given a poem with 6 different stanzas, each falling on a new page, with a different angled picture of the same memorial as a background. Within each stanza there are 5 lines, and each line is 6 options deep. This allows us to be interactive in that there are thousands and thousands of possible different line choices. Deena Larson has written (in an order that continuously makes sense! ) 180 lines (6 pages x 5 lines/page x 6 lines/line=180) that create so many different themes and endings to the poem. In playing with these line choice combinations, we are able to create a new meaning to Firefly.
The evocative meaning that catches our attention is that each line reads so full of meaning, yet is several words long, and leaves each stanza at one full sentence. Deena Larsen has created a poem that can bring its readers to differing thought process and memories in the simple, yet powerful lines she has written and created. I remember in class I thought Firefly had a lot of meaning even before Professor Sample told us “click on the lines”. Once we had discovered this, the poem had whole new meanings and brought out new feelings, emotions and memories.
I think that Firefly is a great learning example for a textual meaning class because is simple, yet thoughtful and indepth. With so many line choices, a poem that is about death can be read as a poem with hope and love.
Blog 1: click.
My first instinct when I opened the Firefly site, as with the Jabber site, was to just click. My natural instinct in any site like this is to click, explore, and discover as much as I can without actually reading and/or following the instructions. In all honesty, Firefly was kind of boring and I think it’s due to the fact that requires less thought. Jabber possessed more of an everlasting entertainment value even though less clicking was required. The reason behind the process was more complex and it did require some knowledge of the system to understand what was happening. Firefly was boring because it was more self-explanatory and there weren’t as many things flying around the page.
The representational meaning behind Firefly was to provide a text that reads like a create-your-own-story book. It shows us a poem with 5 lines per page and a background picture of a memorial is provided – a different picture/view on each page. Each of these lines is able to switch to another line, once clicked on. It gives us options and depending on the line you switch, you’ll create a different part of the story, which may also mean a different end product.
The evocative meaning behind Firefly was created through the nostaligic feel of the style of text. I know that one person in class mentioned that it reminded her of when she or her children read those type of books when they were younger. Also, this style of changing one part of a work, which leads to a potentially completly different ending is relevant to our everyday life. This meaning that if we were to chose to drive versus ride our bike to school could, it be the deciding factor of our fate. One slip of another driver or the drivee/biker could evolve into a fatal crash ending one person or many people’s lives. Sure, that’s an extreme example, but in reality, one wrong, unanticipated, or irrational thought by any party in a situation could change your life.
Blog 1
The jabberwocky engine presents the most compelling relationship between representational and evocative meaning, due in part to the seemingly limitless combinations of nonsensical words it can string together, and to the inherent incoherence of the English language’s own phonetic rules trying to make sense of these random collisions.
Ostensibly, JABBER entertains with the nonsense it vomits out, demonstrating English phonetics in an energetic and highly repeatable way. But certain implications about language start to surface as the random words start to just barely resemble something you might imagine saying, after violently stubbing your toe or mumbled at the edge of sleep. We encounter the idea that at one time a bunch of glorified apes had to come together to think of a word for “dog” or “elephant” or “banana,” and that however nonsensical the words produced by JABBER look, they’re pretty fun to say.
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.
Orson Whales: Representative vs. Evocative Meaning
I was very transfixed with the Orson Whales piece by Alex Itin. Unlike the other two pieces, it used both visual and auditory representations to engage its audience. Right away, I found myself drawn in by the combination of visual stimulation and the constant transition between the deep voiced narration and the sharp sounds of Led Zeppelin.
Right away we know the Orson Whales piece represents the author’s unique interpretation and perhaps contrast between Moby Dick and the life of Orson Welles. The piece directly depicts the struggles of life, as in the scene with the drunk; i.e. alcoholism. We’re taken thorough a life’s journey, the ups and downs and ins and outs of this individual Itin represents.
Evocatively, the deeper meaning(s) I interpreted from the Whales piece showcased three main themes. First, there is a theme of life and death; what we see, live, and experience throughout our lives. As well as those things we might not see ahead of us. Which leads to the second theme of betrayal. Which I believe traces back to Itin’s interpretation on Welles’ own life. Finally, there is the theme of tragedy which ties in with life,death, and betrayal. All of these themes, I believe, represent what Itin is trying to portray with his Moby Dick/Orson Welles mash up.
~Constance
Blog#1 Orson Whales
The three completely different textual media samples that were shown to us right away were all interesting. Of the three, I found the Orson Whales to be the most interesting and unique. Sure, the Jabber engine could create random words, and the Firefly showed lots of creativity and needed acted on user involvement, but I loved the meshing of the arts of Orson Whales.
To me, the representational meaning of Alex Itin’s “Orson Whales” is to show the ability of a novel to turn to life. By using the actual pages as a canvas on which to tell the story, mixed with sounds and dramatic music, the novel takes a life of its own and forces the reader to be enveloped within story. Rather than just sitting down and reading the book with a freedom to imagine anything, Itin uses multiple drawings to create a sort of movie. I, having never really read the novel of Moby Dick, can get a faint understanding of the book just by watching the pictures. The combination of the voice of Orson Welles as the narrator, clips from his movies, the intricate drawings, and the music of Led Zeplin not only create a new way to tell the tale, but also create a ‘creepy’ vibe in which the tale is told through.
The evocative meaning of Itin’s piece is the intertwining of various forms of art in order to create a new form – textual media. By using multiple clips, such as the voice of Welles, the music of Led Zeplin, his own illustrations, and Melville’s pages, Itin has creatively generated a new way to perceive and read the novel through the fusion of diverse sources. Itin’s mixes the arts to create his own art in which he shows his own personal interpretation of the novel/song/narration. Though the representational meaning of “Orson Whales” clearly shows a combination of sources, the evocative meaning of creativity and personal interpretation become hindered and hidden.
I think the commonality among the three new ‘textual media’ examples we saw we’re creativity and personal interpretation. Creativity allows us to act on our own personal interpretations and beliefs as well as how we feel about certain things, no matter the type of art.
JABBER: Just Nonsense?
First, I’d like to respond to ekimbell’s comment about Orson Whales. I agree that although Orson Whales is unchanging, it does have an element of randomness in the sense that it can be interpreted in several different ways. If the same holds true for “old media,” however, in what ways is Orson Whales considered new media? Does it really just go back to the rather dull definition of new media as cultural objects that make use of digital technologies? I don’t think there’s a clear-cut answer here, but I will take a stab at another definition. It seems to me that new media is a amalgamation of several different media forms. For instance, Orson Whales can be considered literature, art, music, all of the above or a combination of these things. New media challenges our ideas about text, as well as the ways in which we experience and thus interpret text. We read Moby Dick and think about the several different meanings it can possess. As for Orson Whales, we’re not really sure how to read it or if we can even read it at all. Do we read Orson Whales? Do we watch Orson Whales? Or do we listen to Orson Whales? This is what I mean when I say new media challenges the way we experience and interpret text.
In terms of representational meaning, Neil Hennessey’s JABBER: The Jabberwocky Engine is pretty much what it looks like. In short, it’s a bunch of letters that when bonded together, form “nonsense words.” According to Hennessey, “JABBER realises a linguistic chemistry with letters as atoms and words as molecules.” In this way, Hennessey challenges our preconceived notions about language and text and how we interpret them. After all, you usually don’t think about chemistry when talking about letters and words. At face value, JABBER is just like the game of Boggle: You put certain letters together to form certain words. The irony in JABBER, however, is that although the bonds between letters are determined by the likelihood that they would appear alongside each other in the English dictionary, the words those letters form are mere gibberish. This is where evocative meaning comes into play. Could Hennessey be commenting on the arbitrariness of the English language? Well, he’s definitely underlining the concepts of letters and words, concepts that we overlook on a day-to-day basis. But who determines which combinations of letters constitute a word? We are all guilty of throwing our words around or talking gibberish, if you will. As a result, others can misconstrue our intended meanings. Although the nonsense words in JABBER and the gibberish we speak have no true meanings to outsiders, they still have some meaning to us. In Electronic Literature, Katherine Hayles asks, “Is literary quality possible in digital media or is electronic literature demonstrably inferior to the print canon?” (2). I think Hennessey prompts his audience to ask a similar question. JABBER just produces nonsense words, but isn’t there more to it? After all, why are we studying it in the first place?
Orson Whales and Evocation
As Orson Whales guides viewers on a scrambled hunt for the white whale, it carries through different meanings. To watch it straight through gives only a scattered narrative, almost like a fragmented stream of consciousness. Still, anybody familiar with the story of Moby Dick can gather its intentions as a video. As the images cycle and hit their cues along side the music, everything comes together to form the end result. Still, however, the parts of the whole can tell–and no doubt have told–their own stories, from the very literal novel, serving now as a canvas, to the song, setting a tone and a tempo.
But these separate stories are not all told simultaneously, nor do they converge to tell the same story. Instead, they all come together to form a new journey. This is a path that is unchanging in its presentation, but likely not the same for any two viewers. As such, the majority of the video’s impact is, I feel, evocative. To those more familiar with the novel’s plot, this may be a gripping hunt for the white whale, riddled with vengeance and music fueling rage and confusion. to those that haven’t read the work, the video still combines various arts to produce different feelings and interpretations.
Though the work is unchanging, unlike the other two works, it is much the same in that interpretation from one person to another is likely always different. All the various elements come together to form an experience that anyone can access, but that nobody can experience like anybody else. It is the difference between seeing the video, hearing its music, and then stepping back and taking it all in. The cumulative effort of all the different mediums transforms a song, or a book, or a series of paintings into a collaborative work, and takes all the evocative meaning from those works and combines them into an amorphous thought, which can then be molded to any viewers’ tastes.
Blog 1: Evocative vs. Representational meaning – Firefly
I found firefly to be the most interesting of the 3 examples of new media. The piece allows the reader to alter virutally every line of the poem in several ways and still continues to flow in a coherent manner.
The representational meaning of the piece of fairly obvious and quite simple, it is about death, and the experience of dying in the first person; however, the evocative meaning of the piece is what makes it interesting. The ability to alter the lines of the poem shows that one is able to choose nearly infinite paths, and there are an equal amount of choices both in life and in the poem. Another interesting aspect of the poem is the fact that the reader of the poem is unable to alter the lines in the opening page, and the lines in the final page. I believe the author made tens of thousands of choices throughout the poem, but the end page is constant and unchanging for a reason, the idea that one can not change the beginning or end, only the aspects in between, and that both the poem and life can only lead to one common end, death. I think that the author of this poem wants to exemplify the futility of life and everything that we do, because in the end, there is only one end.
Though quite morose and down, this poem raises an interesting, unique concept of life and death to the reader, and the piece can entertain for quite some time.
Blog #1: Representational and Evocative Meanings
The representational meaning of Firefly is quite clear: A mere click of any line will seamlessly fit into an already established somber poem. The interactive process allows the audience to change the direction and tone of the poem. It is up to the viewer to decide the path that the poem takes. One interesting aspect of the representational meaning can be found by seeing how replacing one line with another alters the poem’s meaning. It is also a fun website- I found myself surprised that no matter how many times I clicked, the poem still flowed perfectly, and still amazingly managed to retain its morose qualities.
The evocative meaning of Firefly is more complex. One meaning that came to me was how the site showed how trivial the words we use seem to be, and how arbitrary a process it is when we pick certain words above others to express how we feel. A poem is seen by many as a mode of poetic expression- every word means something and contributes to a delicate message. Firefly brought to mind the idea that these words aren’t in reality so precious. They are, in fact, easily replaceable with another completely different phrase.
The dynamic between the evocative and representational meanings of Firefly is certainly interesting. While the representational meaning shows the viewer’s ability to be interactive and influence the progression of a poem to their heart’s content, the evocative meaning delves a bit deeper and shows how strange it is that we live in a community that values words and evaluates them based on their difficulty and sequence. Firefly‘s evocative meaning makes me consider how cynical and almost silly some facets of the English community have become. While some words compliment each other and flow nicely, there is always another combination that would likely work just as well. Both meanings allowed me to examine and appreciate what Firefly presents, as well as what it means.
Blog #1: Thoughts on JABBER
Overall the three electronic literature pieces (Orson Whales, Firefly, and JABBER: The Jabberwocky Engine) viewed in class were interesting. Of the three I liked JABBER the best.
Its functionality is both simple and complex. Simple in that the user pushes a button and watches passively while the program runs. I can’t imagine the programming needed to actually create JABBER. As we discussed in class the letters are attracted to each other based on whether or not they would appear together in a word. They can also form compound words. However at some point it realizes that some letters, though they are “attracted” to certain letters cannot actually be put together to make a real word and “explode” in fiery red letters.
I think one evocative meaning to JABBER is asking you to think about how words quickly evolve. For instance, years ago “email” would mean nothing to people; it would be considered a nonsense word. Now email is a word used in everyday conversation. But that meaning is just looking at what the program does. Setting aside what it does you also need to take into consideration the visual effect.
When it is first started the letters are moving quickly about the screen and immediately begin to bond. Blue letters representing words or word fragments are quickly formed. Sometimes the blue words combine and green words appear showing compound words. This also happens rapidly, I think it is like what may have happened when we created words like “cowboy” and “something”. They are still moving around bouncing off the sides and other letters that have not yet bonded. And every once in a while the combined letters turn red and “explode”. The exploding words remind me of the explosive nature some words have on people and conversation more so than letters that do not make words.
For me, I think that this new media is just the latest way an artist can use to ask the viewer to look at even the most ordinary thing in a new way.
Blog 1: Focus on Firefly
Overall in comparison:
Jabberwocky relies on random moving bits of language and Orson Whales utilizes an animation-like presentation, both of which seem to be created to entertain or entice the user and try to make the user make sense of the work. However, if the user is not interested, he or she may not delve into it any further. In the assigned reading, it was noted that while electronic literature may be the new and next best thing compared to regular printer literature; it also noted that one must not become misguided in the “media” itself, otherwise the meaning is lost.
Representational meaning:
Firefly is contextually based like a book, the user interface is shaped like a novel and it has arrows to flip to the next page. There are clear instructions directly to the right on how to navigate the piece, giving the work a sense of direction that gives the user an idea of what to expect. While the work itself can express many stories depending upon on the selections of the user, the interface is somewhat normalized compared to Jabberwocky for example.
Evocative meaning:
When the user first loads the page they are presented with a nice daytime picture looking through the woods at a nice patch of grass. Soon thereafter, it becomes very dark and the title is displayed “A tale told in 180 degrees of separation.” The animation change from day to night could represent a degree of separation even before diving further into the content. The other question or detail I ponder is the “fog and green light,” is that represented by the ghostly green image backdrop throughout Firefly? It appears to be décor for the tale itself but is it supposed to represent something or someone? In the very first page that is loaded, the “green fog” appears on the right side. When the user moves to the next page, it is flipped to the left side as if one was looking at the “green fog” in a mirror. When you click to go to the next page, the fog is flipped to the left side. Is this intentional? Is there anything to be gleamed from the change of the fog backdrop throughout the tale and that it stays on the left side all the way to the end and does not change after the first page? The color also stood out to me, nearly all the text and components of the user-interface are some shade of green and “fog and green light” is also stated in the first part of the tale. What is the relationship between the color green with this author? Is there one? Even the text on the side of the page, which is the instructional text, not a part of the work, is also green.