Tag: confused

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.

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.

Thoughts on Hegirascope

I have to say that my experience with Hegirascope was confusing.  The only comparison I could come up with was reading anything by Kurt Vonnegut or Douglas Adams’s Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series.  My brain is not wired to process things that don’t seem to connect to one another directly.

The parts of Hegirascope that I explored seemed to all contain snippets of either a scene from a story or a newspaper article.  None of the links that I pressed seemed to correspond with the text it leads to in Hegirascope.  I think that may have something to do with the confusion I felt while experiencing Hegirascope.  Expecting one thing and getting something else.

I did use the back button – a lot!  I am no speed reader, so 30 seconds was just not enough time for me to parse what was written on the page, much less make a choice on where to go next.  I did like the “choose your own adventure” aspect of Hegirascope.  It brought back memories of that kind of book I used to read when I was younger.

While I appreciate the effort it took to create Hegirascope, I’m afraid it is beyond my ability to comprehend its meaning.  Perhaps that will change with discussion in class.

Jabberwocky as art

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.