Tag: electronic literature

Electronic Literature, Birds and The Jew’s Daughter

Electronic Literature, pp. 71-85

I have to admit most of the regular English-related books we read on theory can sometimes be dry and boring but this one never fails to impress. Perhaps because it discusses a topic I like to talk about, computers and technology—then how they intertwine with electronic text. The fundamental idea of this reading appears to be one can no longer judge the text alone by itself but instead, one must take into account the technological aspect of the work itself. In terms of what algorithms are used, how are they employed in a particular work, are more advanced genetic algorithms in use or is it a simple work that has hard coded entries, that is, entries that do not change no matter how many times you traverse through a particular work.

Marcia Mencia, Birds Singing Other Birds’ Songs (also on E-Lit CD)

What I liked about this piece is it details how it was made, gives you a little history behind it and it comes with instructions. By the time bird is almost off of the screen you can just about read the text; however, by that time you lose much of what is being said, for the first option. The second option sounds like a bunch of kittens or mice, just as you have the word in place it blows up again. The third option shows a zoom-in and zoom-out of a bird figure “chip chuck.” Traversing the remaining numbers concurrently there are birds flying all over with different patterns that display different symbols, I am not sure what to make of this piece other than artistically its interesting but not sure what to take out of it as a whole.

Judd Morrissey, The Jew’s Daughter (also on E-Lit CD)

Note, requires PC/Mac to run this one. So I boot up my other computer to view this work. I must point out, off the bat its not very user-friendly no obvious way to quit, although Alt-F4 worked and closed the work, so once I had that down I investigated the work further. Correction, later on you are presented with “close” at the bottom right corner, once you dive into the work. As I did the reading before experimenting with this piece, I can foresee and agree with the author’s comments in relation to this work. You have to read, re-read and remember what you read in order to see what changed and how it affects the story. Slide 31 was a bit interesting, it slowly mimics the typing of the sentence over and over again “She had laid her head on the tracks and the train cut cleanly through her neck.” I had been navigating this text for awhile even trying to change the page to 200 or 300 but it seems to go on forever, does this piece end? Reading everything on a single page is quite a different approach to what we are typically accustomed to; however, I prefer moving from page to page, even if it were the same format, I think its probably because that is what I am used to and this goes out with that idea altogether.

“afternoon,” the concept of closure and Joyce’s notions of hypertext

It was not simply the lack of multimedia present in “afternoon,” as opposed to that in “Hegirascope” which I found somewhat irritating while reading “afternoon.” Yes, I found it bothersome that the screen was comprised largely of white space with some black text at the top and there was very little to aesthetically stimulate the reader. However, unlike in other hypertexts we have read, I found myself thinking more and more about “closure” and realizing that there were several fragments of “afternoon” which I found to be very eloquent, provocative, and led me to want to read into the particular fragment more. In general, this did not seem possible, as the reader chooses to focus on a specific word or link that leads to another fragment or simply press the return key, from whence the reader is thrown into the proverbial cold water of attempting to decipher a new text.

Relatively early on, I resigned myself to the fact that I would have some level of difficulty understanding the various voices, narrators, ‘he’s and ‘she’s, as well as the relationships between the characters. My attempts proved futile, even after exploring the text for extended periods of time, and even after returning to the text following a break from it. Nonetheless, I found much of the dialogue intriguing, as well as the narrator’s descriptions of places. [4 what I see] paints a picture of glinting glass where, ostensibly, a car accident occurred. I am left with the image of gurneys leading up to a place where bodies lay, and then, wanting to know more, I am inevitably swept away into other dimensions of “afternoon.”

While there were moments when I felt connections between story fragments, they were few and far between. Some of these threads lead to “endings,” but they are cliff-hanger endings, such as [I call], in which the narrator takes a pill and calls Lolly. One cannot enter the return key any longer. I can still navigate away from the page by clicking on the links button, but it does not alleviate the tension many of these fragments precipitated for me.

I’d rather not argue whether or not “closure” factors into “afternoon” so much as it simply provided an unsatisfactory reading experience for me in that I wanted to know more about several things and find a sense of resolve somewhere in the story. One of the speakers in [*me] asserts that “I’m not sure that I have a story,” which I found interesting. It led me to deeper questions about the text and what Joyce’s intentions in creating it were. In the interview provided in the instructions, Joyce mentions the “music of the word within our story spaces.” Given the interesting dynamics between the speakers and the diligent care evidently used in word choices, the concept of the “music” of the text certainly resonated with me. The music of the text in “afternoon,” I felt, was key to its value, at least in my interpretation of reading through it.

Additionally, Joyce refers to the transcendental nature of hypertext as opposed to traditional print text. Although I cannot say I had a “transcendental” experience while reading “afternoon,” I can understand why one might, perhaps, in that one explores a completely new set of pathways that don’t resemble the linear paths of print texts. It is a structural maze within which one can get lost in a way that may be satisfying for some.

Ultimately, after pondering the idea of “closure” as it pertains to “afternoon,” I heeded my convictions of considering its value as a musical, or lyrical, text. I lingered over well-chosen words and well-written phrases, points of interest and tension, intriguing dialogue, and so on. This greatly helped me to more deeply appreciate 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.

Coherence / Lialina

Focusing on: Can Coherence Be Saved?

An intriguing read, I tend to agree with the author on most of the points expressed in this article.  One theme that is visited repeatedly throughout the text is the idea of hypertext vs. the standard novel.  Will hypertext replace novels in the future?  Games, hypertext and interactive CD-ROMS are given as examples how they compare to a standard novel but also how they will most likely never replace it.

As stated in the text, most readers “read on” to find out what happens next in a novel, moving linearly, page-by-page, the reader knows what to expect at least in terms of context of a novel.  With hypertext and other forms of electronic literature, you have multiple forms as are outlined in the end of the article.  Some forms of electronic literature as defined by hypertext immersion, go way off, leaving the reader lost, which in turn relegates that piece of literature to academic study and not for the masses.  Spatial immersion would seem a better choice giving the reader some context and control over the text itself.  Followed by emotional immersion, which is described allowing the user to choose different outcomes based upon his or her own personal interests.

I have to concur with the conclusion of this piece.  Currently, people usually books when they want to read a story.  I do not believe interactive textuality is quite there yet in terms of it replacing the book to tell a story.  If history to judge, look at the recent products that are best sellers, such as Amazon’s Kindle or Sony’s eBook Reader, these products demonstrate that people still enjoy the concept of a book that can be read linearly.  The next logic step may be to incorporate a type of interactive textuality within the pages of an electronic book; this would help to bridge the gap between a regular novel and selective interactivity.

Focusing on My Boyfriend Came Back from the War:

In Olia Lialina’s My Boyfriend Came Back from the War, the work itself has more context than Hegirascope in that the text and imagery relate to the title of the work.  However, after the first viewing of this site it appears to follow the hypertext immersion model, as one can traverse multiple paths where one can easily get lost.  Like Hegirascope, some paths lead to empty pages such as the following URLs: http://www.teleportacia.org/war/150.htm and http://www.teleportacia.org/war/152.htm.

Unlike Hegirascope, My Boyfriend Came Back from the War seems to differ in a few ways.  First, the work appears to be black and white throughout the entire piece, where Hegirascope was a mixture of colors.  Hegirascope is a simplistic online text in terms of what one can do with HTML.  With My Boyfriend Came Back from the War, it utilizes the characteristics not found in Hegirascope.  First, it used blinking text, where I do not recall seeing in Hegirascope- although I did not traverse every page on Hegirascope.  Second, it uses images where Hegirascope only used text.  Third is the use of frames in addition to allowing the user to traverse further by clicking in the frames themselves.  Hegirascope was a set of standard HTML pages that one could traverse but it did not take advantage of any advanced HTML features.

Hegirascope took a different approach.  There appears to be some sort of randomness accompanied with an automatic meta re-direct to the next page.  Second, in some cases the text is the same color as the background.  Third, the links around the text also seems to change if the same page is re-visited at a later time.  My Boyfriend Came Back from the War is more interactive and coherent than Hegirascope in that the user controls his or her path through the work itself and need not worry about the page changing automatically.

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?

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.

Welcome to ENGL 343: Textual Media

ENGL 343 is devoted to the critical study of texts produced and consumed in a digital environment, what generically we might call electronic literature.  And what you are reading now is the first entry on the class blog for ENGL 343. If you are a student in ENGL 343, you can register for the blog, something you’ll need to do before the first week of classes is over.

Even if you don’t want to register yet, you can still browse this site, which will play an essential role in our course this semester. Of particular interest to students in ENGL 343 will be the course guidelines and the day-to-day class calendar.