evocative – Page 2 – textual media

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.

“Firefly,” a 180 Degree Turn for Poetry

I respect poetry as I respect every art form, however, lately I haven’t been impressed with what poetry had to offer. Perhaps it’s my fault, since poetry is not what I prefer to read. With that said, I enjoyed reading Deena Larsens’ “Firefly,” because it gave me a different perspective on this literary genre. She had proven to me that a dying art, like poetry, can not only be reinvented by simply allowing the reader to be part of the poem, but that it can also be for everybody – that it does not have to bear the 21^st century’s stigma of elitism. Thus regardless if you like poetry or not, “Firefly” is for you!

“ Firefly” is a six stanza poem that defies traditional poetry by being interactive, and by merging a variety of representational styles. It has five alterable lines in any given stanza placed in front of different pictures. While this poem has a variety of line sequences, it only has seven pictures to go with them. This may sound bad – I certainly thought, “How amazing it would be if there was a different picture for every line variation” – but realizing that such a concept would require over 90,000 pictures, I figured that I should be content with the poem as it’s. After all I failed to find any two lines that produced a nonsense stanza. Don’t believe me? Then knock yourself out Neo, and delve into this Matrix.

Poetry prides itself on being able to create vivid images with a few words, and so I found it interesting that Larsens decided to put pictures behind her words that corresponded to the overall feeling of her original poem. Why did she do it when it lessened the enigma surrounding the conventional evocative meaning of the poem? Perhaps because this digital poem’s evocative meaning comes not from its words, but rather from its digital presentation, and if this presentation tells us anything, then it’s that this poem is not about the author, but it’s about the reader. Larsens freed poetry from its shackles by giving the reader the chance to forgo the task of trying to figure out the poet’s elusive intention – who can know another man’s thoughts anyways – and let the reader decide what the poem is about. In Larsens’ poem, for once, the reader can become the poet.

Blog #1, “Orson Whales”

Tim Hubbard

Representational meaning:

As I watched the work for a second time, the representational meanings seemed to become clearer, even without a large contextual base of knowledge about “Moby Dick.” Of course there are elements from Moby Dick which can be seen and understood as representational meanings within the piece, such as an exhibition of death and revenge.

Additionally, the piece serves as somewhat of a literal example of how art can come to life. Using a base of the actual pages from Moby Dick, the artist superimposes drawings which seem to bring the text to life in a literal way.

As the title would suggest, Orson Welles plays a key role within the piece. As we continue to hear him speak, the artist also gives us a few bits from Orson’s films like Citizen Kane and F for Fake, as well as, the drawn word “Rosebud.” I would like to think that the artist gives tribute to Orson through these bits considering I perceived most of them to be random.

Evocative meaning:

Immediately, I gathered the supreme idea of creation by witnessing forms of media, such as text, film, music, drawing, and spoken word, all combined to form a new type of media. This work serves as a good introduction to “new media” by blatantly utilizing many media forms and transcending the ordinary and sometimes bland way we receive art and/or media. This meaning seems totally isolated from the specific subject material (like Moby Dick), yet still uses it to showcase the total freedom of creation within all forms of media.

By giving us pieces from a variety of media sources which are all related in some way, the viewer can extract his/her own meaning based upon the context in which they watched the piece. For me, it seemed as if the piece was suggesting the all forms of art created by anyone anytime are all the same. By that I mean all art is related regardless of how it is categorized or perceived. It suggests that boundaries cannot exist within art and because of that, all art flows together.

Blog 1: An Introduction to New Media

In class, we were introduced to the concept of New Media. It is a medium in which there are seemingly endless possibilities. What exactly qualifies as New Media, anyway? I mean, you could make the argument it could range from scanning a book in upside down to personal photos. The three examples we were shown today were just the very beginning of the many, many different avenues we will be taken down in the coming weeks.

Perhaps the most fascinating example of what’s to come was Alex Itin’s “Orson Whales”. It was a personification of today’s “mash-up” culture, combining Herman Melville’s masterpiece of a novel “Moby Dick” with original artwork, a dramatic reading (and some drunken liquor commerical outtake soundbytes) from Orson Welles, and a song from arguably the greatest band of all time; Led Zeppelin’s “Moby Dick”. Now, on the surface, this may not sound like the most satisfying experience, but it truly was a sight to behold. The timing of the images shown and the rhythms and speech patterns were synced to perfection and made for an exciting 4 minutes.

This begs the question, what was Itin trying to tell his viewing audience? After all, we naturally make the assumption that all art has at least some meaning behind it, whether it be representational or evocative. Representation meaning is defined as the meaning that the work shows or tells its audience directly. In this instance, I think the message was that art is subjective. Now, it may not sound like much and I may be way off, but I think this piece was his way of showing that you can take elements from many walks of life and throw them together to create something new and, in this case, something special. This piece was a medium for him to showcase how to make art using New Media.

In terms of evocative meaning, I walked away from this wondering about the rights to art. Does he have to credit all the original artists? Is this indeed something new? Sure, the paintings were his, but he was not responsible for either audio recording or the text. That’s what I walked away with, which leads me to believe this qualifies as the evocative meaning obtained from “Orson Whales”.

Jabber: The Jabberwocky Engine, Neil Hennessey – Lynn Golden

Thinking through the representational aspects of Jabber:

When I first visited JABBER: The Jabberwocky Engine in class, frankly – I wasn’t impressed. However, my love of vocabulary, crossword puzzles, and Scrabble urged me to give Neil Hennessey another chance to captivate me. Initiating the Jabberwocky Engine for a second time, surprisingly, changed my perception of Hennessey’s creation. Jabberwocky is a fun textual media experience that gives the user the opportunity to watch randomly bumping letters bond into accepted English language syllables that create new “nonsense words.” An amusing aspect of the Jabberwocky experience is that some “nonsense words” are further combined to create “compound nonsense words.” Hennessey’s presentation can be (if given the chance) a stimulating experience for anyone interested in the construction of words. Through my second encounter with Jabberwocky, I found it to be both informative – related to standard phonetic combinations – and humorous related to the accidental combinations that result in “words.” The randomness of Jabberwocky provides an element of surprise that retains interest. Another dimension is added by the user’s ability to access the list of “words” being formed. This list is a window into the innumerable possible combinations of new words that could be created using this concept and catalyzes thought regarding the similarity of many of the created words to real morphemes. Neil Hennessey’s analogy that letters are to words as atoms are to molecules, clearly explains his intent to present a visual demonstration of what he calls “word chemistry” in the context of the creation or building of words.

Considering my initial impressions of Jabberwocky and contemplating why I wasn’t initially impressed, it struck me that unlike Firefly and Orson Whales, Jabberwocky is not as graphically rich. The introductory frame is a simple black rectangle centered on a doctor’s office blue background. The introduction is crisp, clean, and to the point – a basic explanation with a small simple window that invites the user to “launch!” Certainly, Hennessey was capable of creating a more visually stimulating experience, but he chose to keep the periphery basic. The choice to minimize graphics and sound purposefully focuses the user on the basics of the Jabber experience and analogously – the very basic building blocks of all words – letters. Would aesthetic additions to the graphic or sound experience of Jabber heighten or diminish the experience? My conclusion is that any further graphic or sound enhancements would detract from the intended purpose and experience.

On an evocative level:

Jabberwocky evokes the randomness of language. Although we can trace many morphemes to Latin, through time and the influences of the evolution of culture, language is constantly changing. An example of a recent word creation is infobahn. This word derived from the merger of two concepts – the high speed German Autobahn and the idea of the information superhighway. Thus, the bumping together of letters/words through cultural influence created a new word. When viewing my Jabber word list, I couldn’t help but notice many similarities or inversions of familiar words. These words made me think of other real word inversions, for example – the simple word mop. Why is a mop called a mop and not a pom. Why is a pom-pom called a pom-pom and not a mop-mop. A mop head and a pom-pom are constructed in the same way. Strands of fiber are bound in the center. Of course there is a history behind these words that can be studied and analyzed, but for a common person – it seems like nonsense in much the same way the Jabberwocky Engine first struck me. Another simple word example: tot. A tot can be a toddler or a processed potato food. This does not make any more sense to me than a random Jabber creation. In viewing my Jabber list, I see the word: leggering. This word makes perfect sense to me. This word could be used to describe a person who is sitting with her legs crossed, swinging her top leg up and down – why not just say she is leggering?

It is also plausible for the Jabberwocky Engine to evoke the idea of the colliding/bumping of the letters/words of the languages of the world. As our world continues to become smaller and smaller through advancements in the technologies of travel and communication – cultures and ideologies are gradually blending/assimilating and thus affecting language. Six years ago, I was not familiar with Cinco de Mayo. Five years ago, one of my Latino neighbors started the tradition of a Cinco de Mayo block party. Now, families of Korean, European, Latino, and Chinese descent have formed a new tradition – the Thames Street Cinco De Mayo Block Party. In Jabberville, it might be called the Thamco DeMock Party!

“Orson Whales”: A Chaotic Amalgamation

Collectively, “Orson Whales”, “Jabber”, and “Firefly” are all pieces that can be considered to be forms of “new media”. However, the application of the term “new media” changes with each piece.

“Orson Whales” is a compilation of film, text, audio, and art. When combined, these various artistic mediums create a sort of performance art that is wildly unique. Technology allows them to coexist with one another, and therefore stimulate both the auditory and visual senses. Together, these several types of media extract a multi-sensory reaction from the audience (something that neither illustration nor text can do alone).

This chaotic amalgamation also illustrates the dynamic relationship between representational meaning and evocative meaning. On its own, the representational meaning of the text “Moby Dick” is obvious. The book is easily read on the surface level as a story about a whale. However when Orson Wells’ voice, Led Zeppelin’s lyrics, and Alex Itin’s art are all projected across the visual image of the text, the evocative meaning of the work becomes slightly more difficult to read. The book alone can be analyzed page by page; but analyzing the text, the song, the voiceover, and the art suddenly becomes an unmanageable task put forth by the “new media” compilation piece. Though the representational meaning of the text remains the same (as it has since its inception), the evocative meaning suddenly changes with the inclusion of multiple other interpretations. “Orson Whales” isn’t Orson Wells’ interpretation of the text, nor is it Led Zeppelin’s. Rather, “Orson Whales” is Alex Itin’s own reading of the renowned tale.

By using outside sources to help narrate his vision, Alex Itin brings into question the notion of artistic integrity. Who truly gets the credit? The piece in its present form could not exist without the contributions of Led Zeppelin, Orson Wells, or Herman Melville. Alone, Alex Itin’s illustrations would not be so easily recognizable as a visual reading of “Moby Dick”. Just as “Orson Whales” relies on the interactive relationship between multiple artists, so too do most other forms of “new media”. “New media” depends on the interaction of several different perspectives simply because it has transformed into a means of universal communication in a technological world.

Blog #1: Evocative and Representational Meaning

As a first blog post, I’m a little leery on whether or not I’ll answer the subject correctly, or even remain on subject. As such, I’ll begin with a lot of uncertainty but at least with quite a few things so say.

Evocative and representational meaning. At first, I couldn’t differentiate exactly what was meant by this, but now with about two hours hindsight, I can relate that to the topic. Words and meaning – or overall, language – are subjective and ever-changing. In semesters past, I’ve been assigned to read Shakespeare, novels or poems that all dated from far before the 1900s; and upon reading all of them (or at least most, when it came to crunch time) it was then suddenly the light went on about how much language changes and adapts overtime. With blogging, or the new media-laden world, we’ve once again hit a dynamic crossroads.

Relating all this to the three examples presented in class, each gives a different perspective on the topic of this blog assignment.

For one, as we discussed in class, the “Orson Whales” video was static in that it was unchanging. It can be repeated innumerable times and never, ever change. The only person capable of changing the video would be the author his or herself. But! Despite the medium itself not being capable of change from outside forces, its meaning can forever be argued.

This is the power of literature, regardless of whether or not it’s old media. People have argued the meanings, symbolism and characterization of Herman Melville’s “Moby Dick” for over 150 years. Yet the story itself – it’s text, pages and all its characters and letters – has remained the same (for the sake of argument and not delving into library research, we’ll assume that the novel hasn’t changed significantly overtime from one published or revised edition to another). Other classic novels have gained this notoriety: “The Scarlet Letter,” “Frankenstein,” “Great Expectations,” or even more modern Sci-fi classics such as “Brave New World” continue to appear in academic classrooms for discussion and study. Regardless of what a medium is, it would seem that the meanings of its content can forever change as long as there is a subjective human mind to interpret it and lend opinion.

But about evocative and representational‘s place in this blog – the three new media examples can also be argued for years to come (pending on how long the Internet sticks around in this form) about what they exactly mean, or what the author intended. Perhaps the most dynamic of them all, “Firefly,” can be argued most, simply because an outside user can almost limitlessly rearrange the poem’s order, and therefore conjure a new meaning.

So what did the author of “Firefly” mean to do by presenting the poem is such a format? What is the intended, or representational, meaning behind this new media text? I could argue that it is the last two lines, which read, “for what he has to say / is not for me.” No matter what order a user decides to place all the lines of text, the ending’s last two lines remain the same. Surely, then, the represented meaning of this poem is just as stagnant?

No.

Due to the ability to rearrange the poem as one sees fit, the last two lines are just as subjective as anything else in the poem. The evocative meaning, or what the user decides those two lines mean, are reflected in what text the user decides lead up to that point in the poem’s story. Who is “he?” What is “he” saying? Who is the speaker, “me?” All of that is evoked in the poem the user gets to create. The represented meaning is whatever the author has stashed hidden away.

At the beginning of typing this post, I enable the JABBER window and left it in the background to play. Since then, it’s conjured the words “hoppit,” “eynalarch,” “usetons,” “golizong” and many others. I toy around with the idea of resetting it and seeing whether any of those words will ever repeat themselves.