meaning – textual media

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.

Reflection

My Boyfriend Came Back From the War is a hypertext that allows the viewer to experience an unfolding drama. It uses nonsequential writing so that the reader may experience the drama in different structures depending on which link they choose and in what order they decide to choose them. The hypertext ranges from black and white images to white on black text which one can only assume are pieces of conversation and thoughts from the assumed narrator. The black and whiteness of the hypertext helps enhance a sense of duality throughout the piece, with the narrator switching between phrases of justification and phrases begging for forgiveness. Although there are many orders in which one may read the hypertext, all readers will obtain the same phrases and images with the completion of the hypertext. This limits the reader’s experience with the text in ways that other hypertexts ( Firefly, Hegirascope) do not. I believe this tends to give the hypertext more meaning and prompts more thought than the randomness that many of the other hypertexts have brought us. I found it much easier to form a constructive opinion with this hypertext than with previous ones.

The author takes a subject that almost every generation can identify with, a woman’s time away from the man she loves while he has gone to war. This hypertext is not as abstract as much of the other hypertexts we have studied. The subject does not leave the reader depending upon his or her own interpretation to gather meaning because it is one that has been brought up time and time again, especially in the present day. As a woman I feel it is especially easy to relate to the speaker of the hypertext in her conflict.

My Boyfriend Came Back from the War – Hypertext as Relevant Art

In My Boyfriend Came Back from the War, Olia Lialina merges visual images and narrative to create a realistic mini drama in hypertext. The pages/frames are artwork that could stand alone without any text; the text could stand alone as free form poetry. Lialina’s choice of black and white amplifies the dramatic effect of the work and dually serves to symbolize the tension associated with the words/relationship of the lovers. Although after the third page the reader is offered more choices of links to click, regardless of the order in which they are selected and read, the meaning is the same. Each frame contains a fragment or piece of the narrative. Linear order is not essential to the meaning. This hypertext is representative of Marie-Laure Ryan’s jigsaw-puzzle metaphor. All of the fragments together – visual and text – complete the narrative picture. Unlike the obscure text of Hegirascope’s, the message of My Boyfriend Came Back from the War is clear. Anyone who has experienced the changes that result from long term separation from a lover can identify with this interactive narrative. The fact that the lovers were separated by war adds deeper dimension to the conflict and further magnifies the drama. The sequence of frames moving from simple to more complex and then to nothingness, visually maps the relationship from the boyfriend’s return until nothing is left. This is the first hypertext I have experienced that has emotionally moved me. According to Marie-Laure Ryan, emergent meaning produced through the interaction of the reader with the text that results in an emotional response is called emotional immersion. I am impressed by Lialina’s hypertext and her ability to emotionally connect with me. For me, this hypertext is poignant, relevant, and has redeeming value. My test for good literature: After investing myself and my time, am I a better person? After reading My Boyfriend Came Back from the War, I can honestly say that my time was well spent. Olia Lialina passed my good literature test and has dramatically changed my view of hypertext as relevant art.

“Hegirascope”: Blog #2

In the early twentieth century, a group of artists in Zurich, Switzerland created an art movement by the name of “Dada” that utilized non-sensical imagery to communicate deeply textural and evocative concepts to a devastated and war-torn society. An admirer of this particular movement, I was initially intrigued by the “Hegirascope”. The mere chaos of it resembled the Dada ideology: because nothing in the world makes sense, neither will the art that attempts to reflect it. However if one pursues a further study of Dadaist pieces, they will find that many of the artistic works have a politically charged undertone to their near unrecognizable form. Therefore, members of the Dada sect did rely on some sort of representational meaning in order to portray an intensely evocative theory on the state of the world after World War I. When I think of “Hegirascope” in these terms, it suddenly doesn’t fit in at all. Although it can be argued that each segment is somewhat representational, the entire piece functions as a disjointed, abstract draft containing a vast variety of miniature plots that dream of assembling into an extended narrative.

Upon closer examination, the “Hegirascope” functioned as a sort of stream of consciousness. At each screen we abandon the center text when we wander to a particular link that had succeeded in distracting us from the central text. In an interesting comparison, Ryan says the text gave her the “impression of a loose collection of drafts and writing samples”. Like Ryan, I imagined that if we were able to break open the mind of a creative writer, the many textual fragments of “Hegirascope” would be what we would find. Each screen contained a cohesive idea, however before one could completely articulate that idea-the screen changed and a new thought was presented. To me, the web engine was a writer’s worst nightmare: capturing a moment to later build on only to lose it to another incoming idea. The “Hegirascope” acted as a controller, choosing when its thoughts were finished and moving onto the next (even if its reader was not ready for the shift).

In class we discussed Marie-Laure Ryan’s interpretative strategies for reading new media texts. Within her framework, I would probably describe “Hegirascope” dually as a “kaleidoscopic performance” piece. The “stories” the “Hegirascope” constructs are all made from the same fragments; however, with each new refraction the evocative meaning of the piece changes and a new narrative mosaic is created.

Hegirascope – A Virtual Shopping Experience

Having been previously exposed to Hegirascope (by force) through an ENGL 325 recitation, I really wasn’t looking forward to “going to the dentist” again. Therefore, I set my kitchen timer for exactly 30 minutes and…reluctantly…re-entered the world of this hypertext abyss. My aversion to this creation stems from the simple fact that I don’t naturally read, think, and respond as fast as Hegirascope requires. When words are coming and going on a page before I have the chance to read and process their meaning, I feel agitated. Further, if I can’t make sense of the words I’m reading, the experience is frustrating and meaningless. This considered, I took Prof. Sample’s advice and chose to enter Hegirascope through the introduction and index option. I also chose to exercise further control by backspacing if the pages advanced before I was ready. This helped me immensely and definitely improved the experience. Backspacing may not be what Stuart Moulthrop had in mind, but it gave me the opportunity to go back, read/re-read pages, and process them on my timeframe, not the program’s. I wondered if this might be in a sense cheating, but I don’t think so. The ability to backspace could have been disabled.

For me, the option of entering Hegirascope through the index had an anxiety reducing effect. Because the index page is static, it allows the opportunity to peruse the topics and select a link with no time limit. This entry gives the user some measure of control that the “diving in” option takes away. After thoughtfully studying the categories, I yielded to temptation and entered Hegirascope through ” ‘ORAL SEX.’ ” Although I could not find a relationship between the subjects/theme in this link and the topic as I expected it, I’m glad this is where I started. The first link was Zick. From “Hey Zick,” again, out of curiosity, I chose the next Zick link. My course of travel took me to such places as “Shadows,” “Choose Life,” “Spelling of Love,” “LINGERIE,” and “LOVE IS THE THING WITHOUT STAPLES.” As I write these names, I realize that I chose titles that intrigued me and placed them in my “grocery cart.” Marie-Laure Ryan’s metaphor of the “supermarket-shopping experience” was definitely my approach and the one that made me feel the most comfortable with this hypertext. According to Ryan, “This reader does not feel compelled to read the text in its entirety or to pay attention to every screen, because (s)he sees the text…as a display or resources from which (s)he can freely pick and choose.” (Marie-Laure Ryan, thank you for validating my approach!) Ryan further states that for user’s who apply the “super-market shopping” approach, segments are regarded “as a mode of transportation.” I can definitely identify with Marie-Laure Ryan’s description.

My slower paced experience with Hegiroscope enabled me to awaken to a possible theme. Much of Moulthrope’s text seems to relate to the technology of computers, the web, the virtual world, virtual experience, and in general – technology merged or juxtaposed with life experience – all of this in the context of time. If I didn’t have so much homework, I can honestly say that I would spend more time exploring the hegirasphere and its meaning related to specific aspects of the text that I found intriguing. In the interest of full disclosure, I have to admit that there were some pages that made zero sense to me, but for the most part – without too much work/effort – I did see a common thread.

So, my conclusion is that a slower paced hegira-experience was the Novocain I needed. After my timer beeped and while still numb, I felt brave enough to give “diving in” (minus backspacing) one more try. In an instant, the familiar agitation returned. I quickly realized that for this procedure, I would probably need laughing gas, too.

As a footnote, I went back to Hegiroscope this morning to re-create the experience I had last night, but it was impossible. When I opened “ORAL SEX,” the program did not allow me to take the same path. When I clicked “Zick,” I got a blank white page. Refreshing did nothing. So, it seems that Moulthrop purposely did not want us to have the option of choosing to travel the same path twice.

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.

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

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.

Why “Orson Whales” Is Not Plagarism

“Orson Whales” has very little literal, or representational meaning that is drawn from its actual basis, “Moby Dick.” Its story is told completely through the original drawings which are displayed over the actual book’s text and the commentary by Orson Welles. While I’ve never read the actual book, the animation seems to tell the story itself. Even Welles’ commentary is limited to highlighting certain aspects of the cartoon, rather than delivering a coherent narrative. He plays much the same role as the Led Zepplin song – supporting the story rather than narrating it.

This support role is exactly where Welles, Led Zepplin, and the text itself are most important. They make the background in which the cartoon itself can be expressed. The text acts as a visual background, while the song and commentary act as a sonic boon to punctuate strong moments of the animation. Rather than taking entire sections of the book from Welles’ narration, Alex Itin selects short phrases that coincide with the action, and even foregoes the commentary or the song in large parts. This is all present to establish the various evocative messages of the entire video – greed, lust and ambition all seem to lead to death at some point or another, and they are punctuated by appropriate sound samples of commentary and music.

None of that is any different from what all of us do everytime we write papers. We take from movies, music and books to make a basis for the point we want to make, or even as a justification for that point. What Alex Itin does is take Moby Dick and Orson Welles, and use them as a basis for an entirely different form of expression. He never passes their work off as his; he even cites them as the sources for his new work. We all gain insight from everything around us to help form our opinions and expression, Alex Itin just narrows his scope.

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

On “Orson Whales,” : Evocative and Represational Meaning

“Orson Whales” combines different audio, video, text, and animation to create a multimedia collage depicting the flawed nature of man. What I found most intersecting is that the only original media used was the author’s hand drawn animation. All the other material was taken from previously established works.

Representational Meaning:

When the different pieces are combined as a whole, certain symbols and themes are established which make connections between the tragic heroes: Charles Foster Kane (Citizen Kane), Narcissus (Greek Mythology), and Captain Ahab (Moby Dick) and John Bonham (Led Zeppelin).

Led Zeppelin’s song “Moby Dick” is comprised mostly of a drum solo showcasing the mastery of percussionist John Bonham, whose life was tragically cut short due to the effects of alcoholism. Charles Foster Kane’s pursuit of money and material possessions ultimately lead to an unsatisfying life. The tale of Narcissus, which is about a young man who falls in love with the reflection of himself in a fountain and because he could not “grasp the mild tormenting image, plunged into [the fountain] and drowned” (this passage can be heard around 0:46). And Captain Ahab’s obsession with the great white whale and his thirst for revenge lead him to his own tragic demise.

Many symbols are used in the animation to punctuate the thread between the different works. Animation of the figure chasing after a bottle labeled with a dollar sign, looking at himself a mirror, plunging into the water, drowning and being swallowed by the whale are repeated throughout the piece in an attempt to illustrate the possible danger of each man’s unhealthy fixation.

All the plots of these individual stories are basically the same: Man discovers something, obsesses over it, and dies unsatisfied.

Evocative meaning:

The last audio passage heard over the video clip of Charles Kane walking down a mirrored hall addresses the inevitable fade of even the greatest of artworks. What the passage argues is that due to the constant change of cultural contexts and the decreasing/discontinued use of obsolete media, even the most celebrated works of art are at risk of being forgotten. The author is, in a sense, arguing that the only way for art to survive is to stay kinetic. Similar to the way that the digital sampler revolutionized the way people thought about music—by taking something old and using it a different way—all artwork can be kept relevant by continued reference and tendency towards change.

This is not a new practice either. In the opening line of Moby Dick, Melville makes a reference to a character in the Old Testament of the Bible (Ishmael, the rejected son of Abraham). This reference instantaneously adds depth to the character using the reader’s prior knowledge and providing Melville with the opportunity to expand ideas in new directions.

Technology has given artists and authors the opportunity to experiment not only with new forms of media, but the combination of old and new media as well. By embracing the artwork of the past as well as the technology of the future, we might not have to watch them “wear away into the ultimately and universal ash.”

Matt Z

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.