Mary Flanagan, [theHouse] (also on E-Lit CD)
Before even diving into “theHouse” I loved the URL points directly to a summary of what it is accompanied by the author’s description. I enjoy having some sort of context before I work with a piece of electronic literature to know or have some sort of idea what to expect and how to traverse the piece. Exploring this piece, it is a three dimensional spatial representation of blocks in a java applet named “floating10.” There are words or phrases around the blocks that change every few seconds. I tried to view the source code, which is linked here: http://collection.eliterature.org/1/works/flanagan__thehouse/floating10.pde but I got an internal server error. I wanted to read it in hopes to find some meaning in the piece, regarding the phrases themselves. Unlike Hegirascope, we could pause the scene and control the piece, where, in this case it is rather as random phrases connected via blocks, which are also inter-connected somehow. This piece is confusing, it has nice eye candy but I am curious what do others think?
Jason Lewis, Nine
What I said above concerning the instructions and context applies to this piece as well, right away, we learn it is a dynamic poem about the “lives” of an artist. In this case, we have a pop-up, which has an embedded flash presentation. This reminds me of a small bingo board, the canvas is separated by nine blocks, each is contextual in that you can click it but the centerpiece is a blank piece, which goes nowhere. I expected more from this one in terms of reading. Is the face behind all of the images an image of the author? I suppose that is the main question, I wish I had time to look for a rapid mouse clicker, my finger became tired clicking hundreds of times trying to find meaning in this piece.