Storyland

April 17, 2012 by 1 Comment

Storyland was found here (Elit Collection 1) and the description of Storyland is “The computer-generated combinatorial story is one of the oldest forms of digital writing. Storyland, with its simple circus frame, plays with this tradition by performing recombination of the sort seen in cut-up and in Oulipian work. The system repeatedly plots amusingly repetitive stories, inviting the reader to consider, to read its scheme for composition.  Author description: Storyland (version 2) is a randomly created narrative which plays with social stereotypes and elements of popular culture. Each sentence is constructed from a pool of possibilities, allowing each reader a unique story. The reader presses the “new story” button, and a story is created for that moment in time. It is unlikely that any two stories will be identical. Storyland exposes its narrative formula thus mirroring aspects of contemporary cultural production: sampling, appropriation, hybrids, stock content, design templates. It risks discontinuity and the ridiculous while providing opportunities for contemplation beyond the entertainment factor.”

Just clicking around to find something interesting, Storyland sparked my interest right off the bat because of the circus-like effect that it played on me.  I haven’t been to the circus in a long time, but I remember what it was like.  In a sense, it was kind of scary.  This seemed to have that same effect on me.  With the creepy music in the background and the black background, it just had an eeriness about it that I couldn’t rid myself of.  Here are a few examples of the creepy stories that it offers.

You can just keep clicking new story after new story and come up with a bunch of different of these types of stories to read.  I’m not sure why, but it was almost mesmerizing just reading through them.  I honestly wasn’t too interested in the stories but the fact that it was like one of those musical boxes.  First the music starts and the Storyland title flashes around.  Then the text appears almost on a timer and then it ends.  You can click on a new story after that or just be done.  The other works that I have come across this semester have been very interesting but on a different level.  Those pieces of electronic literature seem to be very strange in terms of structure.  A lot of flashing lights and strange symbols with weird music seem to be the majority of the previous works that I have dealt with.  This, however, does not contain any of that.  It’s just text, a little bit of music, and that’s it.  I believe that I enjoy it so much because of the simplicity that it really does offer.  There isn’t much to it other than rhythmic style.

The author described the stories as ‘unique’ which I believe is the only way too describe them. Some of them may not make a lot of sense, but I don’t think they were meant to be very whole.  I appreciate the oddness that the author provided in this piece and I would invite others to view this as well.  Electronic literature, obviously, is considered to be a ridiculous array of genres in terms of style.  There have been a lot of weird styles that I have come across, but nothing has drawn me in quite like this one.  It’s almost like it puts you in a trance.  You just kind of lose yourself in what is going on.  Maybe it’s the music.  Maybe it’s the flashing words in the beginning.  Maybe it’s the plainness that draws me in.  I’m not sure exactly, but I like it.  I do think that everyone should check this out even for a brief moment to see what I’m talking about.  I know that we could all benefit from having something refreshing in our life every once in a while.

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Code Movie 1

March 28, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Okay, so Code Movie 1 is a very interesting and kind of seductive form of electronic literature.  I found it in here under the Electronic Literature Collection Volume 1.  As soon as I pressed ‘begin’, I was captivated with what seemed to be a text movie.  What I mean by that is this: Many authors and artists working in electronic media are exploring the concept of codework, interrogating the nature of digital artifacts as products of multilayered transcription beneath the surface level of the computer screen. Without using any words, Beiguelman’s Code Movie 1 treats the hexadecimal code of JPG images as a signifier in its own right.  That is the description taken from the page linked previously.  Here are a couple screenshots of what the text looks like.

 

Obviously the stills don’t do a justice, but the text is literally dancing around the screen as the music plays in the background.  You see, I LOVE movies.  This takes the element of a movie down to it’s roots.  This is literally moving text and numbers and that is exactly what a movie is.  When we watch a movie, we see pictures that are moving.  Instead of the pictures though, the artist has taken a new spin on the movie aspect.  I guess that is why I enjoyed this so much was because of how involved I found myself so quickly.  I know it’s a little short, but it seems to really speak volumes to what electronic literature is to me.  The other Checkpoints that I have done focus on a story or some sort of crazy and abstractness.  This, however, really shows what the beginning of electronic literature really means.  Instead of just seeing the text on a page, this is literally moving around and dancing on the screen.  To me, all of the other checkpoints that I have made are really flashy and showy in terms of the content.  This is the most basic form that can possibly be created.  There is nothing to click on and there is nothing that you do other than watch the different forms that the letters and numbers create.  I love how simple and yet how elegant it is.  I must have watched it six or seven times before creating this just because how interesting it was to me.

Here is the author description of Code Movie 1: Code Movies are made with hex, ASCII, and binary codes extracted from JPG images. Saved as simple text, they are reworked and edited in Flash. They are part of a larger project I’ve been working on since 2004 (//**Code_UP). The submitted work (Code Movie 1) is made of hexa code. The project interrogates the role of the code in meaning construction and the new forms of translations that digital languages embody. It questions: Now that the Cybertext confuses itself with the notion of Place (a web address, for example) and that Image only reveals itself through a “hyperinscription” (a URL), can we think in a poetics of transcodification between media and file formats? Can we keep talking about “WYSIWYG” utopias? How does it affect our ways of reading, seeing, and perceiving?

Obviously this is extremely important to electronic literature as a whole and I believe that people should watch it because of how down to earth and straight to the roots this is.  There is nothing other than what it is.  There is nothing that you need to focus on other than what is on the screen and I find that very important to understanding electronic literature.  You can’t appreciate something without knowing the basic elements of it.  The 3D like effect of Code Movie 1 is extremely important as well because it not only shows the text moving around on the screen, but in different dimensions as well.  I believe that the creators of this are extremely intellectual.

I don’t think that the other electronic literature examples in the volume either 1 or 2 are as simple as this one.  They all seem to be the same to me.  Trying to find something that really stood out was difficult.  In my opinion, each of the different ones that I clicked on all had a different premise but they all seemed to follow the very abstract and crazy style to get to the end.  It just seemed like I wasn’t finding anything that really stood out.  To me, that is very important when talking about electronic literature as well.  You need to find something that stands out from all of the other piece and, in my opinion, this did JUST that.  I hope that you are getting as much out of this as I am because I really think that this is very important in trying to determine what electronic literature is.

Also, if you found this interesting, there is a whole Code Movie project that can be found here!

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Still Standing/Text Rain

March 13, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Wow, I am absolutely amazed at these two pieces of electronic literature.  First off, Still Standing was found through the Electronic Literature Volume 2 page on our website and a direct link can be found here.  The information about Still Standing can be found here.  From the description, Still Standing invites participants to use their bodies as reading instruments.  My mind was blown when I read this.  This is LITERALLY interactive fiction and puts all other works to shame IMO.  Although we are unable to do it ourselves, the best that I could find were videos of others working through it.  Text Rain is another version and seems to be more interesting to me.  The website for Text Rain can be found here.  There is a video of Text Rain inside that link.

Okay, so Still Standing is basically this.  You move in front of the screen and you move the text that is on the screen.  If you stand still long enough, the letters copy your image and create a piece of a poem.  It’s absolutely brilliant.  Words cannot describe how amazing this is.  You just have to check it out for yourself.  A description of Still Standing is “the viewer must remain perfectly still, her stillness causing the video-projected text to assemble as if attracted to a magnet.”  Text Rain is similar in that you interact with the letters on the screen but in Text Rain, the letters fall and actually stop on you or whatever you hold up to it.  I can’t really explain it either.  A description of Text Rain is “Text Rain is an interactive installation in which participants use the familiar instrument of their bodies, to do what seems magical—to lift and play with falling letters that do not really exist. In the Text Raininstallation participants stand or move in front of a large projection screen. On the screen they see a mirrored video projection of themselves in black and white, combined with a color animation of falling letters. Like rain or snow, the letters appears to land on participants’ heads and arms. The letters respond to the participants’ motions and can be caught, lifted, and then let fall again. The falling text will ‘land’ on anything darker than a certain threshold, and ‘fall’ whenever that obstacle is removed.”

My goodness that sounds like so much fun!

In the links above, I have provided ways to watch what is being done.  I wish that I could do it from my computer and maybe someday I will be able to.  It just seems like such a cool idea and, in my opinion, sets the bar extremely high for any other form of electronic literature.  This takes the interactive and the electronic and crushes the two together to synthesize into something that is absolutely mind-blowing.

Here are two pictures that may help with what I am talking about.  Still Standing is first and Text Rain is second.

Still, pictures do not do a justice.  You HAVE to watch the videos.  I believe that this sort of interactive aspect mixed with electronic literature is extremely important to electronic literature as a whole because of how involved it makes the user.  Instead of interacting with something on a computer screen by clicking, you are literally interacting by moving.  What’s neat about this is that words, sentences, phrases, and even entire lines from poems are being reconstructed through the act of either ‘standing still’ or holding the text long enough in Text Rain.  It isn’t just letters moving around on a screen, there is actually substance to it and a poetic element that can’t be found elsewhere.  In this instance alone, this form of electronic literature is crucial to the development of further electronic literature in the future.  I’m not sure how to put what I have witnessed into words other than you need to watch the videos!  They are about two minutes a piece and you really should listen to what they have to say about each of the works.  I hope you gained as much from it as I have!

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In Absentia

February 20, 2012 by Leave a Comment

In Absentia by J. R. Carpenter can be found here.  I found this piece of Electronic Literature from the Electronic Literature Collection Volume 2 which can be found here.  Now, what drew me in to In Absentia was really more of the description than anything.  The problem with all of these pieces of Electronic Literature is that they are very unique from their thumbnail pictures on the Volume 2 website.  You really have to click on each one and find something that strikes you from the description.  The fact that this one uses Google Maps struck me of interest right away.  From the moment I read that, I knew that I would be able to connect with it in some way.  I’m always using Google Maps for looking up directions or just browsing where things are.  I think it’s very important to find a piece of Electronic Literature, especially in this instance, that you can connect with in some way.  For me, it was the fact that I just enjoy using Google Maps.

Now, the description says “Using the Google Maps application programming interface, in absentia addresses issues of gentrification, community, and property in its commentary on the neoliberal reorganization of the city of Montreal and specifically the Mile End neighborhood. Part fiction, part memoir, the multi-lingual, multi-author texts “haunt” the neighborhood with stories of real and fictional tenants who have been affected by its structural transformation. The geocoding of these stories serves as a powerful reminder of the imbrications between lived and physical space.”  That sounds like an awesome description to me.  There seems to be so much at stake here and I’m really excited to dive into the piece.  Let’s begin!

In Absentia opens up with a literal interaction with Google Maps.  If you are unfamiliar with it, you can view an area via satellite and move around the area as close or as far away as you would like.  There are some pieces that you are able to click on and the opening looks like this:

The car, blue and black signs, and the tractor are all able to be clicked on and provide different descriptions of each.  So far, there is no music which is kind of odd.  In all of the other pieces, I have discovered some sort of sound.  It feels weird — almost like something isn’t right!  Each of the pieces that you click on provides a bit of information regarding the area that it is located.  One of them, for instance, talks about a musician who is renting out a room and what they are looking for in a roommate.  It seems that most of the interactive pieces are some sort of description of the person that either lives there or who they want to live with them.  After doing a little digging, I noticed that there were more places that I could visit which were accessible via the tabs in the top right hand corner of the page.

So far, I have visited home, a louer, and a vendre.  Some of the clickable icons are even in a different language which suggests the diversity that the description hinted at.  The mix of language and personalities in the writing suggest that there are definitely completely different sets of people that live so close together.  My guess is that this would suggest and promote diversity and the thought that even though you are in one specific area, you can definitely get some people close to you that are the exact opposite of you.  The world is filled with many different types of people who speak different languages and believe different ideas and this interaction proves just that.  Perdu seemed to be the only one that did not have some sort of map element to it.  I’m not entirely sure why this is…  It threw me off a little bit.

The most amazing thing about this piece is definitely the different writing styles of the people and how close they are to someone else that, only a few miles away, is looking for something ENTIRELY different.  There is much meaning in this and I think that J. R. Carpenter did an amazing job of creating something that sparked so much difference in the piece itself.  In the “bios” section, it says that “Many other past and present residents of the Mile End neighbourhood of Montreal (fictional or otherwise) have also contributed their stories (intentionally or otherwise) to this conversation.” It seems, by this account, that multiple people are creating a story.  If that is the case, I believe that this is why Electronic Literature is so interesting and important.  In pieces like this, not only is the user interacting with the piece, but there are multiple people that are interacting with each other.  By creating something so diverse to be in a single place such as In Absentia, the people that created it are also able to come together, despite their differences in thought and language.  Something that brings everyone together is definitely worth checking out and In Absentia does exactly that.

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Flight Paths

February 8, 2012 by Leave a Comment

For my second blog entry, I decided to check out the Electronic Literature Collection (Volume 2).  For my first blog entry, I picked Inanimate Alice from Volume 1.  I figured that it would be a change of pace to find one from a separate volume.  Just browsing through the thumbnails, my eyes paused on Flight Paths.  I believe because all of the planes were coming together and the title intrigued me, that’s why I chose this piece instead of all of the others.  Maybe next time I will try to find my own piece of Electronic Literature elsewhere.  The link to flight paths can be found here.

“Flight Paths tells the story of an immigrant trying to escape Pakistan, first as a migrant laborer in Dubai and eventually as an airplane stowaway in route to London. With echoes of the magical realism of Salman Rushdie in the fifth episode, Flight Paths imagines an encounter between the dead stowaway and the woman onto whose car he has fallen. Much more than a restaging of ‘East meets West,’ Flight Paths gestures toward a true openness to the Other, to the stranger.”

The story progresses when the user clicks on the  icon, which means ‘go’ or ‘forward’ in Urdu.

Flight paths is a slide-show type interaction.  As noted in the introduction, we are following the life of an immigrant who is trying to escape from Pakistan.  There are five sections that the “story” is broken up into.

Each of these sections contains a different part of the story.  The first section, “Yacub in Dubai” tells about how the narrator lands in Dubai.  I’m assuming it’s a he based on the type of job that is being sought after.  The narrator is going to travel to Dubai to get a job to make some money.  It only takes a few minutes to read through the narrative, but the slide-show type interaction provides for a more novelesque style of interaction.  I enjoy this style because, while I am still interacting with the piece, I feel that the literature aspect is more prominent.  With Inanimate Alice, my previous blog entry, there was a lot going on and it was, at times, easy to get lost in the visual representation of the piece.  With Flight Paths, I am able to stay connect with the narrator and follow the story much more smoothly.

The second section, “Yacub at the Airport” is a lot more dark.  The narrator speaks of emotions and feelings in the opening, talking about almost crying.  Unfortunately, there is no back button so if you want to see a previous section, you have to start over at the beginning of that section.  The background of this section is very dark.  Black and grey are the prominent colors, while yellow was the prominent color of section 1.  Color is used to convey emotion in this section very well.  We, as interactive readers, are about to feel the scared feeling that Yacub feels.  I’m assuming that Yacub is the narrator’s name!  For example, This is a screenshot from section 2.  As noted, the dark colors clearly reflects the emotion that the narrator is feeling.

Section 3 opens with a video type slide-show instead of the still images that were found in the last two sections.  This is definitely a change.  The mood has also changed as well.  We are shown the streets of wherever the narrator is.  The narrator here is a wife and mom that is out going to get food for her family.  This section is a bit more confusing because it doesn’t seem to pick up where the last section left off.  Maybe by the end of the piece, the two “stories” will somehow come together. As of the end of section 3, I’m not really sure who each person is!

Okay, section 4 picks back up with the narrator from section 2.  The narrator is trying to find a way onto the plane without being caught so he can get to his destination.  An interesting twist!  After clicking next on the first image, the screen breaks into two and is now telling two stories.

 

Section 4 definitely provides a blending of the two stories.  The story splits horizontally instead of vertically and then blends together as the two texts are presented at the same time.  Obviously, the two stories are meant to be together, but I don’t think we are supposed to know why by the end of this section.  Maybe the last section will provide some sort of answer.  Indicated by the title, “Paths Crossing” suggests that the two stories that we have been following will somehow be connected.

Okay, apparently something must have fallen from the sky, maybe the narrator from the first two sections, into the car of the woman from the alternate sections and killed them both?  At the end section 5, I’m not really sure what happened and why.  Obviously this confusing aspect is on purpose because I clicked through the story again and felt the same way.  It seems like the boy may have fallen out of the plane that he was trying to hold onto and then collided into the car of the woman that was also speaking.  This story ends very abruptly with the two of them trying to get a taxi so they can go home and eat something.

This is definitely a very dark story and doesn’t seem to have any resolution that is satisfying enough to walk away from the story with any sort of accomplishment.

Judging by the note found here: it seems that the story has been a collaborative effort.

From the actual blog, “These stories take characters that have been named and discussed on the blog and in the ‘Flight Paths’ netvibes universe, Harriet and Yacub, and depict a series of five moments from their lives, up until the point that they meet.”  I still have a bit of confusion after reading this because I’m not sure if what I read was meant to be more metaphorical or literal.

As far as Electronic Literature is concerned, this definitely fits the bill.  The reader actually moves through the story and, without purpose, causes the fates of the two people.  There are no “choose your own adventure” styles to this piece, but by the end, you definitely feel like you have contributed in some way to the destruction (I believe that it is destruction) of the two characters involved.  This piece definitely provides something that Inanimate Alice didn’t provide.  In my opinion, that would be emotion.  I could get a sense of what the characters were feelings based on the music, the colors of the background, the font of their text, and the tone in the words.  The reader definitely gets a worried sense from Yacub and a confused feeling from Harriet.  This piece should be interacted with by others based on the emotion that is provided throughout.

I believe that describing this piece in such specific detail is crucial to understand the piece as a whole because of how much emotion is conveyed in the actual work.  Between the colors and the font and the way that the people are presented, providing as much detail as I have regarding the piece is a necessity in understand the piece.  Without such in-depth analysis, there is no way to fully understand what the piece is and why it is so important.  When speaking about emotion, detail is definitely required.  You cannot convey emotion correctly through another point of view without breaking down everything that makes the piece emotional.  For that reason alone, that is why I have expressed myself so fully in this blog.  I hope that I have exhausted all of the possibilities that are available and that I have explained myself well enough to provide justice to the piece.

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Inanimate Alice: Episode 1

January 23, 2012 by Leave a Comment

The link to the flash-based narrative can be found here if you are interested in viewing it.  I was drawn in to this particular narrative because of the picture found on the Electronic Literature Collection (Volume 1) page.

Browsing the collection, I ran across this image and figured that this would be the one that I chose:

A fun little picture right? Seemed pretty…inviting.  When I clicked on the picture, I was greeted by this description: “This narrative, produced in Flash, follows a young girl whose life is mediated by technology during a day of family unrest when her father is lost and found.”  Seems pretty dark right?  In my opinion, it gets worse.

When I began the story, I was told that it would take about 8 minutes to complete and that I needed to have my music turned on so I could listen as I went through with the narrative.  I thought to myself, Oh that will be fun to listen to music while I go through this.  A nice little tune.  Wrong.

The music was very scary, for lack of a better term.  A lot of the times, it was static that played through the speakers.  One great description that I can think of is if you have your iPhone or other smartphone close to a set of computer speakers when you are about to receive a message or are sending a message, the clicking sound that it makes.  That was very prominent throughout the narrative.  At least, for me it was.

I was also greeted a lot by this type of font:

If you can’t make it out, it says “My name is Alice — I’m 8 years old”

It blurred out every once in a while and then returned to its normal state.  This was very creepy going through the narrative but also kept me on edge.  I wasn’t sure what was going to happen but clicking through each of the slides took me to a different part of the story.  Alice and her mother were literally on a mission to find their father because he was lost.

I believe that this should be read by everyone else because of the interesting design that the story has.  I had a confused look on my face the entire time I was interacting with the narrative because of how different it was from other stories that I have read.  I could see how this type of narrative could grasp a lot of attention because of the interesting way that it was designed.  I’m still trying to find the right words to describe it.  I guess that ‘abstract’ would be one way to try and portray this piece.  Clicking on the arrows takes the reader to the next part of the story and at times, you even need to interact to move forward.  For example, the narrative claims that the girl likes to take pictures of the flowers.  The cursor then becomes a camera and you have to move your mouse over the image to take a picture.  Once a picture is taken, a new part of the story is revealed!  I found this interaction to be quite entertaining because I was then a part of the story, instead of distanced from it and only observing.  It keeps the reader engaged in the story and the reader’s interest is not lost with this interaction.

Apparently there are more “episodes” that can be viewed here.  This is the homepage for Inanimate Alice and there are many more stories that can be viewed there if you are interested in this one.  I will probably check out one or two more just to see if the content is about the same or if the design is completely different than that of Episode 1.

Overall, I enjoyed the flash-based narrative and thought that it was extremely unique.  I would find it hard to believe that the others listed in the collection would be anything similar to that of Inanimate Alice: Episode 1.

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