“Wordscape”: A New, Confusing Kind of Landscaping

March 29, 2012 By Leave a Comment

I remember at the beginning of the semester, I was banging my head against a wall trying to figure out what to write my checkpoints on. I used to peruse the E.Lit blog to see what my classmates were writing on (and secretly to see if they were getting frustrated as well), and one of the few posts that stuck out to me was this one about Peter Cho’s “Letterscape” that was written by the username khilton. “Letterscape” is a fun collection of interactive pictures that was created in 2002. It won numerous awards including the Tokyo Type Directors Club Interactive award.

When I clicked to look at the electronic work, I saw that there was a “sequel” to “Letterscape” entitled, “Wordscape.”

I thought it was really cute that both of the titles played off the word, “landscape,” since the word alludes to “comprising the visible features of an area of land,” which in this case is the space on the interweb.

When you begin “Wordscape,” there is a large blue matrix with white letters floating around, a concept that was similar to that in “Letterscape.”

The difference was that when you clicked a letter, instead of a blown up version of the letter, there would be a “landscape” of a word that began with the selected letter. For example, this is the image that appeared when I selected the letter o:

It was the word “obsess” in yellow blobs that looked like the animal cells you saw in a microscope when you were in your high school biology class. When you hovered your mouse over the word, the word began to move in a way like the page was a piece of fabric and there was someone on the other side pressing against it, causing the yellow blobs to move around. Below is a screenshot in case my explanation makes absolutely no sense (I’m awful at describing three-dimensional effects!):

Like the user khilton, I had a difficult time trying to figure out what the meaning behind this electronic work was. I felt that there was only an arbitrary connection between the word and its landscape; there was nothing too substantial to analyze. I understood that you could analyze the word itself and then find some sort of connection between the definition of the word and the way the word interacts with the user; however, I felt that even after looking up the word “obsess” and closely watching the three-dimensional effect, I was still unable to come up with a rational connection to the work like most kinetic typographies have, like in DAK0TA and the Conan O’Brien one I previously wrote about in a past checkpoint.

Since I couldn’t find a deeper meaning, I Googled around to see if I could find any reviews from smarter people that could analyze this work better than me. I looked around for a while and came across this site called Electronic Literature Organization. They discussed how in Cho’s work, the words can be considered “’negative’ space, the yin/yang interaction between inky darks and untouched whites in Asian art in a pictorial realm dominated by gestalt switches between solids and voids, and dominated by color.” Yeah, I’m not going to lie, but I don’t see that…

Overall, I really enjoyed playing with Peter Cho’s kinetic typography. Even though it was frustrating to me as a student to not fully understand the work, it was still interesting to watch how the words only moved when you interacted with them, which demonstrated the universal concept of “you only get what you put into it.”

So classmates, if you think you understand this work, please comment below with your thoughts. I would love to see what your interpretations of this work are!

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Creative Project: Skin

March 15, 2012 By Leave a Comment

For the creative project, I used Scratch to create a digital poem animation titled Skin. Very much influenced by RedRidinghood, I wanted to experiment with another fairytale, and the influence of control.

That last bit bears explaining. In Skin each scene is accessed by reader input, a star appears, the user clicks it, the next scene runs all its lines elements independent of reader input, then another star appears, and the next scene will not appear until the reader has again clicked through. The use of the star icon is a control method that keeps a grip on the pacing and sequence of the poem, not allowing the reader to get ahead of themselves or the story.  They can postpone the next scene for as long as they wish, but in the end they only have the option to move forward (that or quit). Another control method I used was somewhat less obvious, by betting the elements to a consistent rhythm, the reader is able to keep in time with the rhythm as they move from scene to scene, and while they can wait as long as they like, a break in the rhythm feels unnatural compared to rolling with the flow of the poem.
Now, given that I have expended that much effort in attempting to coral the reader’s actions, to have the poem dictate their behavior rather than have their behavior dictate the poem, I could have made it an unstoppable force of animation a la DAK0TA. However, even though this work is far from interactive fiction, I wanted to include the one element of reader interaction, to engage invest them in the story. The click-through resembles nothing so much as the turning of a page, a mechanized act of revelation that asks the reader to oh do keep up dear as the scenes get shorter and shorter, involving them in the pacing and providing a sense of involvement in the inevitable fates of the characters.

The story itself is a warped telling of the selkie myth in space. Mostly because doppelgängers in space are so done, but if I could not have eye stealing I was going to have skin stealing, dammit.
Using Scratch as my program of choice was the most logical decision given the type of story I wished to tell, it is the interface that accesses the most senses, combining sound, image and interaction, and gave me the greatest degree of control over the visual presentation.
The poem’s animation is restrained, seeking more the effect of a picture book or story board rather than a cartoon, leaving the story clean and uncluttered, the illustrations as snapshot moments from the scene.
I am immensely satisfied with the resulting product, and would like to point out that that is a really sweet rocket ship.

(NOTES)
3 pots of tea, 2 short seasons of television programs of dubious quality, 1 Scratch meltdown, and 238947293 misplaced sprites were harmed in the making of this production.
Also: the Selkie somehow ended up looking like one of these guys.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: , , , , ,

Creative Project: The Key To Dreams

March 2, 2012 By Leave a Comment

My original idea was to give an old well known poem new life by creating an interactive poem like the one we viewed in class. Though I had originally wanted to do a project centered around the Young-Hea Chang interactive poem Dak0ta, I eventually settled on creating an interactive text/ choose your own adventure story, when I became aware that my original idea was not really possible given the time and the resources. None the less, I am very pleased with my finished product, The Key To Dreams.

Design: I designed the story in a way that each time the viewer clicks through the story they gain a bit more information than the last time. The viewer is encouraged to make different choices throughout the course of the story that will in the end effect the meaning of the story’s ending. The results of the progression of the story are entirely up to the whim of the viewer’s selections, however, the progression works best when the reader selects the first option the first time through and the second the second time through and so on. Any way the viewer chooses to click through the story they will still get a story but not as much information is revealed. Each time the story line progresses a little more.

Faults: Though I am very pleased of the finished product, I must admit that there were a few things that I probably would have done differently had I been able to figure out how to do so. The main change that I would have made was to completely eliminate the choice to select the rewind button on the side panel. I tried several times to do this using the help of w3schools, a few of my computer science friends, and even my suite mate. To no avail I did not figure out how to do this in time so the option remains available. I wanted to eliminate this option so that the viewer would be forced to click through the entire story again rather than simply rewind to select a different path.

Appearance: I thought long and hard about whether or not I should try to change the appearance of my story. In the end I decided against it because, in my case, the basic dark design color scheme really matched the dark nature of my story.  I decided to keep it as is but did experiment with different color palettes.

Reflection: I feel that through the creation of this project I have gained a better understand of the Twine program and gained a better appreciation for choose your own adventure stories in general. I am very proud of my project and I feel that it shows just how much hard work and time I put into creating it.

Now You Try: Here is my Creative Project. Please feel free to click through the story and make sure to post a comment back to this post and tell me what you think. Remember the story changes slightly each time you play it, so be sure to play it multiple times and make different choices with each session.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: , , , , ,

C0ntemp0rary Ic0n0clastic Beat

February 9, 2012 By 1 Comment

As someone who is a fanatic of Jazz music and is absolutely fascinated by the Beat Generation, Dak0ta was a no-brainer instant love for me. (The fact that i may have done a 20 minute research presentation on the Beats may have helped but, well, you know… .)

Now thinking in terms of the originality of the text of Dak0ta there is nothing particularly new about it. It is a story of friends packing up a car with drugs, alcohol, and their free spirits ready to hit the road. They take in the landscape and geography, they get drunk and angry and fall down, they talk about Jazz music and swinging-soul, and make references to stars like Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe. Reading a story about how a group of friends on a road trip which at one point describes them eating food is not a major step forward in artful progress.

But.

The manner this story is told, consumed, and experienced digitally and sensually makes all the difference in the world.

Young Hae-Chang has made the old and used been-there-done-that and brought Beat style to the digital age.

Dak0ta very much so hearkens to Jack Kerouac’s On the Road. Dakota accomplishes this by utilizing some prominent storytelling techniques and traits of Beat works.

  • Inability To Waver in the Face of Explicit Realistic Details and Language

Right off the bat we have a loud “FUCKING” thrown right in our face which truly does set a mood and mindset for the story. These Korean travelers are most likely young, defiant, and freewheelin’ no-holds-barred thrill-seekers going on a bender trip seeking fun in life and life in fun.

This sort of language is very reminiscent of how the Beats used their literature to break down specific barriers of society in the 1940s and 1950s. Allen Ginsberg’s Howl and William S. Burrough’s Naked Lunch both saw obscenity trials which were eventually overcome (albeit the “freedom” of speech may have taken several years for the works to be fully expressed to the public). These 2 works encapsulated the Beat movement–especially Howl–and wanted to break down conventionally and traditionally held beliefs. Especially back in the Beat heyday, the word “fuck,” unlike today, was a very heavy hitting word that, as George Carlin put it, “was the word you saved for the end of the argument.”

YouTube Preview Image

Now “fuck” is used i think a total of 3 or 4 times in Dak0ta. The word is not overused but is used just enough to instill that Beat vibe, that feel of attacking the language and its barriers in proper public discourse. Another truly nasty word of the original Dirty Seven rears its head as well, and that is the term “cunt.” Even today, that word is not flung around very much and in a lot of ways has taken the place of the word “fuck” in the sense that “fuck” does not hold much weight–well, relatively speaking of today compared to decades ago. But Hae-Chang is channeling that Beat spirit in his explicit language.

Not only in the language, but with his details. Take the moment when it is described how one of the travelers has been drinking and is now vomiting. Drunk and cursing his boss, his wife, and those around him making accusations of infidelity and then discussing sexual experiences of genital stimulation (“BUT IT WAS A G00D HANDJ0B, TH0UGH!”). The original Beats were known for bucking the status quo for just about every facet of then-American life, but explicit descriptions of sexual experiences and directly challenging the reserved nature of proper upstanding Americans was a hit for them. Sexual libertinism for themselves and the rest of the country, whether it be heterosexual, homosexual, or just several partners simultaneously. Sex and drugs and drink are all here in full force.

  • The Story of the Here and Now

If you ever want to be blown away by a new-age bible scroll, have a look at Kerouac’s On the Road scroll at the Boott Cotton Mills Museum located in Lowell, Masschussetts.

Jack Kerouac did not write his fiction solely out of his imagination, most of the stories are comprised of real life experiences with names changed (what is stranger than life?!). What Kerouac would do while traveling across America was write all his experiences down as they happened in journals. He would write constantly and in the moment attempting to retain every passing moment as they happened. He then went on a 3 week typing process of the entire transcript into this one gigantic scroll. Taking a cue from Neal  Cassady and a long-winded rant of a letter, Kerouac typed up the novel in letter form to capture the Jazz nature he fought so hard to bring to written word. Kerouac called it “Spontaneous Prose.”

To capture the realism of life and life in the moment is no easy feat. Hae-Chang is recreating that style with Dak0ta talking of each event as they happen coupled with internal thoughts as they come and go with the current circumstances of the story. It would not be surprising to hear that Hae-Chang and some friends drove around much in the manner of Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady and just…had experiences across (what i am assuming is) Korea while keeping some sort of journal of the main events of their happenings as they occurred. Hae-Chang does it with strong relentlessness to recreate that prose feel.

Hae-Chang also incorporates music and does so in a way that Jack Kerouac could only have possibly imagined; and with that, comes the next major concept:

  • Jazz and its Improvisational Power

It is no secret that the Beats were infatuated with Jazz music and its players.
The improvisational expression of music and of the player in a moment of time; the swinging grooves that people could genuinely feel and dance and “get down” to; the challenge of racial standards in America and the direction music was going; even the way the musicians dressed had an influence (black turtlenecks and pants all thanks to Dizzy Gillespie [and where do you think the Beats of then and the hipsters of today got their thick-rimmed black glass? Thanks, Dizzy!]); and not to mention the drug use of all these cats playing the music…the Beats loved it, the Beats really dug it, man, and Kerouac was no exception.

Kerouac had one player in mind who really turned heads and pushed Jazz in the intellectual contemporary direction into what it is today: an intellectual and expressive art. There were 3 key players of Jazz in the mid-to-late 1940s and 1950s that really had Jazz moving: Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, and the ever-important Charlie Parker.

Charlie "Bird" Parker

Parker approached Jazz with a new face to Jazz. His explosive improvisational power caught the ear of many; he revolutionized the Bebop sound; his speed and power were unmatched for the day; he took rhythm, harmonies, and melodies to a new level; he spawned a large set of standards still championed today; and Kerouac would be damned if he couldn’t translate that musical ability to written word.

YouTube Preview Image

Another key importance of Charlie Parker was his drug use. Parker was a heroin addict, in fact it inevitably led to his declining health and vagrancy, selling his instruments to get a quick fix. Everybody, EVERYBODY, had to play just like Bird and thus they had to shoot up just like Bird. To become, emulation is the first move. And as such, drug experimentation was strong with the Beats.

Now what Hae-Chang has done with music and Beat literature is something that would most definitely make Kerouac’s eyes pop. Absolutely does Hae-Chang reference Jazz musician greats such as Art Blakey, Ray Bryant, and Donald Bird, but his incorporation of music into this digital storytelling is an impeccable transposition and translation of musical power and written word working together as a combo (that’s a Jazz joke right there).

The music playing for Dak0ta is…well, it’s most certainly not straight-ahead Jazz, but its explosive power aids the work incredibly with its tribal sound (an aural environment which helps the whole defiant and young primitive nature these kids are exuding). Each word and statement has been synced up with the music and reinforces that ever-present mindset of the currently happening events going on. The music is loud, in your face, and a veritable bombardment,
and if this ain’t tyin’ in to everything i’ve brought up ’til now…well, if i’m lyin’ i’m dyin’.

These brash individuals are in the now, getting down with the Jazz, drinking and druggin’ it up and cursin’ and fightin’  making Ken Kesey’s Randle Patrick McMurphy proud. They’re traveling and soaking life in and experiencing everything the Beats would have wanted them to and how they would have wanted them to.

And Young Hae-Chang translates everything the Beats did and made so popular and caustically defiant into something truly special in our digital age. A neo-Beat work in our computer and technologically driven age.

i’ve said it before and i’ll say it again: Young Hae-Chang and his Dak0ta would make Jack Kerouac proud.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries & Punk Aesthetics

February 8, 2012 By 4 Comments

Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries (YHCHI) is the duo of American Marc Voge and South Korean Young-hae Chang, operating in Seoul, South Korea. Most of their works can be considered kinetic poetry or digital poetry. All of their works I have viewed use flash animation to create the movement of words in the web browser and use the Monaco font. They also utilize a limited color palette, black, white, and red. As far as I understand, all of their browser-based work fits this form, which we saw in class with DAK0TA. The simplicity of this form allows Voge & Chang to convey direct, immediate, and critical political and social commentary. The aesthetic choices made by YHCHI bear many similarities to American punk visual aesthetics originating in late 70s and early 80s.

So, how do I define punk visual aesthetics? Simplicity, immediacy, and directness hallmarks of punk visual aesthetics. These qualities stem from the DIY (Do It Yourself) movement within punk, which stresses working outside traditional, hierarchical systems of releasing music and art and creating one’s own system for creating art and dealing with the audience directly. The DIY movement frees artists to pursue their creativity unhindered by corporate interests and challenges them to work with limited resources. The limitations of creating record covers, flyers, and other works with one’s own financial resources led to artists making statements simply and directly with striking immediacy. The goal is usually instant recognition with the smallest amount of visual data. The visual aesthetic is generally secondary to the content (in punk’s case the music). Here are some examples:

The Black Flag logo

 

The Misfits logo

This style has been influential on popular culture for decades for example, shudder, Green Day’s American Idiot album cover:

Please forgive me for this oh gods of punk

YHCHI’s works are also simple, direct, and immediate because they strip down form to very basic elements and barrage the reader with socio-politically conscious messages. Like punks, YHCHI eschew a complex form to focus on the content of their work. Also similar to punk the presentation of the content is often abrasive and unsettling. Punk achieved this through distorted guitars, fast tempos, and screaming. YHCHI achieves this through fast-flashing text capable of inducing seizures.

One YHCHI work particularly reminiscent of punk aesthetics is ”CUNNILINGUS IN N0RTH K0REA“. “CUNNILINGUS IN N0RTH K0REA” is a poem satirically championing communism and sexual equality and the resulting increase of sexual pleasure in North Korea. Mostly black and white text are utilized, although red pops up to emphasize certain sections. The poem reads like a piece of propaganda produced by the North Korean government (mimicking propaganda is a common trope in punk aesthetics) declaring how North Korean men are sexually superior to South Korean men in pleasuring women.  ”CUNNILINGUS IN N0RTH K0REA” uses satire to show how oppression in North Korea is often disguised as liberation and freedom. Similarly, punk is often critical of systems of power and how they perpetuate oppression and hinder freedom.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: , , , , , ,