NOTE: The work I’m going to be talking about is in Spanish. I’ve read and translated parts of it, but it is a novel (with 67 chapters), so I decided that instead of writing an analytical blog post, I’d make a video of me interacting with the work and showing the way the author utilizes different media. As the author explains in the excerpt of the abstract provided below, the form of this work is as important as the content.

Excerpt from the abstract provided by Domenico Chiappe:

“The appropriate language for electronic media is yet to be created. Such a language should encompass the whole world of possibilities offered by the electronic environment. The multimedia novel project Tierra de Extracción looks for a language that encourages the reading of literature on a computer monitor. The multimedia writing combines the arts to find the ‘passive interaction’ of the reader–user, whose subconscious will blossom with the music, poetry, photography, drawings, and narration, and mixes it with the story. But this new kind of expression coming from a display that modifies all patterns of perception, interest and time also requires an interface that allows the user’s ‘active interaction’, which means the user will create the story as his or her interest and curiosity grow.”

ALSO: I’m sorry for all of my awkward pauses and um’s. I recorded this about 20 million times and this is the best version I got (it’s harder that I thought it would be to interact with something and talk about it at the same time!). To see the video, click on the link below and it should take you to another page where you can view it (I couldn’t figure out how to embed this filetype).

tierra2