Final Project

So, I just finished the last electronic literature project for this class. I worked more on the lexia than anything else. I really wanted to incorporate some kind of gif or intricate movement like I did in my previous piece, but it just didn't seem to fit with my concept. I felt like it took away from the overall piece, so I kept the animation minimal. My project ended up being a hypertext poem with some animated elements.

I used Powerpoint to create my hypertext, instead of Google sites and it actually worked out pretty well. I was able to fade the lexia in and link to both other slides and outside sources. I also added sound elements to some sides.

The map of my project is a series of slides linked together. Each slide connects to another 2-3 slides via links. Some are dead links. I tried my hand at creating an electronic literature piece that doesn't have a so-called end and I think I successfully accomplished it. The fact that my piece doesn't have an "end," is integral to the meaning of the piece.

I urge my readers to explore the piece in it's entirety  There are some dead ends in the piece, but they have a meaning. Think about the path you took to get to a certain outcome. You'll realize it's more interconnected than you originally thought. And don't navigate the piece like you would normally navigate a Pwerpoint. Use the links only (or you'll really confuse yourself and totally miss out on the symbolic meaning!)

So, without further ado, here it is! Enjoy! **Remember you have to download it in order to have it play correctly**

E-Lit Review Assignment Re-Post

Christine Wilks describes her piece, "Fitting the Pattern," as ,"cutting through memories, pinning down facts, stitching fabrications, unpicking the past - an interactive, animated memoir, created in Flash, exploring aspects of my relationship with my dressmaking mother. Life's mysteries are rarely uncovered by a logical, linear process of deduction. You arrive at answers, ideas, suspicions, intuitions, haphazardly in fragments. Over time you build the picture, piece by piece, shuffling and rearranging, until you start to see a pattern emerging. The structure of Fitting the Pattern attempts to replicate this experience; hence it is a memoir in pieces that the reader can explore, to some extent, in a non-linear fashion. There are certain parallels between my mother's creative craft process and my own in new media; therefore the visual design of the piece is based on the aesthetics of sewing patterns. These similarities, as well as our differences, are embedded in the digital media and text, literally drawn out through animation and dramatized through interactivity. Custom cursors designed as digital dressmaking tools fuse the interactive process into the narrative world, so the reader becomes actively involved in constructing and/or unpicking the narrative." This description alone summarizes the piece so incredibly well, that in some way, I feel like I can't say anything more about it. But I have to admit that I was drawn to this piece solely due to the description -- the idea that you build a pattern piece by piece and that not all of these pieces are found in a linear fashion. You have to search for them and sew them together correctly to discover the whole picture.  That being said, in this piece, you are doing just that. 

"Fitting the Pattern" is a piece of interactive fiction, specifically an interactive memoir. You, as the reader, are navigating through the piece, you are doing the weaving together of the whole picture. You are discovering the relationship between daughter and mother. You are discovering the values the mother holds dear and imparts on her child. The experience is all yours. And in a way, that makes the piece by far more relate-able to each and every one of us. Now it's time to explore "Fitting the Pattern." You can access this piece via the Electronic Literature Collection #2 or via this link. The first page is by far the most important. Read the instructions carefully. It already indicates a difference between dressmaker and the dressmaker's daughter. In further scenes, you'll see that the pattern is the dressmaker's ideal mold for her daughter and that the daughter feels she should fit the clothes, not have the clothes fit her. 

Now, grab the scissors. I urge you to play around with it. Follow the little arrow. Move your mouse toward the direction of the arrow and you're good to go. Once you've "cut" the pattern, text  appears. This text indicates how the daughter let her mother, the dressmaker down. Once you finish reading, you continue cutting along the appropriate lines, revealing more and more pieces of the memoir. I loved that this piece was interactive and that I could move at my own pace. I began to become anxious about what would appear next. What piece of the puzzle I was missing. The navigation wasn't very easy, but it wasn't hard either. If you don't move your cursor after a few long seconds, a pointer will appear or the objects will begin to wobble, pointing you to the direction you must go for the next piece of the memoir. 

The textual elements included layering effects, visual images, sound and overall interactivity of the piece regarding navigation.  Out of these four elements, the most important was definitely the interactivity. Like I said earlier, the fact that you are piecing together the pattern and discovering the story on your own is imperative. One reviewer noted that, "When my friend talks to me about her mother and the struggles that they have had, she obviously doesn’t sit me down and list her grievances in order starting at her birth. With any person, you learn about them in bits and pieces out of order and I think this text captures that very well." I totally agree with this statement. Because you can go through the text in your own way, you learn about the narrator just like you would learn about any other person in real life. 

The interactivity is also used in regards to navigation. The fact that you are so-called "doing the work," you are navigating through the piece how you want to and at your own pace. Additionally, the element of the layering and removal of layers is a major part in the piece as well because it symbolizes an actual clothes fitting. You cut and sew layers of fabric to create a garment that should fit you properly. In a way, the removal of layers in the piece is the removal of said garment, which in this case, seems to be the removal of the mold the narrator's mother has for her.

Next is the images. The tools used and the visual imagery of the layers peeling away and being tended to give life to the piece. It sucks you into the narrator's story by rehashing her childhood in a visual manner. 

Finally, sound plays a very small role in "Fitting the Pattern." Noise will accompany the tools you use. It's a gentle reminder that you really are piecing together the pattern and getting the whole picture.That being said, in my opinion, the overall feeling I got from the memoir was sadness and frustration, perhaps even anger. And to be honest it didn't seem like the textual elements had any impact on me. Yes, it was nice to play around with the tools and to reveal new layers at my own pace. Plus, it was a nice way to showcase symbolism at its best, but I don't feel these elements contributed to the feel of the piece. Instead, it created a nice creative foundation for the work. The words were really what struck home for me. 

I didn't find any critiques for "Fitting the Pattern." Although I found a couple of reviews, like the one I referenced above.  There are a few more reviews floating on the Internet, but nothing too in depth.You can access the reviews here and here. 

Ideas for Final Project

I've been coming up empty with ideas lately. For my final project, the idea that popped into my head was the theme  of love. I was thinking of constructing a poem. 

There will be a launching pad with"Love is" in the middle and the surrounding "'beating" hearts with the words "family," "friends" "lovers" "strangers.' Each link will take you to a different poem that will unravel line by line.

Besides that, I'm not too sure where I want t o go. Hopefully tomorrow's class will help spark some inspiration for me. 

Project #2

So, I finally finished it. It took a good while and lots of finessing. At one point,  I wanted to pull my hair out because I couldn't get the thunder sound effect to work.

But, I overcame all of it and the result is posted below. Basically, my piece, "The Bumblebee's Journey" is based on a poem  I wrote back in high school. The title pretty much says it all.  I tried to incorporate sound and animation into my piece to the best of my ability. And boy, was the sound a pain in the butt! Trimming audio and making sure it stopped and started when I wanted to was incredibly time consuming.

That being said, the only instructions I have to give to my readers is to enjoy it and to follow the prompts. There are two times in my piece where the reader must click "yes" in order to continue reading.

So, without further ado, here's my piece. Make sure to download  it so all the sounds and animations will work. Enjoy!

Blog Assignment #7

I really want to make my digital story through Windows Live Movie Maker. I took a look at Prezi and it was a really cool Powerpoint-type website, but it didn't seem to suit my idea. I have a tragic piece I've written a few years ago that I want to use. It has to do with a mother and a deceased son. I want to put it in a different format. Electronic literature seemed a perfect fit. I'll bring the story with me to class  on Tuesday. I'd love to workshop with my classmates for ideas. 

As of now, I'm playing around with Windows Live  Movie Maker.The background is of falling snow, which is perfect for the setting of my story. I just have to play around with the different types of animation for both text and pictures and see what I can come up with.

As for questions, I want to ask Leonardo Flores:

Do you think the creative process is different in creating electronic literature compared to traditional literature? If so, in what way?

What's the best way to begin the electronic literature creative process?

Spine Poetry

I loved this assignment! I couldn't help but create more than one! 

Blog Assignment #6

After reading "A bibliographic overview of electronic literature," I came away with a few things. First off, she mentions, "E-lit provides students new objects to think with and new ways to think the objects (the text) we think we know" That sentence in itself made me think. (no pun intended!) I never thought of e-literature as thought-provoking and new aged. I translated it to read, "E-lit provides students the means to think with and new ways to think the text we think we know." Now, that still sounds a tad confusing, but I took it to mean that the evolution of electronic literature has taken literature to new heights. To a height where students must analyze literature in more depth. That electronic literature has given us, as students, a different way to think and interact with literature. In a way, that sounds completely scary because it's changing the way we already perceive literature. 

I also really like when she mentions Philippe Bootz and his essay. His idea of examining digital literature in various levels is absolutely genius! I believe that examining a piece by dissecting it's many levels is a wonderful way of analyzing a work to the fullest and in doing so, discovering the true creative essence of the piece. 

I also agree with Francisco Ricardo when he points out that electronic literature is "fundamentally different from and more complex than a material or printed work" because in my opinion, electronic literature seems to be more in depth than any printed work. There's so many elements that go into it and you have to really analyze it before you realize how much work truly went into a piece -- how much creative genius went into a piece, that is. 

And lastly I felt that Cayley had a good argument when he mentioned that, "Because language has been constrained to the mind, the voice and laterally to the “surface of the leaf,” we have internalized its being-in-all-possible-worlds as such. When it appears in “new media” we are re-sensitized to the experience of its never-having-belonged-here." I couldn't agree more! This explains why electronic literature has frustrated all of us as readers. It seems that we are so accustomed to language being constant, then when it changes, we grow discombobulated and confused. That being said, it's hard for us to adjust.