ENGL395: E Lit, Student Blog

Senior at CNU. Too many thoughts, probably.

[kdimaanoelit-blog]

MAKE UP BLOG | 31.03.16, Pathfinders, Bly, “We Descend”

The Pathfinders idea of talking to the e lit creators and getting it on record is a fantastic one. Those who create e lit are often hidden behind a computer screen and rarely given the same attention that society usually gives other authors of literature. With the speed that technology is advancing, it’s no surprise that so many pieces created at the beginning of the creation of technology have become obsolete and inaccessible. With the Pathfinders project, these pieces will always live within the digital era, even if it can’t be played or experienced in its most raw form anymore. Something is better than nothing, in this case. I wonder if they plan on being just as selective with future works and only picking four out of every decade? A lot happens in a decade, so I don’t think it’s wise for them to pick only four from an entire decade if they want a full fledged timeline of the progression of electronic literature. Then again, time constraints are a thing and I would understand why they wouldn’t want to do that.

Bly’s “We Descend” sounds like a great experience to go through and a part of me wishes I could go through it myself. The creative process of it is very similar to the way I’ve heard other authors write. It inspired me a little, because he kept talking about how things just built on top of each other until there were suddenly all these stories he could share. I really wish I could play that game now.

[kdimaanoelit-blog]

MAKE UP BLOG | 29.03.16, Piringer, “konsonant”

I didn’t download the app itself (unfortunately my phone doesn’t have enough space with all the stuff I’ve got on it), but the video they played in the link looked like so much fun. It’s almost like a game, really It’s definitely e lit, because I don’t think it would have the same effect with any other medium currently available to it, but I’m not 100% convinced on the poetry aspect of it. Like generative poetry, it doesn’t really have the same creative process as regular poetry and a lot of it relies on what the audience does as well. So it’s another grey area of ‘is it or isn’t it’ and I feel like a lot of e lit fits into that category more often than not.

[kdimaanoelit-blog]

MAKE UP BLOG | 17.03.16, Sample, “Takei, George”

I really enjoyed this piece because it was a mix of Star Trek stuff (I’m not a Trekkie, but I really want to be) and social/political activism, particularly about LGBTQ+ and minority rights, two things that are very important to me. Although I’ve tried the found poetry style before, I never would have thought to call something like generative poetry poetry simply because it doesn’t really have any creativity to it. Sure, the creation of the algorithm and everything must be some kind of creative, but in the basic definition of literature and creativity, this kind of poetry wouldn’t really fit in. Then again, the world is different now than it was when they created the basic definitions for literature. With that thought in mind, I can definitely get behind the idea of generative poetry. It’s neat, and I like the potential for thousands and thousands of variations.

[kdimaanoelit-blog]

MAKE UP BLOG | 15.03.16, Stein, "Digital Poetry Playlist"

As Bob Dylan once said, the times they are a'changin', and that's basically what Stein is talking about in this piece. It's about how things are changing and traditional media is just not cutting it to be enough anymore. He isn't saying that traditional media is obsolete and will be gone soon, but he isn't invalidating the importance of new media either. Instead, he seems to want to educate people on the new media, discussing the differences in the different parts. I would say that he ensures there is no grey area when it comes to digital poetry, but that's really all e lit is: a lot of grey area definitions of different kinds of literature.

[kdimaanoelit-blog]

MAKE UP BLOG | 16.02.16, Adventure

This game made me So Mad. it was very vague on instructions, at least with the kind of instructions I'm used to from a game. It said to only use short commands, but it didn't really specify the best kinds of commands to give it. You could occasionally get a hint, but overall, I got frustrated with the game and often times would get profane with the game. It was a good learning experience on patience and creativity, though. I had to be patient in order to be able to figure out where I needed to go and what I needed to do, but it also challenged my creativity on trying to figure out what decisions to make within the game without further instructions. Similar to how real life works, now that I think about it.

[kdimaanoelit-blog]

MAKE UP BLOG | 28.01.16, Jackson, "my body - a Wunderkammer"

Playing around with this piece of e lit was both inspiring and a little intimidating. I didn’t want to accidentally miss a link to click as I was going through it, but a part of me was hesitant to keep going because of how honest the whole piece was. The piece was a caricature of a woman’s body, possibly a self portrait of the author herself, and each section of her body linked the reader to a piece of text that explained the author’s mindset towards her body. It was raw and honest and it made me think about my own body in a different way, in thinking of it as parts of a whole and its history as parts of a whole as well (like how she had bigger shoulders compared to other people because of her history in sports). I wonder if this piece could be considered a good parenting or even sex ed tool? I personally think I would have benefitted from having read something like this when I was younger, especially considering I’m a darker skinned Asian child raised in a culture that was predominantly American and Aryan-worshipping.

[kdimaanoelit-blog]

15.03.16, Stein, “Digital Poetry Playlist”

According to Stein, what are key differences between traditional print poetry and new media and digital poetry? Toward the end of his chapter, Stein writes that digital poetry may be "a kind of art that may be regarded as possessing poetic qualities but that may not be definitely classified as poetry." What does he mean here? Citing one of the examples assigned for either last Thursday (March 10) or today, explain why you agree or disagree with his observation about poetic qualities.

The key differences between traditional print and new media and digital poetry is the fact that traditional print still has its focus on single authorship with its poetry while new media and digital poetry has created an accepting and encouraging atmosphere for multiple authors for the same piece. New media and digital poetry also allows for more variety, because most of it relies on the reader to make a decision that could potentially change the course of the game.

The quote is meant to talk about the fact that new media and digital poetry is such a vast and unexplored area of literature that the basic definition most people use for poetry has become obscure and irrelevant. It still does, however, hold onto a few key poetic qualities, like playing with white space and choosing words carefully, but overall, it does have a lot of new qualities that would not have been considered poetic in the past.

[kdimaanoelit-blog]

10.03.16, "Poems and Pixels"

This was a really interesting read, because I took a course that focused on social media and this piece is just like what I learned in that class. The part that really stuck out to me was "the comforting comes not from caress or lullaby but simply from being acknowledged amid the black crepe curtains of the faceless night" (92). That quote is very much the point of social media and Stein hits it right on the head. I like the idea that everyone is on the same wavelength when it comes to social media and putting their own works out on the Internet, because I feel like it puts everyone at a fairly level playing field. Of course, I can see the downsides of that, where the genius gets lost in the amateur, but at the end of the day, the posh journals and editors might have missed out on genius in the past simply because the person was young or not writing what they were looking for, which is a travesty to me.

[kdimaanoelit-blog]

08.03.16, Poetry

Growing up, I wasn’t a big fan of poetry, but as I’ve grown older, I’ve learned to appreciate the ideas of it more. I’m a bigger fan of the more straightforward, modern poems, like Tyler Knott Gregson’s daily haikus, but I’ve grown to appreciate the beauty in word choices and metaphors that people like Shakespeare have created. A lot of it is still very confusing to me, especially when I’m not knowledgeable of whatever the poem might be alluding to, but I’m much more open minded to reading poetry than I was as a kid.

The best kind, as far as I’m concerned, is slam poetry, because you get to watch people who have an emotional connection to the poem perform it and you get to hear the inflections in their words and to see the way it’s meant to make you feel in their facial expressions.

[kdimaanoelit-blog]

08.03.16, Prose vs Poetry

The biggest difference between prose and poetry would probably be the structure of the text as well as the writing style for them all. Most poetry doesn’t include dialogue or narrative the way that prose does. Poetry’s dialogue is mostly between the narrator and one person they’re talking to, while prose requires a lot more dialogue and is usually between multiple characters and the narrator is not a part of it, except in the case of first person prose. 

[kdimaanoelit-blog]

18.02.16, Heckman

Readerly is a term he used to describe literature that is focused on expanding the reader’s experience as a reader. Its focus was on the way that the text allowed the reader to enjoy the piece without getting too invested. Writerly is when the reader is so invested in what they’re reading, they lose themselves in it. Heckman talks about how social media turns relationships and experiences into something that has monetary gain. Netprov is short for network improv literature, which sort of embraces the idea of the riderly text, where the reader and writer are one and work with the vessel of their text in order to create more literature. With the talk about the SpeidiShow, that’s a perfect example of riderly text because it allowed the users to create what happened within the show, while also being consumers of the product being created by other users in on the joke. 

[kdimaanoelit-blog]

18.02.16, "The Riderly Text," Heckman

To be completely honest, I was very confused by the opening metaphor that Heckman used when describing the readerly and writerly relationship, mostly because it was comparing the two to different kinds of pleasure. I think it worked, though, in explaining what they mean, because now I think I understand the idea that readerly text is something that is pleasurable but not consuming, while writerly is something that takes you out of your own life and places you in something different or new. That’s a really neat way to see electronic literature, I think, even though the comparison to eroticism was momentarily confusing. 

I love the discussion about the SpeidiShow, though, because it sounds like the kind of craziness that would actually exist in the world. I’m almost a little sad that I wasn’t aware of it while it was still ongoing. He talks about what a riderly text would mean, which is where the user takes their vessel of communication, their “ride,” and takes that, as well as its ever changing atmosphere, into context when they are helping create their content. I really like the idea of riderly texts, even though I’m not sure I would have used that particular term. I don’t have a term I would substitute it for, but the idea of having the medium of the text change how you approach something as well as giving said medium the chance to change parts of the text’s path is really intriguing. 

Would riderly be considered the type of text that fills the gap between writerly and readerly texts? I feel like there might be more that fills the gap, if only because sometimes readerly texts require more work from the other sources of information, rather than just whatever you’re writing yourself. Like if something provides you with a different prompt to write about each and it takes what you write and gives you a new prompt based on that, but is not actively a part of your writing process like Twitter was a part of the author’s, does it still count as riderly? Or is it something else?

[kdimaanoelit-blog]

11.02.16, Vampire Express

I remember having read a lot of CYOA books when I was in elementary and middle school, mostly because I had run out of linear literature that I wanted to read. The fun and excitement of the text was still very much there when I was 'reading' Vampire Express, as well as the immersive idea of being a part of the story itself. The one thing I had forgotten about, but probably should have been something I predicted, was that I would have a difficult time making a decision about what to do. It took me ten minutes to decide if I wanted to check the baggage cart or ask the other passengers about Mrs. West, and even as I turned the page, I couldn't stop thinking 'is this the right decision?' I did enjoy the experience and the idea of having multiple possible endings and multiple possible choices that would affect those endings was exciting. I do, however, realised it's hard not to read the other pages you come across when you're flipping to the page you need to go to. At one point, I was thoroughly convinced I was going to die for my choice because I had flipped a couple pages too far and had seen the bolded The End at the end of one page. Thankfully, I didn't die, but it was still a little nerve wracking not to know off hand if attacking the vampire castle would lead to my demise.

[kdimaanoelit-blog]

09.02.16, Wittgenstein

Language as a Game

Multiple players

Objective = communication

Do so through commands

Doesn’t come inherently = taught

What the rules are

What are the significant elements of the words/commands

Language can be understood by its parts

[kdimaanoelit-blog]

09.01.16, What is a game?

A game is something that allows the consumer of the product to use their brains for something unusual to their everyday thought processes. For example, I’ve started becoming more invested in the roleplaying game of Dungeons and Dragons, and although that is a very extreme version of an escapist game, it’s still very much a game. It gives the user the capability to think outside of what is usually possible in their lives -- as a human being, I can’t cast spells or shapeshift into animals, but as my character, I’m able to have those abilities and solve problems with a little help -- and it also allows them to come out of the game with some kind of finished product. For some games, like Monopoly and Life, it’s bragging rights and fake money, but for games like D&D, there are a lot of potential products, both in the fictional world created for the characters and for the players of the game. You build relationships with the people you’re playing with, both in and out of game, because you get to spend hours talking about and through the quests and issues the characters go through. Games are about being able to get outside of the usual headspace you might occupy and be someone else, even if it’s a mafia boss at Monopoly or an rogue druid elf in a fictional fantasy world. 

[kdimaanoelit-blog]

09.02.16, Aarseth

Aarseth compares the differences between a reader of traditional literature and a reader of cybertext. His comparisons were pretty spot on, because it shows the differences between traditional literature and cybertext. He also talks about cybertext can be mistaken for something less useful by the critics, but makes a pretty great argument for it. On page 3, he says "cybertext is a machine for the production of variety of expression." This is an easy way to explain that cybertext is no less important and thought-provoking just because it does not fit traditoonal standards. I think his idea of helping people understand by giving them a chance to experience cybertext is also a really smart idea. The only problem then would be: how do we ensure that everyone who experiences cybertext is able to experience it in a way that makes it easy to understand as a concept?

[kdimaanoelit-blog]

04.02.16, Wysocki Notes

Hypertext Assumptions:

Reliant on reader interpretation

Wants multiple interpretations of text

Encourages active readership

Responsibility -- the reader gets some responsibility to the literature

Primary verbal/textual -- more explicit value

Hypertext Critiques:

Limited choice/illusion of choice

Potential multiple interpretations

Visual Text Assumptions:

Where is the worth in interpreting?

“Easier” to understand

Images all mean the same thing to all readers 

Wysocki’s Challenge to Assumptions:

Visual texts aren’t inherently easy to read/interpret

Reader experience is unique and different every time

Scrutiny in the Great Round vs. Throwing Apples at the Sun

Full Screen vs. Not full screen

Subtle vs. In your face