Digging the Digital

A record of my steps toward the Digital Humanities

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New Digital Writing Spaces

In Trope we can see how a digital space can become a new signifying element in artistic works and also a new space for the creation of artistic works. This collaborative work is an island in the world of "Second Life." It is because of this that it is such a creative work. In "Second Life" the player must create an avatar that represent her or himself in the game world. The player digitally represented inside the world. The work in Trope embraces this idea and use it to add significance to alot of the works.

A section of Trope resembles a cafe and has lounge chairs with floating books in front of them. These books hold the text of all the works in Trope. Reading these texts and then reading them in their creative setting makes the user very aware of the signifying strategies these authors are using. This can be seen in maze floating above the island. One might read the lounge book version and get the text but that is nothing like experiencig the text as a maze that envelops and guides the reader out. Trope shows the potential of a new digita writerly environment because after experiencing these works it is evdent that in this platform writers have a new range of signifing strategies and ways to control how the user interacts with the work.

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Adding meaning through movement

David Knoebel's poetry embraces some interesting signifying strategies seen in other e-works. In his poems, similar to visual poetry, words aren't simply anlyzed by their denotation or even their connotation but one must also apply the knowledge of these two terms to the movement of the words. The words in his work are unintellible at certain angles so the reader must try and discover why and how to read them. The poems movement involves because the reader must move with it. Not only is movement something that must be appreciated but also all that movement entails. The words don't simply move up and down or left to right as on a 2d plane. The words are 3d models that are programmed to move through a 3d space meaning that distance can become a more prominent signifying element.

"Walkdont" is one of Knoebel's 3d poems that empahsizes movement on a 3d plane. Some words are always legible because the word never gives its back to the user, like "walk" and "don't walk." other words freeze at point while some change their movement behavior; such as "who knew?" which moves around the central helix during "don't walk" yet remains flipping in the same spot "during walk. Because these words are in a 3d space the concept of walkin can be more clearly imagined because the words spin around a helix. The poem develops as a game of "red light green light" where the user can tell the words what to do by passing the mouse over a black circle. The helix can be read as "you turning toward moment this" yet makes more sense if read from the bottom to the top which  reads "this moment turning toward you." If the moment is directed at the user then the user is empowered because the work has centered its focus on the user.

Yet the user doesn't have absolute control over all the words. When the user changes the word "don't walk" from red to the green word "walk" the only phrase "walking around" is the "who knew?" This is the most interesting point of the work and points at all the potential that e-poetry has. The words behave and have character because they have been brought to life in this electronic environment. "Who knew" that words could so blatantly disobey us? Knoebel brings up interesting questions about language and the written word. Just how much control do we have over our words?

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Myst's Gravitational Pull

I was personally astounded by the simplicity of Myst. The player starts the game without some lengthy tutorial or text box ruining immersion. The visual diegesis that Myst achieves is due to this focus on the visual. The player's hand is never held and must thus explore the island of Myst through the absorption and interpretation of visual data. There is no telling how long a player will stay on the island without progressing beyond it into other ages. By blocking players progression with complex puzzles the developer forces to player to sit and drink in all the information given, be it through the journals, the video books, or the machinery and flora of the island.

The player's exploration of the island and the developer's choice to make the player explore leads to a sense that the digital world in which the player acts is a complete one. The player is allowed to become fully immersed with the absence of some cluttered HUD and simple controls. The simple HUD, which is only really there when a player grabs a red or blue (or white) page, allows a more direct and realistic connection to the ages of Myst. The simple controls quickly become second nature so the player can simply interact with the world and forget about the mechanics of "how."

By allowing the player to explore these worlds through simple visual information the narrative is made even more powerful. The player feels a real presence in these worlds, there aren't simply stages but mysterious planes that have a past present and future. The idea of reading a book by picking it up instead of placing it in some infinite inventory and reading it in a text book also affects greatly. The player reads handwriting which is more personal and shows the author had experience with these ages.

The immersion and free form exploration also enhances the narrative in that the player feels like she or he has a real choice. Why do you explore? To find a way of the island or out of the age. The puzzles are solved for a practical reason, not just for a desire to understand what is going on in the ages of Myst. This desire leads the player to follow up on the mystery of the video books and choice becomes a more and more predominant factor of the game. ***spoiler if you care*** Some of the endings even leave the player trapped in an age or a book and the player can wait there for as long as they want, hoping maybe salvation will arrive; although it never does. These endings have a powerful impact because the game is structured on this visual diegesis so the player feels to be really in the worlds of Myst; imagine how the immersion would have been destroyed if credits would simply roll instead.

Mystery and mystical are words that may best describe Myst. All because it pulls the player into its worlds that seem to have weight and mass, live and death, past and future. It's no wonder it is so easy to get caught in the gravitational pull of Myst.

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I feel it could use more shaping up but everytime I sit down to revise it something comes up. I decided to just go ahead and post it as it is and maybe edit the google document later. I'm more content with the idea of putting out this version and maybe getting some feedback on it to help reinforce the paper.

ps. The paper was written as a final project for the graduate course "The Materials of Poetry" which was offered by Dr. Leonardo Flores at the University of Mayaguez Puerto Rico.

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Cursive Code

Dan Waber's "Strings" poems play with the idea of handwriting in the digital environment.What really interested me about "Strings" and "Strings Mark II" is that it really does evoke the idiosyncrasies that can be seen in handwriting; like the way some people may never close their lower case "d" while others do. In a sense these works made me appreciate the expression that can be seen in one's handwriting yet almost entirely absent in typing; just take a few seconds to imagine how many documents are written in Times New Roman. Waber brings handwriting into the digital environment and brings it to life by crafting words from a constantly moving black string or group of strings.

We can never truly generate the same written word more than once; no matter how hard we try one detail will be different. This is where we can see the difference between the written word and the coded word. The written word sits idly once created yet it is different from other apparently identical words. The digital or coded word can be brought to life and can be perfectly reproduced countless times. The string that we see in Waber's works appears to be generating countless different versions of words like "no" with a slighte longer "o" than it had two seconds earlier. The paradox is that there isn't an infinite amount of possibilities with the string like there is with the written word. The string is programmed and thus does the same thing over and over again. This knack for reproduction is a characteristic of digital media that handwriting can't ever truly replicate.

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"Slippingglimpse" and "Game game game and again game"

Both "Slippinggimpse" and "Game game game and again game" both use the medium of the computer to startling effect; clearing neither could be experienced in another medium without losing a substantial amount of information. "Game game game and again game" uses the videogame, which is a native genre to the electronic environment. Slippingglimpse uses many techniques like words that shimmer and bend while passing over images of moving water. Although this effect could be simulated in a film, the iteractivity with the text and image wouldn't be. In "Game..." one could analyze the signifying technique of using a game with badly drawn sprites and text that appears as the player explores the small stages. With "Slippinggimpse" one could analyze the importance of the interactivity and randomness of the words movements, which couldn't be replicated by making each picture a clip instead of an interactive space.

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"meaningful association" in the "Stir Fry Texts"

Jim Andrews's discussion on the importance of "meaningful association" in digital cut-ups which appears in one of the essays attached to the "Stir Fry Texts" intrigued me as much as the poems themselves. The essay is an excellent complimentary reading for the poems because  the poems put the theory in practice. This can be seen in "correspondence" which is a "Stir Fry Text" that uses text taken from emails between Andrews and two other e-poets. It begins as a text on the significance of the technique of the cut-up and the nature of language. As the user mouse over this text, it begins to shift between the possible versions of the lines. The poem shifts between the different possibilities while still maintaining shapes. The controlled randomization and the structure of the poem shows how the text isn't just random, it is planned and shows intention.

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Strips of Reason. A look into "Cent Mille Milliards de Poémes"

Queneau's poem, or better yet poems, allows the reader to change lines of a sonnet to certain variants while still making grammatical sense. The initial sonnet, that appears on page one of the physical version of the poem, makes sense but as the reader changes more and more lines it begins to become more and more incoherent until it becomes completely irrational. Part of the surrealistic experience and message of this creative piece is lost in the digital version of the text.

If the reader has the book in hand, he or she can change each line consciously and read the resulting poem. This experience of peeling away layers of reason by turning each line creates the unique experience of consciously leaving the realm of rational thought. The digital version of the text does offer this same experience because the algorithm is followed at the click of a button and a new sonnet appears. The user's distance from the action of actually choosing which lines to change doesn't allow him or her to enjoy the same experience offered through the hyper-mediation of the original format.

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"You can't form your question into words"

My time spent with the electronic work "Galatea" mesmerized me. I couldn't shake the feeling that Galatea had so much more to tell me every time I asked or said something to her. The statement that the compiler kept showing me "You can't form your question into words" was truer than I expected it could be.

While asking questions I kept on running out of topics to bring up. I resorted to Greece and Greek mythology. I found it funny how it all seemed to bore he; if one were to imagine being in her position, were she real, then those kind of topics must be boring because everyone would ask them. The plot thickened as I decided to tell her about "myself." This lead to discoveries as to who my character was. The revelation that my character is an art inspector shed some light as to why he or she would be talking to Galatea in the first place. The work amazed me in how it leads the user into authentically feeling and exploring Galatea, specifically when my character said he/she inspects art and she strikes a pose mockingly.

When more time passed I get on reentering the "recap" command to see if there was anything more interesting to discuss than what I had in mind. I preferred spontaneously inputting topics rather than constantly checking the list but at times I drew up blank. While I spent more time asking questions to Galatea I realized I had a ton of things I wanted to ask and discuss and when I reached of a point of constantly asking questions and having them answered, the exhibit closed.

This work forced me to realize how powerful it is when it kicked me out. I actually felt guilty that I never goodbye. I couldn't get over the fact that I didn't apologize when I felt I struck a nerve.I started again and tried to hug and apologize to Galatea yet the compiler casually reminded me that she is a program and if I need to apologize then I can just restart and avoid what caused the problem.

I was and am stupefied by this work because it so effectively creates a character that can be interacted with. The choice of using Galatea as the inspiration for this work is perfect because I really felt that it made some dead strings of code spring to life. Some dead strings of code made me feel.

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My chat with Eliza

I just wanted to post my... conversation with Eliza the chatbot because I found it fairly interesting to play around with. The binary I wrote was converted from text using this site (http://www.roubaixinteractive.com/PlayGround/Binary_Conversion/Binary_To_Text.asp). I found the discussion interesting because through a few experiments one can reveal which strings show the programs "understanding" of the statements. My favorite way to test that was through the use of multiple ellipses.

>> Hello. How do you do.  Please state your problem. >> I got alot of work to do You say you got alot of work to do  ? >> yep, exactly what I said Why do you ask ? >> No; why do you ask? Are you saying no just to be negative? >> I don't know how to answer to that Don't you really know what to answer to that  ? >> How about telling me something insead of asking me. Does that question interest you ? >> sigh yes it does You seem to be quite positive. >> Does that interest you? We were discussing you -- not me. >> Does that interest Eliza? I'm not sure I understand you fully. >> I didn't think you would. Oh, I would  ? >> What? What is it you really wanted to know ? >> I wanted to know whether or not that question interested you? Perhaps in your fantasies we wanted to know whether or not that question interested each other. >> 01010111011010000110000101110100001000000110000101110010011001010010000001111001011011110111010100100000011101000110100001101001011011100110101101101001011011100110011100111111 Please go on. >> I said 01010111011010000110000101110100001000000110000101110010011001010010000001111001011011110111010100100000011101000110100001101001011011100110101101101001011011100110011100111111 Can you elaborate on that ? >> 01110111011010000111100100100000011000110110010101110010011101000110000101101001011011100110110001111001 What does that suggest to you ? >> you can't read binary can you You're not really talking about me -- are you ? >> I believe I most certainly am Do you say you believe you most yes are  for some special reason ? >> What does that suggest to you? Are such questions much on your mind ? >> We were discussing you -- not me. Why do you think I not you ? >> ... Do you feel strongly about discussing such things ? >> ... I'm not sure I understand you fully. >> ... Please go on. >> ... What does that suggest to you ?

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In Desperate Need of a Guide (Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the Videogame)

I always wanted to play this game since I read the first book of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. My excitement at the chance to play could never have prepared me for this experience.

The game captures the humor of the book through a creative use of the nature of the text based game. In these text games the user has to clearly write what he or she wants to do. This enhances the comedy of the title because what the user must do is sometimes so unexpected unless you've read some of the book. The games is entertaining in how it allows you to do a fairly large amount of actions that seem strange; like brushing your teeth while the house is going to be demolished or taking some pocket fluff out of Arthur's gown to then keep it in his "inventory."

All the options within the users power can sometimes make the user forget to be logical at points. I personally felt this when I made Arthur Dent lay down in front of the bulldozer and waited but it was too complicated for me to figure out that I had to ask Ford about the house in order to continue. If I were in that situation I naturally would ask Ford about my house but I was so aware that I was only accessing the options that the program allowed and I entirely forgot about what I would normally do in that situation.

The aforementioned situation where the user can become oblivious to the logical part of the situation is the result of something that is inherent to this type of game. Text based games captures some sense of reality in the wealth of options they allow or expect the user to choose. There are many options but the command lines are so specific that they may feel strange to execute, or at least feel unintuitive. The precision required from the user makes immersion difficult and immediacy seems near impossible to achieve.

The game does use this all to its advantage in a sense. One might approach the game expecting to act as one would in real life but the game requires a different logic from the user if he or she wishes to progress. The games logical brick wall that the user runs into and the constant awareness of how one interacts with the game leads to a different kind of immersion. Anyone who has read the book, heard it, or seen the movie knows that the logic of the diegetic world of the Hitchhiker's Guide is very far from that of quotidian life; it is fitting that the game makes us aware of how we do things and execute commands because the strangeness of those commands is where the joy is be found in the game.

I urge those who haven't had the pleasure of playing this game to try it out. Also never forget your towel and DON'T PANIC

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Zork and the 2nd Person Narrative

The text based game Zork surprised me after my hour long demo with how it invited creativity in one's approach to the exploration of the game world, better yet, the lines of text. An aspect that lured me into exploring more was the feeling I got from reading a narrative in 2nd person. The fact that very deliberate action must be taken to accomplish anything in this game heightens the sense the this was my story, or at least it seemed so.

The other voice in the game which questions the users input tends to disable the immersion that a 2nd person narrative can lead to. An example of this was when I wanted to test the responses that certain strings would lead to. Towards the end of my playthrough I wanted to see how death was handled so when I reached a cliff I had climbed earlier I decided to write "jump off" and the program responded "jump off what?" I wrote "cliff" and the game said it would prove fatal and didn't let me. I proceeded to kill myself with a "nasty knife." It is interesting that the game prevented me from killing myself by jumping off yet apparently gutting myself with a kitchen knife was a-okay. It intrigues me because the program gave me  specific response regarding the circumstance so it could have easily lead to a death sequence. If my action was so deliberate that I would write "jump off the cliff" I think my fatalistic intentions are pretty clear yet I was denied that death; but not denied death itself.

The voice affected my experience when I realized it was knowledgeable. At one point I asked it what a "grue" was and it gave me a little description. With this in mind my feeling of control began to diminish when I realized this omnipresent voice had a say in how I did everything, and it even questioned my actions when it wouldn't let me execute certain commands. While playing the game I felt the world was lonely and desolate but I then realized I was accompanied by a rather opinionated presence. This fact had a significant impact on my immersion and sense of freedom.

After my playthrough I can think on the experience and say that I'm not sure that was my adventure anyhow. True it was all in 2nd person but the language and syntax one must use, closer to programming than quotidian, lead me to feel that I was taking the role of a brain that had barely been used and the game is the quest of this brain learning to tell its body what to do. Now that I think about it, that would make for interesting work.

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A Cyborg Syntax

First things first... If Rosenburg wanted us to walk away from the poem without any kind of interpretation then I would like to let him know that he can rest easy because I have no particular clue as to what I read in his "Diagram Series 6" poems. That being said I still found a lot to like in his poetry but it was more in the form of pondering the potential of this new type of syntax. Each poem made me feel like I was backwards engineering a circuit or something of the sort because not only did I not fully understand what I was doing but I had the feeling that the person who made it did. It was definitely an experience to observe this non-linear syntax in action. Exploring the space and having it react to one's movement makes for a dynamic new form of hypertext.

While reading this I couldn't help but feel excited, despite my depiction of confusion above. I was excited because I recalled my linguistic courses and the discussions of how our spoken language is the way it is because we can only produce linear strings of phones and this leads to things like a more linear syntax. I also remembered my reading of Walter J Ong's Orality and Literacy in another class with Professor Flores. The part of the text that floated around in my mind was the section in which Ong discusses how Philosophy and advanced study are possible with the arrival of the written word because spoken language is liberated from the heavy mnemonic burden it carried. This new syntax in which clusters are related to other clusters and which can dived into with a simple mouse click didn't feel like strictly human syntax; it seems to be much more than that. The structure that Rosenburg tinkers with and its resulting syntax feels more cyborg than human. This is what ultimately excites me because it speaks volumes about our interaction with the electronic medium and reaffirms my hopes in the future of the Digital Humanities.

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Opening the bottomless drawers

Jackson's electronic work is interesting in how it allows the user to explore the freedom given to them in the form of the image of a woman and different parts of her body boxed off. This first phase echoes the lines that state that we open drawers at random. The poem starts with the simple choice of which body part the user which to explore. What's interesting is that once inside the image, the illusion of freedom seems present yet begins to disappear. The act of exploring the poem through hypertext allows the user to enjoy being a co-author of their unique reading of Jackson's tale but this is a freedom that is guided by the structure of the text. Because the work is explored through clicking hypertext links, one is only allowed certain options at different body parts. This is also a way in the author can take advantage of this medium by giving some body parts more hypertext links inside them, possibly symbolizing how that body part forms a significant part of the author's life.

The illusion of freedom was something I noticed when I reached a section that had colored words and appeared as hypertext but were merely colored texts. This also brings to light how the browser one uses can shape one's reading of this work. For example, my browser (firefox) identifies the links I've already visited by changing their color and also identifies hypertext by showing the link in the bottom left hand corner of the screen. Yet these aids which gave me a sense of control over how I explored the work were not enough to save me from being trapped in part of it; one of the instances in which Jackson's text is "bobby-trapped." I was caught between the "butt," "ears," and "eyelid" because links wouldn't lead to any other body parts but these three. An interesting example of how hypertext allows the author new means in which to give significance to certain elements of the text.

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Trailblazing

Well the article was really interesting not only because it showed the origin of hypertext in a sense but also how it details the path to developing new tech. He presented a very valid point that inventions occur and are propagated in direct relation to the context of the society in which they occur in. This is clearly shown in the example with the pharaoh making the first automobile. This knowledge helped me look back at the context in which some things I use were invented and also at our society and lead me to wonder what can be invented today. I believe the context is not only economic or cultural but also ideological; like how it was considered heresy to use crossbows around the time of the Crusades. What possible creations could our own ideology allow? Would something have to change? The interesting thing about all this, and that the article helped me ponder, is that the inventions themselves create new contexts. Just imagine what it was like when the first railroad was developed or when the light bulb was made available to the public. Whether these futures inventions will be designed as a part of a war effort or not, it is clear that the impact a new invention can have on society is never easily predicted.

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"the book and the maze were one and the same thing"

    To say that Borges's text blew my mind is putting is mildly and is also an inaccurate statement. What really hit me and validated the entire reading of Borges's short story was the hypertext response at the end (if you can call it that). The response comments on the ideas of parallel universes and the importance of context through simple linguistic strings of information but is most effective in how it makes the reader understand the entire argument by experiencing what is being discussed. This is evident in the nature of hypertexts. They are open to user interaction and can allow for a larger number of different readings. This variability is increased when one looks at the argument the author of the response makes about nostalgia. He or she argues that nostalgia can only be felt by someone that has experienced the time or event firsthand; therefore nostalgia is intrinsically connected to context. With this in mind, one can argue that the reading can be infinite because each reader brings there own context to the reading aside from the context in which the text is experienced. Couple this with the fact the hypertexts can be explored in different orders and this seems pretty logical.

Aside from that, what really busted open my cranium was the way in which the response not only discusses these ideas but makes the reader understand them by experience. I felt this in a paragraph where nostalgia is discussed. There are two instances in which the "a-bomb" and the "cold war" are mentioned. These two instances appear in separate pages and the wording is extremely similar which gives a reader a sense of nostalgia when reread thus validating the argument that one must experience something to feel nostalgia for it. The Borges text coupled with the response is so ingenious because it proves that "the book and the maze were one and the same thing"