Author Archives: 0alloldusers

Redridinghood provides a new perspective and a new medium for the classic Brother’s Grimm fairy tale.  In Donna Leishaman’s tale, red riding hood is updated, and interactive.  While the core story remains the same, Leishaman’s interactive style draws viewers in and brings new life to the story.  Marshal McLuhan says, “Our official culture is striving to force the new media to do the work of the old.  These are difficult times because we are witnessing the clash of cataclysmic proportions between two great technologies.  We approach the new with the psychological conditioning and sensory responses to the old.”  For here we have this classic tale, translated and updated into a new language and media, using code, and hypertext, Leishman transforms this story into the new medium.  The only draw back to her electronic text, is that she doesn’t compile different variations to the Red Riding Hood story.  There are many endings to the story, but in Leishman’s story there is no definitive ending.  Perhaps that was on purpose, no definitive ending allows her to add her own digital narrative to this common story.  Still I think she would have been better served if added multiple buttons to her electronic text.  Each one could have showed a different ending.  There were many different endings to this classic fairy tale, if she showed little red riding hood choosing a different path, or just show different narrations by the wolf, that would have brought the viewer/reader in even more.

ColleenBurke85

@joe5joe7

E-literature pieces provide a fascinating ability to re-conceptualize stories we already know in a way that gives us a different or enhanced understanding of the story. The E-lit piece “Red riding hood” provides us with the story of little red riding hood in a way that only and E-lit piece can, a way that provides us with interaction within the story. Unlike a classic story that is told solely from the person telling the story, this medium allows the author to put some story control in the hands of the viewer. This makes it far more interesting, adding significantly to the depth of the piece. In addition to this unlike a story that is a strict progression of cause to effect, this medium allows for the story to be told in a myriad of ways with an indeterminate ending.

Another affordance of the medium is the ability to engage more senses than a regular story, and actually grants the author more control over what the viewer feels. In a book or short story the viewer is free to conjure up whatever mental images they want, however an E-lit piece allows the author to control every aspect of the experience, from the images to the sound. This can provide much more of an atmosphere than a simple story can. All of these aspects differ significantly from  a regular book, however the goal is the same. This is merely a different medium through which authors accomplish the same thing, but this puts more tools at their disposal.

Here is the link to my video.

Ingrid Ankerson’s “Cruising” is an example of a born digital work.  This piece of electronic literature could never exist on in print, as it would take away from the fluidity that it has on online.  The fast pace pictures and auditory rhyming give Ankerson’s work  a sort of beat nick quality.  There is a quote in the text that articulates this point quite nicely “Computer-modulated texts (poetry machines, cybertexts) are a form of poetry that lives and breathes the fluidity of the electronic environment.  They highlight the dynamic production of text, turning this production into a spectacle.  Experiencing the text means watching words and meaning emerge and evolve on the screen.”  This is what it means to be a “born digital” work, electronic literature goes beyond the limitations of the text itself, as it tries include different senses and interactivity.  If one were to try to create “Cruising” on paper, it would fail, because the images would be static.  It would lack the movement and the rhythm that is has digitally.  One draw back to electronic literature is that it is giving you the narrative, and doesn’t let your mind imagine as fully as simple printed text does.  With a book or a poem, one is more free to interpret and imagine what they want, but with many forms of electronic literature, the narrative is more rigid as it feeds you text, sound, and pictures, that is specifically programed by the creator.  This form is interesting in how it can reinterpret literature and widen the definition, yet it still can never replace the authentic printed word.

Colleen Burke-ColleenBurke85

http://www.youtube.com/embed/KrGxoOY7tmg

For my Authoring project I decided to use the medium of DOTA 2. This game is what’s known as a “E-Sport” which means that it is played competitively around the world be teams for money. I thought that it would be an interesting comparison to take the commentary from a sport (in this case soccer) and set it over some clips from a “professional” Dota 2 player. I discovered through watching some of these videos that the announcers for actual Dota 2 events sound actually very similar to the announcers for sports, and that the composition didn’t feel wholly out of place.

Adding the sports commentary gives the game a bit more gravitas, conveying and Aura on the piece that’s different than it’s original. ESports are not really recognized as “real” sports, so giving it the same treatment as one changes your perception. This game contains many of the same elements as a “real” sport; for example it’s team based and the players can make a living on it. I discovered that the audio actually managed to line up fairly well when I edited it down, and the similarity to DOTA 2 announcers took me by surprise.

Out of the three electronic literature pieces I watched I enjoyed Shy Boy by Thom Swiss the most. Shy Boy is definitely a moving piece of electronic literature and could not be nearly appreciated if it was converted somehow into print form. The combination of music, text, animations and color are all key to making Shy Boy an effective piece of literature. However, it is these aspects that also make it not able to be made in print form but require it to be electronic. In N. Katherine Hayles’ article “Electronic Literature: What is it?” she states, “Unlike a print book, electronic text literally cannot be accessed without running the code. Critics and scholars of digital art and literature should therefore properly consider the source code to be part of the work, a position underscored by authors who embed in the code information or interpretive comments crucial to understanding the work” (3). This is very true for Shy Boy concerning the code. All of the multimedia features going on like the music, colors and animations are only made possible through someone putting in code. From HTML markups down to the binary code that makes up the flash animation, these code-based elements are what give this piece of literature more depth and I think more power over the reader. The multiple stimuli of text, music and movement just naturally serve to grab my attention more than just if I were reading it in text in print form. This is why I would say that I enjoy reading electronic literature more than traditional print literature.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Q8wN3IF3-I

https://www.dropbox.com/s/z50uosps5fkhra7/Author.docx

@ObergJustin

Regarding the “Star Wars Fan Film: The Essence of the Force”, I do not think that this is protected and legal under Fair Use. I would call this film a derivative of the original. It includes the original Star Wars name in its title, it features recognizable characters from the franchise, lightsabers and the force. All of these make up and our main parts of the original Star Wars work. The Copyright law defines a “derivative work as “a work based upon one or more preexisting works, such as a… motion picture version, sound recording, art reproduction, abridgment, condensation, or any other form in which a work may be recast, transformed, or adapted” (Chap 1). The law also says in section 206 that the owner of the copyright “has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work” (Chap 1).

As for the “Star Wars Sage (The Best Trance Remix Montage” I also do not think it is protected by Fair Use. The video clearly uses clips and music from the original work. It also does not portray itself as a parody, a criticism or for educational use. In section 106 of the Copyright law it says that “the owner of copyright under this title has the exclusive rights to… reproduce the copyrighted work in copies or phonorecords. I would think this would apply to this video as the clips and music from the original work are being reproduced.  Copyright laws can be very unclear and subjective but I do not think that either of these videos could be considered legal.

@joe5joe7

I do not believe that the Star Wars Saga violates copyright for a number of reasons, namely that it doesn’t affect the market share of Star Wars. Since it’s a video on youtube with a fairly small number of views and can in no way be considered a substitute for the original work. Another factor to consider is the nature of this work compared to the original. While this work emphasizes the musical score (not from Star Wars) and utilizes the video clips from Star Wars merely to provide emphasis. In addition to both of these it only uses a very small fraction of the original work. Given the fact that there is also a lack of the Star Wars movies sounds in the clip it conveighs a very different message than the one that the movies did.

The Star Wars fan video is not a copyright violation for a different reason entirely. A copyright only protects the actual thing, not the idea of the copyrighted work. Since the fan film didn’t use any of the actual footage or names, they should be free of any legal trouble. There is a slight question though about the fonts and logos that they used; specifically the ones for the production companies. Last I checked the criteria for copyrights on that was whether they could be confused for the company in question, and Fox and Lucas Films could easily make a case that this is the case.

Fair use can be such a grey area, the line is drawn by judges, and at the end of the day judges are people whom contain their own bias.  Lets assume for a moment that Lucas decided to sue the creators of these two videos for copyright infringement, would he have a case?  In the first video “Star Wars Fan Film: The Essence of the Force”, one could argue that this is a clear case of fair use as this is a parody, as they are clearly spoofing particularly at the end of video.  However, Lucas could argue that they stole scenes and ideas from his movie, and they did not add anything new to his original idea, and therefore it would not be transformative and would not follow under fair use.  One would hope the presiding judge in this fictional case would side with the defendants.

Now lets look at the next video, “Star Wars Saga (The Best Trance Remix Montage)”  A montage by definition is a set of scenes usually set to music.  On YouTube many users upload scenes from movies set to music, sometimes their own sometimes someone else’s.  Lets presume this montage has original music, it still sampling all the scenes from Star Wars.  Lucas could then argue that since 100% of the scenes are from his movie, this a clear violation of copyright infringement.  The creator of the video could argue, that since he is not profiting from this video he is not harming the original, and is in fact paying homage to Lucas.