Month: March 2019

Loss of Grasp on FilmText

0alloldusers

For this blog post I explored, “Loss of Grasp”, by Serge Bouchardon, and “FilmText”, by Mark Amerika. Both of these pieces told a story, but with a fair amount of abstraction. “Loss of Grasp”, seems to explore the progression of the main character through a downward spiral. The story begins with the character having things put together, but then quickly falling apart. As colorful glowing orbs start following the mouse movements, and exploding on screen, the reader is able to experience the “out of control” feeling of the main character. The reader is then given a choice to follow the character ten or so years down the line, a few days later, or in the present. When I read through this piece, I chose the ten-year option. After choosing this, I was brought to a picture of a woman that was revealed with the scrolling over of my mouse. The story then progresses, to the woman leaving the main character. The story continues to fall apart, as the main character is dealing with disappointment through the eyes of their son.

“FilmText” had quite a bit more abstraction, and I struggled to understand the meaning behind this piece. Most of the piece took place over an image of a sandy, barren and crater filled landscape. There were many futuristic technology images that overlaid this landscape. These futuristic technology pieces could be interacted with by the reader. I believe that this piece could be a commentary on the future of civilization, and the clash of organic and inorganic. The piece employed quite a few interactions for the reader. With the movement and clicking of the mouse, images, audio, and text could be displayed.  I was impressed with the use of different forms of media in both of these pieces, and I really enjoyed exploring them and their meanings. I was able to really experience the emotions of the piece, and the images, audio, and interactivity, really drove the story.

Multi-media fiction. How to Rob a bank with 88 constellations

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jcummings18

While reading these works, I was both engaged and confused. All of the pieces are vastly different and each have there own story to tell but also all of them use the same mediums available. I have gone through “how to rob a bank” in other classes and that backstory helped fill in details. But it is still interesting to see how both images, text, sound and video are all used to move the narritive along. While I enjoy this piece, it isn’t immersive for me, this is well because no one in reality would try to rob a bank in such a manner. So, the sense of realism an immersive is lost because of the absurdity of it. This doesn’t mean that the characters are not interesting and the story fun but that I always know where I am while interacting with this literature. The tools used to create this world are very different then you tools and methods used for other E-lit pieces and I like that about “How to Rob a Bank” in this series you interact and see the story unfold through seeing post on social media, or through journal entries, in gifs or other abstract sounds.
88 constellations, this art/literature piece grabbed my attention more than I was expecting. When I first looked at this piece, I was a little put-off/ confused by its layout. But after I highlighted the first constellation (hyperlink) and the video started I was hooked. The way that they are all interconnected as well as the utilization of video and sound had me jumping form one star to the next learning about Beethoven’s 5th, to then learn about Charlie Chaplin. How each star in a constellation has a little bit of information and they all play a part in describing the whole constellation.

Blog 7 – 3/1/19

Joshua Jackson

 

After I watched and played around with A is for apple last week, I knew 88 Constellations for Wittgenstein was my first choice for this week. Another piece done in Flash, demonstrates constellations in which you click on each and it opens displays with animated pictures and narration that creatively relates certain things from Wittgenstein’s life and philosophy. For example, the piece plays on numerous meanings of “88”, from its ban on German soccer jerseys to a deeper idea that “88” implies “Heil Hitler” because the letter H is the 8th letter. The piece is not an effective story being that it is very nonlinear rather it is an assembly of clicks that make connections in multiple ways, yet works very well to keep your attention.

The next piece I chose was Mark Amerika’s “Film Text”. As I watched the introduction and After no changes on the screen, thinking this was a video only, I started to interact with the text. I really enjoyed the audio and visuals used in the piece that connected the use of technology and living in inner-city communities with many people. again, I felt the piece was a critique of modern society with its large urban centers, technology, and media. I found It interesting that Amerika intended for this piece to have a more particular narrative with specific characters, places, and events. The only continuity in this piece was the shadow man with a hat who appeared throughout the piece. Very nice pieces this week, I feel sometimes I have little to no understanding of why or what these artworks are all about and then some just click with me.

Multimedia Fiction

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jcook19

In this weeks Blog we dive into a few contents that focuses on multimedia fiction as well as multilinear storytelling. We have to choose 2 – 3 of them and go in depth with what they represent. The 2 pieces of content that I choose to write about was “Lost of Grasp” and “Film Text”. I choose those 2 stories specifically because I felt like they are the ones that really stood out from the rest in terms of design and overall content.

The first story that I choose, “Lost of Grasp”, was very interesting. The story starts us off with a flash animated introduction then cuts us to a desert landscape where we are free to then choose how we want to progress with the story. I really felt immersed in this piece of content because I felt it was really well put together and it doesn’t demand to much with how fast we want to know with the story.

The second story that I choose which was “Film Text” was a little weird but in a way that really made you focus on the story to really get an understanding of what it all means. Like for example, the son talking about how he doesn’t have a hero because he doesn’t really favor a life more than the previous life but then we where able to mess with the wording a little bit by clicking on a specific part of the paragraph and hearing him say things like, “I don’t love you”, “You’re not a modal for me” and I believe that this is what the father is hearing because, I believe, that all he wanted is for someone to look up to him but sense his son really doesn’t look up to anyone the father believes that the son doesn’t really love him.

Multimedia Fiction

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Megan

This week, I chose to take an in-depth look at the works “Loss of Grasp” and “How to Rob a Bank.” Loss of Grasp generates words through mouse clicking and every once in awhile it seemed as though the words showed up based on a timer. If I clicked sometimes a word would show up, but other times it would take awhile to actually show up, hence my suspicion that it also used a timer to precisely decide how long the user must interact with certain words and phrases. This timed text combined with the ability to click around on the screen creating expanding circles of color and different sounds creates a world that to me felt like a representation of what it’s like to think to yourself. Seeing those circles of color reminded me of the times as a kid where I would close my eyes and rub them hard and see all of the colors that would show up. I don’t know if this was the artists intention, but it’s definitely what the work made me think about, and I found it very immersive because it felt as though I was in my own thoughts. This work is a fiction based on the fact that it is not based on or referencing anything in particular. I believe if there is any character in this work, then it must be the user.

In How to Rob a Bank, the world is generated based on a fake iPhone screen, by clicking through it switches between various “scenes” within the phone, such as two characters texting each other about several things throughout the course of the story, news articles, images, social media, etc. Since this is the kind of world we see every day on our own devices, it was especially easy to become immersive, since I am so used to being able to become immersed in the sole technology in my hands on a daily basis. This work comes across as more of an obvious work of fiction than Loss of Grasp, mainly because it is much easier to tell what’s going on and gain a clear understanding of the plot and characters. There is a clear beginning, middle, and end.

Blog 7 – Multimedia Fiction

ntadeo18

Of these week’s assignments, Cityfish and How to Rob a Bank were my favorite. I enjoyed Cityfish because of how the story read and the pictures that were included and used to illustrate what was happening in the story. Every once in a while there is a temperature converter, or a quote from a poem, or various video footage. The photos and interactions with the various hidden links in them made me feel like I was reading a picture book again. The storyline is clear and the images and interactions just add to the experience.

How to Rob a Bank was great. The creative use of the cell phone as a setting was fun to read and explore. This was interacted with, via keyboard keys, the arrows. Every click to change the text became something new. It becomes clear from the start (apart from the title) who these people are and what they do, all by mentioning the type of bank they have already scoped out in this town. I enjoyed how the piece was written primarily in diary entries of the mother of the child. Even the pages that are just calendar views, tell a story in the life of this criminal couple and their child. The mother is of course, enamored with her child, and even enjoys changing her diaper. There is a shift though, somewhere in the middle of the work where the mother is becoming tired, and exasperated, but she continues to write to her daughter about how thieving is the only life for them.

Bank Robber and Cityfish

dsmith19

Cityfish uses text, maps, and stock photographs to tell a story. It was kind of hard to follow the story. I had to read it a few times to get the gist of it. I clicked on some of the stars that read, “You are here” and was taken to another part of the story. When I did this, I ended up in the section where the fish was speaking to a lemon in the bag. This kind of confused me because it from fiction to magical realism. Lynne is the main character in the story, which tells of her vacation in New York. This work of fiction is abstract and immersive. This is not a critique on the work; I actually like it.

How to Rob a Bank, uses diaries, calendars, pictures and Google search engine to tell the narrative. This work of fiction uses common tools (Google search engine text messages) to produce the fictional world. Several characters in the story uses aliases after going into hiding after a bank robbery. The character’s newborn daughter (Alexandria) is central to the story. This fictional story is immersive because it uses the common tools I mention earlier to tell the story. I think the use of the web is what make this story work. I never imagine one could tell a story by using a search engine. I like this story, because it’s easy to follow. I didn’t understand the clips of
the Simpsons and baby instruction. What was these clips trying to imply?

Multimedia fiction

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0alloldusers

The first one of the readings I explored was “88 constellations”. Within the framework of box images, video, and audio combine to make this multi-linear story. The constellation lets you pick the sequence of the story. It deals with the digital world, history, and the present. I also liked how it used fictional stories from movies to “teach” through this story.

I liked the multilinear stories on “how to rob a bank” best. I felt it did a better job of connecting the characters to one unified thing. It reminded me of the movie “searching”, where the whole story was told through the use of different digital platforms. The story told is that of a couple who rob banks. But it is not just told through their viewpoint.

The part that captivated me the most was the part with the woman and the baby. It’s able to tell a story through the vehicle of a phone. She documents her experience with a new baby. It captures the joys of motherhood with the heartaches as well. The reader can see her scrambling through a baby help book for answers to stop the child’s crying. Also, the icons or apps that show the degradation of the family unit, as the husband and wife grow further apart. It seems they are both bored with each other or maybe what life has become, compared to their careers robbing banks. It seems at the end of this entry that the mother asks for forgiveness from the child, assumedly for leaving it so she and her husband could pursue their “career”.

Cityfish & How To Rob a Bank

Jake Martin


The first piece I looked in-depth at was “How to Rob a Bank” by Alan Bigelow. This piece has actually been my favorite piece of interactive fiction so far. The story takes place on the phone, and throughout the 5 parts switches between Ted and Elizabeth’s phones. Ted is searching “how to rob a bank” and throughout the story also uses google for many other things, such as “how to take a hostage” and “how to steal a car”. Throughout the 5 parts we also see them both playing different games, using the app store, going onto Buzzfeed, and many other things people use smartphones for. Eventually he meets up with Elizabeth, and escapes the police. In part 3 they then begin to rob banks together, and donating some of the money to charities after an article suggests they might be a modern day “Robin Hood” duo. Elizabeth’s sister then tells the police of their identities and gives away their information, and Elizabeth and Ted go into hiding and have a baby girl, who they name Alexandria. Most of part 4 is told through Elizabeth writing posts to her baby girl, which we as the audience get to read. The 5th part is then mostly told by Elizabeth’s sister, who told the police about their identities and is now writing blog posts about them. It is revealed that the couple started taking the baby with them to rob banks, and that they had stolen enough money to live off of for the rest of their lives, so it’s unlikely they will ever be seen again. The sound plays a huge part in this story, such as the background noises of cars driving by, and even at one point, Elizabeth singing to her daughter. The most interesting part of this piece of work to me is that their relationship is based completely off of bank robbing. It’s the reason they get together, and as shown in parts 4 & 5 it is eventually what rekindles their relationship. When they aren’t bank robbing, Ted starts to distance himself from Elizabeth and their relationship. Only by bank robbing again and bringing their young daughter with them, are they able to save their relationship. This work was really immersive to me and I love how well the story was told through the use of the smartphone. Not only were we able to read the character’s story but we also got to see more mundane parts of their lives, such as the apps they play. I think my favorite part was the fact that the time and battery % on the phone was always changing. It was a really nice attention to detail.
(I also liked how they watched Bonnie & Clyde together, that’s a great reference.)

The second piece I looked at was “CityFish” By JR Carpenter. Although not as interesting to me as the first one, I still thoroughly enjoyed this piece. The first thing that caught my eye was the side scrolling layout of the story, which I think was a perfect decision to tell the story in. As you scroll through the story, time passes, almost like a timeline. I was almost at the end of the piece when I discovered that by clicking on the images, a video would pop up. So naturally I had to go back through and watch some of the videos. The videos help move the story along in a way that the text couldn’t do alone, which is part of the reason why I was so surprised I made it almost to the end without noticing. The collage like format is perfect for the story, as it reminds me of someone who travels a lot. Lynne, the narrator of the story is forced to travel to New York to visit her aunt and uncle because her mom “needs a break”. The imagery of the collage background is a perfect reminder that the main point of the story is Lynne’s travelling experiences. Like “How to Rob a Bank” I think this story is more immersive, you’re being brought into Lynne’s story, complete with pictures, sound, video, and the complete storyline.

Multimedia Fiction: Film Text and 88 Constellations

Mariah Gwin

“Film Text” by Mark Amerika immediately grabbed my attention as it popped on the screen. Between the sound and the words floating by, not to mention what the words were actually saying–“We are the ghosts in the literary machine”–as well as the visual elements he incorporates, it is a more immersive work i’d argue. Though some characteristics do happen to pull the reader from the experience of the piece. It isn’t entirely clear what to do to continue on so rather than reading a work and moving from one section to the next with smooth transitions, whether linear or not, with this work the reader has to stop and think about what they need to do next or what they may not have yet tried until the notice appears in the corner stating “Authorized for next level.”

The work itself does appear to be rather ominous in nature as well. I certainly would not describe it as a happy work as he questions what is real, makes mention of his body being a host of biological events, as well as media terrorists and that of the collective consciousness and his succumbing to that ideal, ‘his’ being the speaker of the piece rather than that of the author himself.

He uses the phrase,

I have no choice but to give in. Rip me, mix me, burn me. Burn me into plastic and fuck me in your TV computer mind.

which can easily be related to when someone takes a blank disc and burns their music or their own mix track onto it. But in this context, with terms like “burn” and “vaporize” as he uses a short while later, makes the whole process sound so violent in comparison. As though we’re facing a digital-age apocalypse.

Another work that was keen to grab attention was that of David Clark’s “88 Constellations.” Whether or not there are characters per se would be a matter of opinion. There is a narrator, in a sense. A voice proclaiming “Join the dots!” to create the constellations. I particular enjoyed the animation style right at the start to be frank, and then how it continues through with each constellation you pick as the narrator goes on a little story both related and unrelated to what was selected. It has a bit of an older and yet still elegant appeal to its design that appears almost timeless.

The content itself is certainly informative jumping across history to name events and people, such as 9/11 and the Twin Towers, or Chaplin and his aggravation with Hitler ‘stealing’ his signature mustache. When it comes to immersiveness, this work is certainly easier to navigate and has a relatively clear purpose in comparison to Mark Amerika’s “Film Text.” But also similarly to “Film Text,” the content itself is rather dark.

Sources:
Mark Amerika’s “Film Text”
David Clark’s “88 Constellations”

“88 Constellations” and “How to Rob a Bank”

kzoller

This week, I explored “88 Constellations” by David Clark and “How to Rob a Bank” by Alan Bigelow. In Clark’s work, a fictional world is generated as the user navigates a constructed space by choosing from two different circles of constellations. They can also follow a stricter path by selecting a star from the next constellation in line. In addition, the work generates fictional worlds by employing multimedia, as it reinforces ideas and major parts of the story through imagery and audio recordings.  

Though the work is nonlinear and presents the narrative in fragments, the work can be understood as fiction because it contains multiple narratives that all form a larger whole—a story detailing Wittgenstein’s interesting life as a philosopher. Throughout the work, snippets of his experiences are shared with the reader, as well as other characters and major events that share a relation with him. But because these snippets are told in a nonlinear fashion, the users must take an active role in determining which direction to explore the story. This makes the work highly immersive, which is deepened with its interesting theme, the user’s freedom of choice (the user chooses how to explore the work) and a captivating story presented in an original and thoughtful way that sparks the user’s thinking. 

Despite being an immersive work, one could argue that “88 Constellations” is also an abstract piece. Each fragment within the story is linked to another based on associations Clark made between them. Though it is sometimes obvious why two fragments are linked together, it is not always clear why the artist connected them (though the user may discover this meaning on their own.) “88 Constellations” can also be seen as abstract because it acts as a metaphor for creating constellations in the sky by connecting dots, making associations with them in the process: 

“Join the dots together. Make pictures in the sky. Connect the muddle of our thinking to these drawings in the sky.” -David Clark’s 88 Constellations 

Like Clark’s work, Bigelow’s “How to Rob a Bank” generates a fictional world through interactivity and multimedia. The work is presented through a series of social media platforms and apps on a mobile device, and includes visuals and sounds. Users also interact with the work by swiping left or right, mimicking how mobile devices work. This adds a level of immersion to the story, as users feel the presence of a mobile device and are prompted to interact with the work to progress the narrative. 

The story itself is presented through the dialog of different characters and their interactions with mobile devices, who often project their thoughts and habits onto them. In this way, Bigelow lists a chronological series of events through various character’s uses of social media. These events cover one main plotline (a man who makes a living off of robbing banks), though the side characters also have their own stories to tell (for instance, a jealous sister wanting as much attention from adoring fans as the robber’s wife.)

Blog 7: Multimedia Fiction

Christine

For this blog, I started off by reading How to Rob a Bank Part 4 by Alan Bigelow and was surprised by how the story was presented to me. The electronic literature work is presented on Sarah’s (aka Elizabeth) smartphone with a layout that’s a bit odd honestly. The entries and her phone case make it look like we are actually looking at a book instead of her phone. In her phone, she writes about her day to day life with her newborn Alexandria (us) and her husband Robert. There doesn’t seem to be much we, the player, can do in terms of interacting with the piece other than going forward or backward. We know this is Sarah’s phone because of the button layout and the several webpages that we see displayed inside. We play Robert’s button game, we use a meditation app and a baby lullaby app, we also Google how to fix a broken family and what to do when we are bored. These “activities” tie in with our modern day lives where we do everything on our phones. However, although the piece offers me all of this I don’t understand it as a fictional piece. The weird intervals where she shows us a scene from The Simpsons and Archer, and an explosion just seems random and doesn’t seem to tie into anything meaningful. Rather it leaves us in confusion or a state of relaxation

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For my final piece, I decided to give Loss of Grasp by Serge Bouchardon a try. This one is probably one of my favorites. It plays with the text far more than the previous work. Hovering over a line of text changes it into a new line of text. The text is used to reveal pictures such as a pretty woman or present a note in a new and meaningful way. For example, when you receive the note from your lover, moving your mouse up and down adjusts the singer’s tone like a theremin as well as the lines of text. It’s very pleasant and fun to interact with. This same action is used at the beginning with the colorful music balls. The game is telling us a story of how this man met his downfall. We feel his pain when he reads between the lines of his son’s paper and when the opera music is playing as we read the note the wife left him, he starts to feel small and meaningless and is desperate to take hold of something, anything. In the end, we type out a paper with him on a typewriter, in hopes of bettering himself, that is until the typewriter jams and the story ends. In a way, I am a bit unsatisfied that the story ended there. I feel as if the author could have put in a bit more. What happens after we jam the typewriter? Does he continue to type? Whatever happened to his son? What went wrong there?