Author: 0alloldusers

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

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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

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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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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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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

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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

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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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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

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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 – March 1, 2019

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Multimedia fiction combines key aspects of hypertext fiction, kinetic and interactive poetry, and interactive fiction to combine digital writing into immersive pieces of art. Combining sound, animation, storytelling, interactivity, and more to captivate the reader, multimedia fiction paints a fictional space for its audience. Much like the previously mentioned forms of electronic literature, multimedia fiction is a museum for fanatics of the avant-garde, but it also contains simpler pieces for those who prefer straightforward art.

A simpler example of multimedia fiction is Alan Bigelow’s “How to Rob a Bank – Part 4”, which follows the daily diary of a new mother trying to raise her baby as she realizes she and her husband are growing apart. By using outside environment sounds and the interface of a phone to emulate a person using their phone outside to write up diary entries, the protagonist becomes much more human. By documenting the decline of the mother’s mental state as she becomes more stressed from motherhood and her relationship with her husband within this outline of a phone, the piece is presented as a fictional but immersive story.

A more abstract piece of multimedia fiction is Mark Amerika’s “FilmText”, which puts the reader in a simulated environment, akin to a video game. The reader can click on various cones being emitted from craters to open up different documents that explain the universe of the piece. “FilmText” stands out much more as a piece of fiction with its sci-fi elements arising from Amerika’s creation of ideas like a “Digital Thoughtographer”, but it still manages to be immersive like “How to Rob a Bank – Part 4”.

Multimedia fiction manifests itself in many different forms to allow for its writers to convey their message in any way they choose. Whether it is immersive, simple, abstract, or more, multimedia fiction appeals to fans of writing, technology, avant-garde, and the like.

Kinetic and Interactive Poetry

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The first piece of poetry, that I read, that I found to have stood out was Stephanie Strickland’s “The Ballad of Soot and Sand.” I found the poem to be amusing in a way that it shows how different-colored texts can show more meaning to the poem than others. It also shows progression in a way that you feel peeks your interest with how you feel. It can also show us that multilinear can work on a much deeper level and more than just games but you can also read poetry with choices. the multi-color effect also gives people a sort of what is what, like the topics of being discussed in the panel and the corresponding picture that is shown and how they are sort of similar.

Another poem that I found to be very interesting is Brian Kim Stefan’s “The Dreamlife of Letters.” I liked the poem because it did something that I think is a good addition to Kinetic poetry and that is “Visual Poetry” for people who don’t necessarily like to just read with their eyes but see what the action of the words within the poem itself.

“Considering the relation between writing and technology, visual poet Derek Beaulieu writes that he proposes a poetic where the author-function is fulfilled both by the biological ‘author’ of the text and the technology by which it is created” (Beaulieu, 2012, p. 74)

This tells me that authors and poets alike wants to show a different way of telling stories to readers by having them to be shown.

Digital Poetry

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“The actual experience of interacting with IF can however sometimes seem more like conversing via telegraph with a precocious chimpanzee who has worked out a compass and the possession of objects than conversing with an adult human.”

(Rettberg,90)

I feel like this quote from the book encompasses how I felt reading it. The ones I was most drawn to were the works that embodied concrete poetry. The visuals helped the meaning come across more clearly. Cruising was visually captivating, although I liked the simplicity of Shy boy.

However, Rain on the Sea, in contrast, is a simple black and white text-based video. Although the words flash so quickly on the screen the viewer must be very focused. I think I understood what the author was trying to say although, I will admit even after viewing it a few times I know I missed some of the words. I think the poem is talking about relationships and a bit of inner turmoil. In the first part, the character is talking to God whom it seems like she is thanking for getting her out of a bad marriage? At least that’s what I thought the story was about. I do think that others could take different interpretations of the poem.

I would be interested in looking more into A is for apple. Most of the links seemed broken, which I guess can happen to any digital piece.

Kinetic Poetry

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Rettberg’s chapter on Kinetic and Interactive poetry covers many types of digital poetry. The sections I found myself most interested in were those on visual and sound poetry. I appreciate the kinetic aspects and found that digital poetry that combined sound and text as images held my interest best.

“Rain on the Sea” by Y0UNG-HAE CHANG HEAVY INDUSTRIES was incredible. It took me by surprise (as did most of the works we studied this week) because I didn’t know what to expect. I hadn’t explored their work before. After experiencing “Rain on the Sea” I found more of their work to see what else they’re doing, and found that they have a style. The use of Flash, and pacing their text to upbeat music so that words are presented almost too quickly to comprehend created a juxtaposition. I found myself enjoying the music but trying to follow the story, and feeling oddly conflicted trying to experience the story, visual art, and music all together. I grew a little frustrated with the edges of the text being cut off and flashing by so quickly, but liked the story and the music. At the end I was left feeling both wrung-out and exhilarated.

Tachistoscope was another piece I really enjoyed. The presentation of single words (mostly) atop images that at times enforced and other times contradicted the text was visually interesting, and I enjoyed the story that Poundstone was telling. The addition of sound drew me in more and kind of helped me keep pace with the story. I went through it a few times, trying to focus more on the words in white font and find out how they’re affecting my experience or interpretation. It was difficult but I think I got more of the story that way.

This class module is very interesting and I’m super enjoying exploring it!