Category: Student Blogs

Final Artist Statment

jcummings18

Joel Cummings

DTC 338 Artist statement

 

When writing “Self” I didn’t know what I wanted to say through the piece. While this might not be the case for my co-author Des, I knew I wanted to address the ideas of interactive poetry as well as hypertext. I was heavily influenced by works like “Those We Love Alive” and, “My Husband Came Back from the War” while writing the different poems for this interaction. I wanted this piece “Self” to look at the emotional ups and down we face throughout our lives. But I had no idea it would come together the way that it did. When interacting with pieces like “My Husband Came Back from the War” you are drawn into the piece not just by its aesthetics but also by the emotion in the writing. This emotion is also very true for “Those We Love Alive”. The emotion in these pieces is what I was trying to bring in “Self” but through looking hardships we face and overcome. Looking at this piece critically there are several parts that I tried to make interactive, those being not only the hypertext but also some of the effects put on to emphasize words or moods that are in the piece. In the first part of the interactive I wanted words like wasteland to be a throbbing sensation like all around you there is nothing. Or later on in the piece many other words move to add emphasis as well as to show the motion of the words. Words like violence, wasteland and strikes all have their own effect to convey motion as well as emotion. Another aspect I wanted to address in this piece was it being repetitive/ leading into itself. Not only because that is closer to life but also because the act of clicking on the different poems is like taking steps towards healing.

When Des asked me to work in this project, I was nervous because I haven’t written much poetry. But between both of us and asking questions about where we want it to go it was amazing to see the development of it. When it finally came down to writing both Des and me bounced ideas off of each other so that each piece would fit with the ones surrounding it. Also, after all the poems were written it was amazing to see how in what ways we could change aspects of it. We looked at colors, fonts, as well as effects and finally liked how it looked simple and concise.

The hardest part for me in making this piece was in planning how it would fit together, but even that was short lived especially when we spent an afternoon writing everything seemed to fall into place and we were astounded when we were done.

In my poetic style I try to have rhymes or a letter that starts all of the different parts of the poems. While Des heavily used sounds or a rhythm for his poetic beats. So paring these two styles together was both fun as well as interesting.

 

http://philome.la/Elmidan1/self/play

Porpentine to “Porpen-twine”: An Artistic Statement

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Katya Farinsky

Farinsky Final Project Artist Statement

Twine is an interesting intersection of hypertext and interactive fiction. Traditionally hypertext is known for non-linear storytelling by creating highly descriptive, brief, sections of a larger story the user must explore to piece together the larger narrative. Interactive fiction generally delivers a linear story focused on exploring a space or completing any number of objectives or puzzles.  Many people would classify interactive fiction as “games” because interactive fiction often includes graphic components which evolved into contemporary video games. Twine hosts many treasured works such as Porpentine’s With Those We Love Alive. Porpentine creates spaces in the style of classic interactive fiction games for the reader to explore using links like classic hypertext works. Users navigate the space by clicking on links but also must complete certain function such as “sleeping” or “breathing” to advance the story in several cases. These two ideas combine to create an incredibly immersive atmosphere and motivates the user to fully explore the piece.

For my own project I drew heavily on Porpentine’s With Those We Love Alive to make my own “Porpen-twine”. Porpentine uses links that are embedded inside the narrative text. To honor this my project has a mix of links that are embedded within the exposition, and some links that come after the narration like text-based adventure games. By using two different styles of lexia I can maintain the user’s attention because the links don’t appear in the same place each time. Additionally, placing links after the narration forces the reader to read the exposition, pause to consider the choices, and ultimately choose which link to follow. This empowers the user and stimulates emotional investment in the story, even though this project’s story is ultimately unaffected by most of these choices.  Each page in my story relies on a concise narrative to continue moving the reader through the story by giving them enough information to stay informed, yet vague to keep their curiosity about what comes next.

Both hypertext and interactive fiction explore multilinear stories so in my project I decided to create two endings: a “bad ending” and a “good ending”. If the user selects the bad ending, they are transported to the beginning of the narrative and must re-trace their steps before attempting the good ending. It was my intent for the bad ending to make canonical sense so there was purpose to the multilinearity. In the lesson loops the white woman explains the warrior of the story was cursed and must un-cover their identity in order to break the curse. If the user fails, the white woman resets the warrior’s memory to prevent the curse from destroying them. If the user choses the good ending, they defeat the bad guy, reclaim their identity, and leave the temple to save the world. This creates two separate experiences that are equally valid because the user must choose the good ending to “win” and complete the content. It was important to me to include this strong linear influence because I wanted to create a piece that can be used to introduce readers to concepts of multilinear stories and hypertext in a manageable way. When exploring other great works of hypertext, it was overwhelming how vast, and complex, the narratives became. Through this project I wanted to show my understanding of genre conventions while also creating something that felt manageable to users who have never encountered multilinear, hypertext inspired works. While this work may never be as popular as Porpentine’s, I am confident my “Porpen-twine” is a fitting addition that honors the trends of the electronic literature genres I chose to explore.

RED RIDING HOOD

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Elaina Sundwall

RED RIDING HOOD is a combinatory, interactive fiction piece collectively written in twine. Our game references and draws inspiration from Colossal Cave Adventure and ZORK. Traversing more thoroughly or multiple times is rewarded with more text and multiple story endings. The narrative and structure were heavily influenced by the process of Jake and I collectively writing the work. It has game like structure and is traversed spatially like a piece of interactive fiction, while having a hyperlink structure by benefit of being made in twine.

Depending on what items the reader finds throughout the game, different parts of the story will be revealed. If you remember to bring your RED RIDING HOOD, text about your character feeling secure and warm will appear throughout the game. But if you forget your hood, whiny, shuddering text will appear throughout the cave system, and there is only one way to escape the caves. The piece is different depending on what items the reader chooses to pick up before entering the forest, and what items the traverser finds throughout the caves. The amount of choices the traverser has when encountering the goblin and Grandma increases with the number of items they find in the caves. The combinatory nature of the piece being linked to the items found while traversing rewards the reader for exploring more thoroughly. It is possible to forget your RED RIDING HOOD, pick up the hatchet and cucumber, smash the golden eggs, escape with the help of the wolf, and only have the options to offer Grandma the cucumber or tell her about the caves at the end of the game. It’s not possible to reach the end with all the items, so it is not possible to reveal all the endings of the game with just one traversal.

The piece heavily references the games ZORK and Colossal Cave Adventure. We sought to incorporate or reference aspects of interactive fiction games, such as traversing the piece spatially and problems for the interactor to solve to reach the end of the piece. Once in the cave system, the piece is traversed using a compass in the lower right corner of the page. Our game was created in twine and is a web of hyperlinks, but the cave system can be viewed as a grid like map in the twine editing interface. The caves are numbered and linked to each other, with alternate link names corresponding to where the cave is in relation to the cave the link is in. These links are arranged into a compass shape using css grid. The problem solving in this game is much simpler than the puzzles in ZORK or CCA. The traverser can use the items they’ve found when they are made available to solve problems as links within the passage text. I chose to use a hyperlink structure rather than an inventory system because it was easier for both Jake and I to make changes to the story this way, and because there would be text in the passage based on the items in the traversers inventory anyways, so it would be simplest for the link to be in the passage.

We reference ZORK and CCA in the narrative and aesthetic of our piece as well. The font and color are reminiscent of the games, but our piece has major differences in appearance from ZORK and CCA as well. There are hyperlinks within the passage text, descriptions of the cold shudder, and the caverns are navigated using a compass with links labelled as the cardinal directions rather than navigating using a text parser. The narrative and descriptions of unsuccessful moves are snarky and sometimes nonsensical, like CCA or ZORK. There are choices the player can make in the beginning of the game or while in the caverns that result in failure, as well as choices that leave the game unwinnable. It is impossible to escape the caverns without the hatchet if you forget your hood.

Our work is a piece of collective writing even though Jake and I were the only contributors, because the way we wrote the piece led to an unsuspected structure and storyline that we would not have created independently. We wrote the piece without the end in mind, though we had a common goal. The beginning of the game, before entering the forest, was written together as an in-class exercise. Beginning the project that far in advance of the due date allowed us to exchange the project back and forth many times. We added a manageable amount each time without the pressure of needing to complete a large portion, and the final version is the eleventh version of the file. We discussed the general direction of the work and occasional details, but for the most part did not know what to expect each time we opened the file. We created twists and problems for the other writer to solve that created a story and structure neither of us would have made on our own. Jake created the treasures and expected me to create a trophy case or have Grandma send RED RIDING HOOD back into the caves to retrieve the treasures, but instead I introduced the goblin to the story and created multiple ways to escape the cave system using different treasures and items. An arbitrary decision during the collective writing process made our piece multilinear, a choice either of us might not have made had we written the piece by ourselves.

The collective writing process mixed with creating aspects of interactive fiction was difficult and rewarding, because as we created puzzles for the traverser to solve, we created problems for our partner to find a solution for in the writing. The game flows from a hyperlink structure, to a spatial structure, and back to hyperlinks, and has multiple endings. RED RIDING HOOD grew into a game that neither Jake or I could have expected when we first began it.

Final Project: Kinetic Poem

Mallory

Artist Statement

Mallory Hobson

Video Link

For my E-Literature Final Project, I created a kinetic poem in video format. Inspired by both kinetic poetry and cinema writing, I took a poem written for my Creative Writing: Poetry class and adapted it into a fully digital piece of literature. My intention was to evoke the feeling of running from a stressful situation, juxtaposing clear, calm reality with hazy, anxious memory through both text in motion and video cuts.

My first source of inspiration was MUDs and SOFTIEs by David Jhave Johnson. Johnson’s works were the first time I had seen poetry in a video form that wasn’t simply a recording of slam poetry (or written poetry being read aloud) but a truly multisensory experience; I was struck by how intriguing, even intimate, his poetry was, and I wanted to attempt to replicate the emotions he inspired within me.

Other inspirations were Stephanie Strickland, with her piece The Ballad of Sand and Harry Soot, and Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries’ Rain on the Sea. Strickland’s piece was delicately evocative, weaving a compelling narrative through abstract pieces of poetry; meanwhile, the flashing words of Rain on the Sea forces the reader to take in the story behind the poem almost more quickly than they are able to. In my piece, I tried to capture the fragile nature of Strickland’s piece, while drawing inspiration from Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries’ quick-moving text in order to capture and keep the attention of my audience.

The topic of cinema writing was another very helpful source of inspiration for my piece, particularly the app Pry by creative media studio Tender Claws, as well as in-class discussions of using shots and montage to create projective, imaginary, and even narrative space. My intention was to employ the unedited daylight shots in such a way that the audience feels they are driving with the character, following her in her flight, within a created space; the more heavily edited nighttime shots were designed to create a stark contrast, an imaginary space that provides backstory through internal narrative. I was greatly inspired by Pry’s use of different styles of footage to switch between thoughts and reality, and I tried to echo that by flickering between night and day footage, showing how my poem’s subject is flickering between what she’s seeing and what she’s frightened of. I added and layered several copyright-free audio pieces from YouTube in order to further heighten that dualistic atmosphere.

In order to create draw all of these pieces together—ideas, inspirations, footage, sound clips, and original poem—I drew a rough storyboard, then created a script that outlined what effects and shots were to pair with which lines. After finding similar footage from YouTube to what I had in mind, I used Adobe After Effects to begin animating my writing. Inspired by David Jhave Johnson’s 3D focal words, I left the opening line ‘she drives’ as a static line throughout my poem, with ‘RUNS’ overlaid onto ‘drives’ during the night footage for added emphasis on the character’s emotional state. While I did use some effects such as curves and posterize on my footage, the text effects were all done using ‘source text’ keyframes. The night footage was shot driving through Portland, mainly on the I-5, while the daytime footage was shot on the I-5 northbound near Castle Rock.

Overall, this was an intriguing and educational exploration into kinetic and cinematic poetry. While I still have a lot to learn about the field of electronic literature and digital poetry, I am proud of what I have accomplished with this project.

Final Project: A Twist on Nick Montfort’s “Taroko Gorge”

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Mariah Gwin

Taroko Gorge was one of the first works we addressed and looked over in class at the beginning of the semester. It is different than many other works considered Electronic Literature in that it is completely randomized poetry specifically. Each line is created through the use of JavaScript arrays that have specified words in which to pull from. While it does not always create coherent sentences, since it is poetry, each line could be interpreted in a number of different ways and meanings. It is up to the reader to decide what is being said.

There was also this massive community of artists forming around Nick Montfort’s creation, taking the code and transforming it in different ways to create something new.

Not identifying as a poet myself, I found this work to be particularly interesting in how it used the code behind the scenes and specified words set in a particular order to generate poetry. Even when taking into account that it did not always create sentences that made sense, it did create a ripple, allowing the reader to comprehend the results in independent and unique ways.

I decided to take that idea and expand upon it to create a sort of tool for myself (and others, should they feel inclined or drawn to use it). While I do not identify myself as a poet, I do write creatively and collaboratively with an inclination toward fiction. However, as many writers discover, they reach certain points where ideas are difficult to come by, whether they are new ideas for a story overall or ideas for specific events that may take place.

“Writers block” can be incredibly difficult to overcome. For that reason, I felt inspired by Nick Montfort’s Taroko Gorge and saw a potential to adapt it into a tool to generate such ideas. By incorporating the combinatory, generative poetry that Taroko Gorge allows and adding in a kinetic aspect, I have done what numerous other artists in the community have done by creating my own variation of Taroko Gorge but for the purpose of using it as a tool or device to generate ideas for fictional creative writing.

The words that are set in the arrays of the code also reflect that emphasis on fiction. Additionally, the kinetic feature of this project is reflected in the typing animation that takes place as the line is written out across the screen. Both the monotype font and the animation itself assist in emphasizing the generating of ideas as though someone were typing out the ideas themselves on their computer.

This choice of a project was both interesting and beneficial in that it gave me a chance to work with JavaScript to better understand the structure and functionality. I had to research syntax in order to figure out the best way to form the most coherent sentences based on what was generated. Originally, I was also going to add in a level of interactivity that I have since decided to do without. Since the poetry is already generated at random, there was not any added benefit to having another layer of randomization.

From start to finish, this was a learning experience in every sense. Though the project did not turn out the way it was originally envisioned, this work of kinetic and generative/combinatory poetics still accomplishes and meets the purpose and goal it was intended for. For that, I’d like to share Fantasy, a poetic tool to help inspire fictional creative writing.

Locative Fiction and 3D Literature

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MalloryOne Comment

Out of the various forms of divergent streams discussed by Rettberg, the one that really caught my attention was locative fiction, especially in regards to AR. Up until the digital age (and particularly up until smartphones became commonplace), location-based art was fleeting. Street performances, outdoor concerts, flash mobs, and the like could be experienced only if the viewer was physically in the area; videos and retellings of the events are interesting but ultimately inauthentic secondhand narratives, unable to precisely capture the minute details of a live event.

With locative fiction, however, the intimacy of neighborhood performance art is able to be fixed in time and space. It’s able to, in theory, be experienced by people months or even years apart, without any part of that experience becoming diminished through attempted reproduction.

The term locative fiction encompassed a wide range of e-literature styles, such as net art, kinetic poetry, or even hypertext fiction (perhaps the hyperlinks within the story change depending on where you are in a neighborhood?); they can also be wholly digital (such as a story that appears on your phone), or could be augmented or even virtual reality. Rettberg describes just how varied locative fiction can be:

We could investigate a murder mystery by retracting the steps of the killer at the scene of the crime. We could situate historical fiction set in a different era on the streets of the contemporary city. We could write poems, layered in augmented realty in the sky above the mountains they describe, as we sweep across the landscape and watch the live video on the screens of our phones (184).

In my opinion, the idea of augmented reality is full of the most intriguing literary possibilities. What if the historical fiction wasn’t simply a locative story, but a locative story set in AR? By tracing a path with your phone’s camera, you could watch the stories of famous figures unfolding in your very own city, with the modern world setting a sharp contrast–or, perhaps even show you how little your town (or the town you’re visiting) has changed by highlighting historical sites. Or, a library could have a multilinear story that shifts between genres depending on where you go within the building, leading you to suggestions for similar reading (digital and physical!).

Combining the intimacy and personality of a physical location with the creativity and wide-open nature of locative fiction, the possibilities are endless.

Pry Part 2

mstiller

I thought the interactive elements of Chapter 6 and 7 of Pry were particularly well done. In Chapter 6 you must separate and expand the text until they have gained enough context. The chapter begins as an obvious beginning and an end and the user must physically push up and down on the screen to reveal more context. The text of this chapter leads to either a video which the user must hold open to watch or a rapidly changing chain of words between the lines that relates to the previous passage. The chapter tells the story of the protagonist having a falling out with some of his fellow soldiers and the regret he still feels for his actions. Chapter 7 gives the user the ability to progress through the life time of the protagonist through a similar action.

I think to fully understand this piece I would have to do several re-readings. The text always takes a backseat to the interactive elements in my exploration of the piece. I keep wanting to discover more about the piece than stay in one spot. The fact that you are able to collect items for the albums folder did not help. The album became a thing of very high interest to me as i tried to initially understand how it worked. From what I have read the story has been very engaging and emotionally heavy. The media surrounding the text is great for setting the tone, and the films usually contrast the bland color tones of the desert with bright and flashing lights during intense moments. Overall I think Pry is a perfect example of how Electronic literature has the potential to thrive in today’s environment with today’s technologies..

 

 

 

Pry Part 2

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jredman17

The second half of Pry mixes up the format even more with new ways to tell its story. Something that happened earlier but occurred again during chapter 5 was the protagonist’s eyesight briefly going numb. During this the moment, the user can’t see what is going on either, so they have no choice but to look at one of the other two perspectives until he puts in eye drops. This doesn’t necessarily limit how the story is told, but only how some of it appears. In chapter 7 the story takes on an entirely different form. Only a paragraph appears on the screen and the user can continually stretch it out, revealing more text. I found this one of the most difficult parts of the story to follow. Having to jump back and forth to different lines and figuring out how they are connected made the experience a bit frustrating. This exemplifies how involved the form is when it comes to the content. In Chapter 7, there is purely video that can swap in and out, creating multiple montages mixed together. I think the author made a creative connection between having the presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush in the same chapter to illustrate that the world conflict represented in the story lasted several generations. I think the general theme of the story is redemption. The protagonist is trying to save himself from his own PTSD of war, but also clear up and make light of his understanding with his friend. Him going blind gives him more anxiety. As we saw, where people are the most anxious is deep inside.

Prying into the mind II

jcummings18

In experiencing the second half of this piece I am both amazed by how smooth it is and more confused on what all went on. Like did he fall off the bridge or did James just imagine it?  It is also interesting to see how him falling off the bridge landed him in the desert. The flashing forward and back to both memories and possible imagination as well in the piece keeps you on your toes as to where you might end up it you close your eyes. But jumping to the end SPOILER ALERT: it was nice to have a little explanation of what happened whether it was the relationship between Jesse and Luke or if it was the attack on the base leading to the death off Jesse. These details help the player understand James’s mental state. As well as adding the confusion of losing your sight. SPOILER DONE: overall it was an interesting experience the use of the gestures makes it all the more realistic, but the story is structured so that you never know fully what is and isn’t real. Though it might seem counter intuitive I think that the confusing nature of Pry as a whole makes it seem all the more real. Since you never know what will happen in life and there are many decisions to be made with little to no extra information provided.