Category: Student Blogs

Kinetic and Interactive Poetry

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This week, I chose to focus on Rain on The Sea by YoUNG-HAE CHANG HEAVY INDUSTRIES and SOFTIEs by David Jhave Johnson. I found that with SOFTIEs, although film poetry is more often considered to be films with subjects performing spoken word poetry while different imagery passes by, SOFTIEs works almost as its own form of film poetry. There is still imagery passing by, but the teext is incorporated into different parts of the “scenes” that Jhave has created. I think the imagery he chooses to show in the film portion of his works (water dripping, etc.) serves as a sort of symbolism that connects to his poetry. For example, in “” it shows dripping water on a dark surface and reads “the cold lines, blind meanings, reap is war” “the cold lines” could refer to the water dripping, which could be symbolic for something much darker (blood, etc.). When I looked at Rain on The Sea, I found that is blatantly portrayed futurism, with its stark white background and plain black text flashing intermittently. I really enjoyed this piece and found that it was very successful in provoking emotion. I think this was partially due to the text flashing by so quickly it almost didn’t give my brain any chance to process it other than the immediate meaning of the word that was flashed. The work has a very dark undertone, accusing the user of murder, etc. and the fact that these accusations were flashing by so quickly helped cause a sense of urgency and desire to know what the user supposedly did in this work.

Kinetic and Interactive Poetry

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“The Dream Life of Letters” is a flash animation example of Visual Poetry. The piece begins with a short introduction and then begins to makes it’s way down the alphabet with different words starting with each new letter. The letters on screen also begin to begin to form visual representation of the words themselves. For example the viewer watches the the letters “bo”, with a “/” on either side, become the word “border”, once the full word is formed the “/” are pushed away as if a border has been broken.

“Cruising” was the most straightforward experience of all the poems I read. During the piece, the poem is being read to you and all you have control over is the speed at which the accompanying text and pictures scroll. The poem actually tends to want to scroll pretty fast, or in the wrong direction depending on which way you are pointing your mouse, so I found myself having to re listen to the poem because I had become so focused on the scrolling speed of the text. According to the description, “Cruising” is a flash poem with interactive elements.

“Sound Poems” are a type of poem I had never encountered before. Sound poetry focuses on the sounds in human speech rather than the meaning of words or phrases. In my interaction with this piece, the phonetic combinations I came up with sound more like music than poetry. This is probably due to the looping nature of each box containing the syllables within this piece.

Kinetic and Interactive Poetry – February 22, 2019

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Much like the previously explored hypertext fiction and interactive fiction, kinetic and interactive poetry explore the fusion of writing and technology to augment the way a person is able to explore and interact with a story. In Scott Rettberg’s words, “kinetic and interactive poetry explore the specific multimedia capacities of the contemporary computer as a poetic environment for both composition and reception” (Rettberg, 118). What kinetic and interactive poetry seek out to do is use the resources available from a computer to create a new breed of modernized poetry.

Two examples of kinetic and interactive poetry are Y0UNG-HAE CHANG HEAVY INDUSTRIES’ “Rain on the Sea” and David Jhave Johnson’s “SOFTIEs”. “Rain on the Sea” and “SOFTIEs” both make use of audio and music to add extra meaning and feeling to the poetry. Among other techniques, the two pieces set out to bring the anti-art movements of the early 1900s to the screen.

In the case of “Rain on the Sea”, the opening countdown, old-timey music, and layout of the poem gives it the feeling of a silent film. However, the stylistic choice of moving the words so quickly that upon the first time viewing the reader is only able to catch part of the story gives it a true feeling of avant-garde electronic literature. “Rain on the Sea” is an important example of film poetry, one of the many styles of kinetic and interactive poetry that exist.

Johnson’s “SOFTIEs” is even stranger than “Rain on the Sea”. Although part of it consists of short, traditional pieces of poetry, the rest of it consists of poetic proses being distorted, twisted, and stretched on a plane with ominous music in the background. “SOFTIEs” sets out to give words a second meaning, not just in what they mean but also in how they are presented. It is a good example of visual poetry, or “vispo”.

Although there are many more examples and subgenres of kinetic and interactive poetry that can be explored, these two are solid examples of what the movement has sought out to express with the addition of technology to writing.

Dylan Niehaus – Kinetic and Interactive Poetry

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Dylan

The first poem or poems to catch my attention were the sound poems by Jorg Piringer. I enjoyed messing around with the different interactive sound poems, trying to create my own unique and interesting sound bites. Although fun and interesting to interact with, I failed to notice any deeper meaning within the poems. This may be because I have a difficult time finding meaning within things in general, but with these sound poems, I just fail to see how they could allude to anything of deeper meaning.

“Concrete poetry is based on an awareness of and interest in the material nature of language, its shapes and forms, and the aesthetic and semantic effects made possible by manipulating language as a material.” – Scott Rettberg

The sound poems by Jorg Piringer follow the definition set out by Scott Rettberg in that they allow the reader to manipulate sounds created by language in unusual ways. Many of the sound poems contain letters that can be manipulated freely by the user. As the letters are manipulated, a sound is made based around that letter. The only deeper meaning I can pull from these poems is that at its roots, the English language can be incredibly nonsensical and off-putting. But, this poem appears to be a form of Lettrism, so being devoid of meaning may be its intention. Lettrism focuses on deconstructing poetry to be devoid of semantic content. The sound poems created by Jorg Piringer succeed at this by focusing only on letters, their movements, and the sounds they make.

The second poem that caught my attention was Cruising by Ingrid Ankerson and Megan Sapnar. This is a poem that utilizes sound, images, text, and animations to tell a short story. This is similar to the sound poems by Jorg Piringer only in that Cruising utilizes sound, but in Cruising, the sound is used to tell a story through a voiceover. This kinetic poem is much more traditional in that it has a clear story and meaning. The poem is also interactive, the user can move their mouse and make the images and text on the screen scroll at different speeds. The description of the poem states that this was done in order to create an experience in which the user needs to learn to control and “drive” the poem.

Blog 6: Kinetic and Interactive Poetry

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Christine

Tom Swiss’s Shy Boy is short yet conveys quite a bit to the readers. The poem is a representation and a voice about a boy who left in the shadows and wants to disappear. The movement of the text and rectangles convey ideas such as melting and vanishing. These movements enforce the idea that the boy is at the end of his rope. through this imagery, we can feel that he can’t bare his life anymore because he has lost his strength and will. In the end, the boy dies and is left as a ghost to reminiscent on the times he was alive. The music in the background acts as a sort of limbo. You feel as if you are floating and observing the boy before you. In Ingrid Ankerson’s Cruising poem, however, takes a very different approach. For starters, Ingrid narrates her poem as she shows us black and white photos of a car on the road unlike Swiss’s which has no photos. Some catchy guitar music plays in the background, giving the atmosphere a feeling of freedom and fun compared to the more classical and solemn music in Swiss’s. If you hover your mouse in either direction the photos will zoom past music. This interaction gives you a sense of control, similar to how you would control the speed of your own vehicle. Although her poem moves her text, unlike Swiss’s, does not. The text above the photos remains stationary until you hover over the screen; then the text starts to blur like the lights from a row of cars passing by. As the reader, I don’t feel like the floating onlooker like I did in Swiss’s poem. I feel as if I am in the car cruising with her, enjoying life and not giving a care in the world.

Ad Verbum

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0alloldusers

I had a funny conversation with my father while traversing “Ad Verbum” by Nick Monfort. My dad came into the room and I mentioned that I was reading interactive fiction for a class, which I described to him as text-input based games which he had told me about playing when he was younger. He chuckled and said that he remembered games like that required you to use very specific words to be able to navigate them. I said that actually, I was mentioning it to him because I couldn’t do something in the game and I was wondering if he could help me guess the command. He immediately asked “Are you trying to go upstairs?” Yes I was. He told me to input “go stairs” and of course it worked. Here is a screenshot of all my guesses of how to go upstairs, and his answer.

My dad even remembered the names of his friends that he spent an afternoon with in front of a computer guessing how to go upstairs. The first thing he remembered about interactive fiction was how difficult using the text parser was. Rettberg describes this feeling hilariously as:

“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.”

This aspect of IF is becoming less of a problem as technology improves and text-parsers become more intelligent. The challenge of thinking and communicating in ways that a computer will understand. What was originally a limitation of IF games has become a feature of the game and these types of games have an aspect of nostalgia today because of it.

Dylan Niehaus – Narrative Games

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Game Game Game and Game Again by Jason Nelson has caught my attention like no other piece of electronic literature so far. Game again is a narrative game that combines elements of a video game platformer with poetics, strange sounds and visuals, and video clips. The platforming was actually quite fun and unique at times, especially for a flash game focused on narrative. I have to say that Game again is the most bizarre, strange, and straight up creepy flash game I have experienced on the web, and that says a lot.

I felt like I was playing something that was created by an insane person as I was bombarded by strange sounds, visuals, and pieces of text that did not make too much sense. The whole thing had a disturbing, almost otherworldly feeling. The game encourages the user to find meaning by placing different objects to reach within each level. As an object is collected, it reveals a piece of text. Within many levels, a clickable button will appear that plays a short video clip on repeat.  Overall, despite the disturbing aspects of Game Again, I would have to say that its combination of platforming, visuals, video, and text are incredibly engaging and impressive.

I then decided to explore With Those We Love Alive by Porpentine. This game is quite different from the previous one that I explored, as it is a text-based adventure, much like Zork, except the user clicks on words instead of typing their own. The game also has a soundtrack which I found to be quite nice and relaxing, it made me feel much more immersed in the experience. I actually quite enjoy text-based games as they allow you to visualize a world in any way you wish because, in reality, the author is just providing guidelines of how the world looks; it is up to the reader to create their own details and interpretation of the world.

Providing music can help influence the way in which a reader visualizes a world. The music in this game had me thinking of a beautiful, serene palace instead of one that may be old and run down. This is interesting because the story actually takes place in a world where a larval empress has you working for her in a dingy palace, but the background colors and music make me think of this serene place. The game also allows the user to change words in the story by clicking on them. For example, I had to make a gift for the empress and I did so by clicking on words to change them to create a gift. At this point, the music changed to something more strange and sinister but returned to its relaxing form after I returned to the palace.

Both narrative games I explored are incredibly different in nature. Game Again relies heavily on visuals and gaming aspects (platforming) while With Those We Love Alive is a purely textual experience. Game Again felt more like an on-rails experience, as the goal was to get to the end of each level while collecting things along the way. The game bombarded the user with strange sounds and visuals to create a confusing and disturbing atmosphere. With Those We Love Alive is a non-linear experience that allows the user to take their time and explore the world at their own pace. It has atmospheric and relaxing music, but also has depressing and dark themes, but overall it is a much more muted experience than Game Again.

Interactive Fiction

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0alloldusers

In looking at the various interactive fiction pieces for this week I chose to focus on Game Game Game and Game again as well as Adverbum.

First Game Game, I found this piece quite jarring in the way it was presented. The main thing I believe the author wanted to represent was themes instead of a clear story. I think the themes were family, childhood, religion, and money/success. At least that’s what I thought I was picking up on. In playing the game a few times the sequence is open to change, so others could view the themes/story differently.

However, Adverbum was a more clear adventure story, in contrast to Game Game it is more basic with just the text and no visual cues. I do feel that this piece is better at letting the interactor use their imagination to envision the story. Whereas, with Game Game most everything is shown to the interactor leaving little room to expand upon.

Although some might find it frustrating in Adverbum the need to find the right phrase to move on to the next part. I do feel like the interactor has to be dedicated to take the time to finish the story. In first trying I was stuck using the wrong words to move on with the story. Getting the reply “that’s not a verb I recognize”. I did appreciate the format though as it did present an interesting challenge.

I do think that this form of literary fiction is one that I have found the most engaging so far.

Games To Communicate

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The first game I looked at was “With Those We Love Alive”. I actually really enjoyed this one. The story was a bit confusing but as I went through it I found myself more and more invested in it and how the story would play out. I loved the attention to detail in some areas that didn’t have any significance to the plot but were still very descriptive on how things looked. There were some powerful images as well. I’m not sure where exactly I found it but at one point I stumbled across the sight of an angel’s corpse, which is a very powerful message to convey. As well as multiple references to other dead people or corpses,

“Pale, shriveled humans sleep forever on the floor. Pipes run from their heads into iron barrels.”

“Death jungle chokes the land to the north. To the south, ashen wasteland. A dead person is sitting on the balcony, swinging their legs.”

Also, as you go through the story some of the scenes will change. Such as after you make the Empress a weapon, if you go into the throne room there will be the option to view whatever weapon you chose to make her. Another component of the story is that based on your choices, the character will draw different symbols on their body. Some that I remember were; shame, relationship with the chasm, insight, and more. I noticed the main way to progress through the story was just to go to sleep until the next part unravels.

I didn’t enjoy “Howling Dogs: Room” as much as I did the other one. However, after noticing a mention of an empress in that story as well, I went back and noticed that the two were actually made by the same person, which is something I didn’t notice before. They both were stories made using twine, and they definitely have similarities but the stories were very different. “Howling Dogs: Room” is mostly about a person who seems to be trapped in a very boring life, just barely scraping by with the minimum. On top of that, it seems like the character is living through an artificial world through the use of VR. An interesting aspect of this is that the player isn’t allowed to continuously using the VR machine unless you guide them to eat and drink first, forcing you to constantly go back in forth if you want to continue. I also find this interesting because this machine is forcing the character to keep themself alive if they want to continue going into the virtual reality.

Why “Galatea” is Great, but “Stories Untold” Is Better

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Katya Farinsky

Farinsky Blog Post 5: Interactive Fiction & Narrative Games

Stories Untold Episode 1: The House Abandon.

Interactive fiction like Galatea by Emily Short or Narrative Games like Deviant: The Possession of Christian Shaw by Donna Leishman offer a reader experience unique from, yet similar too video games. Readers are presented with a prompt and allowed to control mouse or keyboard inputs to advance the story.

Within Short’s work readers must type phrases such as “look around” or “ask about” in a dialogue prompt to further the conversation with the sentient statue of Galatea.Typing a phrase that matches a command in the program’s directory produces an output with hints about Galatea’s past, thoughts about sentience, and creation.

Each click in Leishman’s predominantly visual work exposes new imagery with objects to explore. Going through each pathway of images and clickable items reveals the story loosely based on the 1696 witch trials. This work also offers a soundtrack to accompany the reader which contributes to the unsettling nature of the story as it becomes apparent something is terribly wrong.

Both of these works are great, however for someone who did not grow up playing text based interactive fiction games navigating “Galatea” can be maddening. This is why Stories Untold from developer No Code is perfect to introduce Interactive Fiction to a new generation of Internet Natives.

Stories Untold is 4 short stories which seem non-linear, but come together in an extremely rewarding way. The first chapter is similarly structured to Galatea, but the text prompts in Stories Untold give strong hints to what the user should input to advance the chapter making it easier to guess what terminology will advance the game. The following chapters expand on the text based adventure to include puzzles, different graphic interfaces, and brief linear paths to walk through similar to other video games. It is a brilliant combination of modern video game design mixed with an 80’s vibe and older mechanics. There are many elements that are also reminiscent of older electronic literature studied in this class making Stories Untold the next step in the evolution of Hypertext and Interactive Fiction.

This game is available on Steam for under $10.00. Also, many people on YouTube have posted a video play-through with commentary, or not, making the game just as accessible financially to other works, but also more available to players who are unfamiliar with the terminology necessary to play interactive fiction and want to see the full story play out.

WARNING: Some scenes in this game may cause epilepsy due to brief patterns of flashing light on the emulated monitor interface. 

Click Here to be directed to the list of videos available on YouTube or Click Here for a recommended version from Jacksepticeye which has excellent commentary.

Interactive Fiction & Narrative Games

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0alloldusers

I chose to look at With Those We Love Alive and Howling Dogs. With Those We Love Alive has a more personal aspect to it, since there are specific questions about the user once they start the story. This makes the game seem much more personalized and customizable, which is something many people enjoy. Howling Dogs seems much darker because of the white text on black background, and has no personalized features whatsoever. This game/story comes off more as a way to read a story by clicking links, rather than the user being immersed in the narrative. Howling Dogs has a clear goal, which is plainly: progress through the story. With Those We Love is a bit more open-ended and seems as if it may have a more complicated goal such as: taking time to experience the story and question the meaning behind it. It feels more like a journey than Howling Dogs. The works engage with imagination in similar ways, they both feature very vivid imagery throughout their storytelling.

Blackbar and Device 6

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In the mobile game Blackbar, the meaning of its story and the gameplay are very closely tied together. It is full of censorship and it is up to the player to figure out what is being covered by the black bars. My first reaction to it was that it felt kind of like Mad Libs. The difference is that there are specific correct answers. The key to figuring out what the censored words are is by using the context of the sentences they are placed in and how long the black bar is. This sort of progression system is the only thing that keeps this format from being just like the more traditional format of text. That is why it is so engaging. Device 6 is a more complicated interactive story. Rather than being presented with traditional paragraphs, the user must slide the text and other content all around and solve puzzles. The solutions to these puzzles are found within the content itself. They require thinking, but not as much guessing. For both of these games, the extra time I spend thinking about the solutions of the puzzles oftentimes passively make me consider the overall themes of the works.

“Electronic literature can be thought of as situated somewhere between a number of related practices and cultures, including print literary culture, arts practice, computer science, and performance.”-Rettberg pg. 88