Author: 0alloldusers

Hypertext Fiction and a look at The Babysitter

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In reading the chapter this week I enjoyed reading the different approaches taken by authors to produce hypertext. Though, in reading “The Babysitter” I found it a little challenging in following the story.

It could be that is the author’s intention, to make it jarring so the reader is unsure and reads on to figure out the conclusion.
However, through the use of these “fragmented narratives,” The Babysitter is able to take the reader on not just one linear story, but instead the multiple paths of different characters(Rettberg, 84).

The author doesn’t give any instructions in reading the short story, in contrast to something like a choose your own adventure, which leads to a specific piece to make the story flow in a way. In reading it paragraph by paragraph, it jumps to another story, or a new character quite frequently.

In this way, it follows a pattern that Rettberg talks about in the more recent uses of hypertext. I would say Coover’s story is similar to some of Moulthrop’s work discussed in the book. Moulthrop’s pieces dealt with “the conflict between conventions of reading fiction and the fragmentary nature of attention online”(Rettberg, 76). I feel The Babysitter is much like this, with the constant switch in redirecting the reader’s attention to a new plot line, each one seems to get darker than the last.

Personally, I can’t say I enjoyed The Babysitter. I didn’t like the way the author sexualized most everything and everyone in the story.
Still, I’m interested in reading more hypertext literature. Possibly some of the ones Rettberg talked about in the chapter. There were some really interesting plots that I think fit well with the format of hypertext.

“Fiction of Possibilities”

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Initially when I read the first couple of paragraphs in “The Babysitter” I didn’t expect the story to take the disturbing turns that it did.

The story appears to be about a babysitter who is watching Mr. and Mrs. Tucker’s little ones while they are off at a party. The babysitter at first appears to have a pretty typical night, she takes care of the young kids who are being as rowdy as could be expected from children their age.

In this story, there are a few characters outside of the babysitter who are important. Mr. Tucker is the father of the children, and is incredibly attracted to the babysitter, in certain paths, he ends up putting himself on her. Mrs. Tucker, is the mother of the children, and appears to be somewhat suspicious of Mr. Tucker and also incredibly unhappy as indicated on page 4.

Then there is Mark and Jack, who have plans to rape the babysitter. The easiest way to describe the story is that the babysitter has the worst night imaginable.

Also, while the story is called “The Babysitter” it does not solely focus on the babysitter, but rather it gives incredible attention to all of the characters, which appears to be influenced from modernist writing. (Rettberg 56)

The story is a bit hard to follow on the PDF but the strong writing helps, “Although chronological progression takes place in the story, as we move from 7:40 p.m. into the late hours of the night, the distinction between objective reality and fantasy falls away as we read the fragments, and every possibility has equal opportunity to be visited.” (Rettberg 58)

Coover’s approach through fragmentation may at first seem to be an annoyance as the reader has to pay incredible attention to what is happening, but I view it as a strength of the story. The fragmentation encourages the reader to fully involve themselves by looking at each fragment and looking at which match together and which don’t. It felt like I was piecing together the story, and just when I thought I had it pieced together, there are additional fragments that lead to other paths in the story as certain fragments have fragments that can go into different directions.

While reading the story, I made highlights as a way to indicate fragments that I was piecing together. I only wish that the story wasn’t on a PDF file so I could actually move the fragments around.

This “fiction of possibilities” allows for a level of engagement that cannot be achieved in traditional storytelling. In a way, it allows the reader in a limited capacity, to be the author of their own narrative.

Coover’s influence can be seen clearly in hypertext fiction, which have experimented and explored the idea of multilinearity for many years. An example can be seen with the story of Uncle Roger by Judy Malloy which contained seventy-five lexia, which was in a database structure. (Rettberg 69)

Sources:

Electronic Literature by Scott Rettberg

“The Babysitter” by Robert Coover

The Babysitter – January 25, 2019

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Although 1969 provided no technical advantage for Robert Coover to create a piece of hyptertext fiction, he instead wrote what would essentially be the inspiration for hypertext fiction by forcing the reader to use as little information as possible to string together a coherent story.

In his piece “The Babysitter” a mundane plot of a babysitter washing the kids and putting them to sleep takes multiple perspectives in a non-chronological order. However, the lack of chronology is not what is confusing and captivating to the reader. What catches the reader’s attention is the fact that each perspective of the story includes that person’s imagined story of how the rest of the night unfolds. The babysitter’s boyfriend and his friend imagine raping her or seducing her, the babysitter imagines accidentally killing the baby, the father of the children imagines cheating on his wife, etc. These are just some examples of the various plot lines in the story, and some of the characters even create multiple stories within their minds about what actually happens. As a result of this mixing pot of plot lines, the story seems to constantly be correcting or contradicting itself, further adding to the confusion and noise that the short story creates.

This piece was very important for hypertext fiction, which is, at its very basic structure, a mixture of technology with writing to add to the story in a way that an analog piece of writing could not do. A common feature of hypertext fiction is interactivity, meaning that the story can branch off into multiple paths, or further immerse the reader by putting them into the story, and a countless amount of other techniques. In his novel Electronic Literature, Scott Rettberg states that “hypertext fiction may not have swayed the culture to accepting nonlinear storytelling on the computer and the network as a successor to printed books, but it has served as a foundation for many new types of literary work in digital media” (Rettberg, 86). An overall criminally overlooked genre of writing, hypertext fiction has nonetheless proved influential for postmordern writing. Nevertheless, hypertext fiction’s influence will likely continue to appear in new writing, both digital and analog, but it all starts with “The Babysitter”.

Taroko Gorge – January 18, 2019

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“Taroko Gorge” is a fascinating form of writing that is generated randomly from a bank of words. It may have a deep meaning, or it may have no meaning at all. Perhaps it was done for the sake of doing it, but, much like any form of writing, the great thing is that a meaning can always be found within. For the original piece, for example, the elegant word bank that exists portrays beautiful images of nature with words like “hum”, “crags”, “ripplings”, and “pace”, that can evoke calming, wondrous images. Alternatively, a piece like “Hey Gorgeous” follows a narrative of word banks that describe the story of people at a club. The beauty of this digital art is that no matter what environment is inserted into the code, it seems as if the emotion of that environment is present throughout the piece.

Although there is no true narrative due to its randomness, this technique gives these pieces of writing a feeling as if they are snapshots of what is occurring in the world of the story. It is as if each line of code is equivalent to a person within this world blinking.

The code feels oddly akin to how a program like Twine functions, jumping around from bubble to bubble, creating a sense of controlled chaos. In the words of Scott Rettberg, it is “calm, almost zen-like poetry.” Zen-like can even mean unsettling, however. “The Dark Side of the Wall” generates lines of lyrics from the band Pink Floyd, taking the often dissonant feeling of the band’s lyrics and continuing it via technology. It can be argued that this is not true writing, but this does not seem to be what Taroko Gorge and its varations are trying to accomplish. What it is trying to accomplish is shared with writing, however. It makes its reader think.

Combinatory Poetics Blog

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Combinatory poetics is a form of writing that I’ve come across before but I never knew the name of. The foundation upon which it was built has a colorful cast, ranging from the seemingly paradoxical Dada group with the cut up technique, the surrealist with automatism, the Fluxus artists, etc. all helped shape combinatory writing.

Taroko Gorge serves as a representation of combinatory poetics. Taroko Gorge is a poetry generator created by Nick Montfort, as Retterberg explains in Electronic Literature, “It is a relatively simple script that produces an endlessly scrolling poem, cascading ceaselessly in the web browser until the reader closes the window in which it manifests.” (Retterberg 47)

Looking at the code, in the script section of Fred and George, by Flourish Klink, in the script section there are nouns, verbs, and adjectives. Now words aren’t completely chosen at random, there is a structure as shown in the actual poem. In the main sections of the poem, it starts with a noun, then it follows up with a verb, and then another noun. Now the words that are actually selected within the set variables are mostly random.

The picture below shows an example of certain parameters set within the poem generated to give a sense of coherence and structure.

These similar parameters can be seen the other variations as well, like in “The Dark Side of the Wall” by Bob Bonsall. The main difference lies in the fact that rather than the variables contain single words, Bonsall’s put entire sentences and questions within them. Outside of that main difference, the code is virtually the same as the other variations.

There is a basic meaning that can be taken from these poems, like for example “Fred and George” is incredibly sexual and this was intentional on the part of Flourish Klink. There are wizards and wands involved, I think it goes without saying that Flourish Klink really likes Harry Potter.

There is one point in the book that I believe is worth discussing as it relates to combinatory poetics within the digital sphere. On page 43, Rettberg discusses how combinatory work isn’t made to produce the greatest pieces of writing, but rather as a way to represent a “range of possibilites in interesting ways”.

“If a generative system only operates to demonstrate a concept while producing texts that can only be appreciated as output of a computer program but not as compelling language, in my view it fails as a work of electronic literature.” (Rettberg 43)”

When I looked at the various examples of Taroko Gorge I never viewed any of the poems as compelling in any way, I simply viewed them as demonstrations of a concept. Now maybe I’m simply blind to the beauty of combinatory poetics through the use of story and poetry generators but I don’t take any real meaning in the actual text. I certainly appreciate the technology, as it is incredibly impressive, but outside of that, theres nothing.

When I listen to a song like “Smells Like Teen Spirit” by Nirvana it isn’t just the words and the music alone that are compelling, it is the fact that the Kurt Cobain actually experienced those emotions. With each note and lyric you can feel the passion and emotion behind it all. When you’re a teenager or even an adult, you can relate with those emotions and connect with not just the song, but the artist behind it.

Lets say that a song generator creates a song that is just as powerful if not better than “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” Even if it was an objectively better song, I would still like “Smells Like Teen Spirit” more, and I would view the product created by the generator as a lesser product. I say this because a generator does not know what it is like to experience emotion, it doesn’t know what it is like to struggle, it doesn’t understand the frustrations of being a teenager and how that affects someone. Anything that it creates rings hollow because it can’t actually experience anything it describes.

Sources:

Electronic Literature by Scott Rettberg

“Taroko Gorge” by Nick Montfort

“Fred and George” by Flourish Klink

“The Dark Side of the Wall” by Bob Bonsall

 

 

A look at digital combinatory poetics

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Taroko Gorge was not something I was familiar with before taking a look at the pages for this week. So before I began sifting through the many different works, I made a Google search. In looking at Taroko Gorge, it is quite picturesque and looks like the type of place one puts on a bucket list. After viewing these photos I was expecting all of the poems to be poetic takes describing the scenery of the Gorge.

The original page is a never-ending repeat of phrases. Mixed together they make a random poem about the Gorge. In the code, the author gives everyone the freedom to manipulate and make their own work from his, as long as they give credit. He uses javascript and creates a function that will randomly pick words from an array, and sort them in a way that the poem will still be understandable.

To the side of the original is a multitude of links, showing what others have done with the code. Looking through them these are the ones I found most interesting.

Brendan Howell took the original code as an inspiration to make Designer Gulch. Not only a digital work, but also physical art piece that sits in the Berliner Technische Kunsthochschule. There two dueling computers sit side by side spitting out content. They are programmed to string together “industry jargon” to create the verses. This is the one I found with the most coherent outcome.

Then there was Gorge by J.R. Carpenter, who’s generated poem I would describe as an anatomical feast. It’s quite odd and sometimes offputting with the results, but it does keep the attention of the viewer.

Overall, I liked taking a look at this different form of making poetry.

Blog Post 1- January 18, 2019

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This week we were assigned to examine 2-3 versions of Taroko Gorge originally created by Nick Monfort. This piece of electronic literature has been modified by many authors and is a continuous, ever changing work. The original author, Nick Monfort developed this piece using the programming language Python which is now available in JavaScript. This programming language creates a dynamic, digital space of interactivity. It was interesting to experience several different versions and to see how the authors remixed the work. Upon inspecting the source codes, I discovered that each author used Monfort’s original code, but input their own set of words into a word bank that are programmed to randomize while viewing the page. This creates a new version of the poem each time you open a new browser so you never experience the same version twice. One of the contributing authors, Scott Rettberg, described Monfort’s original poem as a “classic and elegant nature poem” that he chose to remix entirely. Rettberg titled his remix, Tokyo Garage which I think suits it well. He describes his version as modern and urban which is a complete contrast from Monfort’s. One of the other versions that I found quite entertaining was the version written by Talan Memmott titled Toy Garbage. The phrases that were generated were quite amusing. Their use of words like Easy-Bake Oven, Furby, and Cabbage Patch Kid instantly took me back to my ever so glamorous childhood of the early Nineties. As a reader, the combinatory nature of the writing created this exciting experience. It was interesting to read each newly generated phrase as it appeared on the screen and try to sort out or piece together the meaning and author’s intent.

Test

0alloldusers

My name is Ian Farnham and I am a DTC major. My superpower involves Illustrator, premiere, and after effects. My interest is film and cinematography. I have worked on twine before and enjoyed it and would like to learn more about twine and find out how to use more of it.