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Mark Z. Danielewski’s story House of Leaves is a very interesting read. The work diverges from the traditional structures of writing and creates a puzzle for the reader. From backwards text to rotated text, House of Leaves feels like a puzzle. In order to truly experience the story, you have to work to unravel it. This structure reminds me a lot of web series like The Backrooms.

Episodes from the series are not always released in order, and many appear to be irrelevant. The story is hidden, forcing the viewers to dissect the information each video holds and piece it back together. On the surface it all looks confusing, but when you sift through the videos, reorder parts in a new order, things become clearer. It leaves people, like the channel Film Theory, to try an figure out what the story truly is.

Much like hypertext, these stories add another level of involvement to the reader and viewer. The stories force the reader and viewer to actively decipher the material. Though other stories do similar things, telling their story out of order like in the film Memento, these kinds of stories push the reader to change them in a way that it can be truly understood. None of the material can be taken at face value, you actively have to change how it is displayed and ordered. Everything you read or watch is just a piece of the story, and you have to figure out where each one goes in order to get the full picture.

It is such an interesting level of interaction, having the readers and viewers physically change the order of events until the story is complete.

As someone who is going into 3D animation, I thought the discussion on media and materiality by N. Katherine Hayles was very interesting to read about. Digital technology is becoming more and more prevalent within society, and it is interesting to examine how it affects the physical world and our future as a whole. Much like Stephen Kline’s discussion on defining technology, the digital has become a prominent part of our lives, and we discuss how exactly it plays into our understanding of the world and materiality. As Hayles discussed in their book, the introduction of 3D software has drastically changed the capabillites of production, a shot that would have taken over a hundred cameras, coordination, and hours of editing is now able to be done in a digital space with a single camera, moved around the character and adjusted with a simple slider.

Another perfect example of this shift is with the making of Jurassic Park. The original plan for bringing to life the dinosaurs of Jurassic Park was using stop motion and puppets. This was the standard for doing visual effects, but some of the crew felt it would not truly capture the motion that audiences would be expecting for such creatures. So, Dennis Muren, the visual effects supervisor, suggested using computer generated effects. After doing some tests, Spielberg decided that they would move away from the stop motion plans and use computer animation to bring the creatures to life.

This is a prime example of the switch to the digital age, a marking from the physical to digital. Jurassic Park showed a movement from the materiality of stop motion to the digitality of computer-generated animation. However, the making of the film also supports Hayles’ claim that materiality is also prevalent for producing these simulations and computer engines. When switching over to cgi, the production team utilized the talents of the stop motion animators by creating a specially made hardware nicknamed the “dinosaur input device.” The dinosaur input device was a puppet, very similar to the ones that stop motion animators would use and encoded it so that the computer would register the movement so they could animate as they normally would. This gave animators a physical device they could manipulate and animate with.

While we are moving to a more digital centric world, the materiality is still very prevalent and can be combined with the digital to create unique and amazing products and solutions.

Scott McCloud’s book Understanding Comics brings to light an extremely fascinating concept that can be utilized in a variety of media by storytellers, the idea of the “Blood in the Gutter.” The main idea behind the Blood in the Gutter is that the human mind will create closure in the gaps left when transitioning between images, or panels. We are able to look at two images and fill in what connects them, or the sequence of actions that led from one image to the other. Understanding the gutter, this gap between panels, and how to transition between images is extremely beneficial to storytellers as it allows them to better learn and plan how to use imagery to tell their story.

There are many different variations of transitions between panels, ranging from action-to-action and non-sequitur, each leaving a type of gutter that will incite different meanings or perceptions. It is important to know how the gutter can work as it directly impacts the understanding of the images. The minds’ ability to create closure, interpolating what has happened between panels, is what allows artists to set up their images to convey a particular meaning, create the illusion of an action. Being able to know how to convey an idea or event to an audience through still drawings is important when working with a medium like comics, as well as others.

The gutter is not only applicable to comics, but also for other media like film. While film uses far more images to create a sense of movement, the way it has set up images as frames and edit them with others to create scenes is similar to the structure of a comic, using images as panels and placing them in a particular way. When a film cuts to a different shot, a different series of frames, it too has a gutter. The audience must perceive what has occurred between the two shots, using closure just as they would between comic panels.

McCloud’s concept of the gutter is not just useful for comic artists, but for those working in other forms of media, the storytellers looking to know how to convey their message or narrative.

I thought the article North of Boston was a very interesting read. We get a look into the transition to writing using computers. Computers are a tool that we can take for granted in this day and age. Whether writing an award-winning essay or a high school research paper, it is more than likely that a person will use their computer. Because of how abundant computers are, and how frequently people will use them, little thought is given into what is was like before this technology changed the world.

This is why the article and Stephen King’s transition to computer writing gives us this unique perspective. Stephen King’s moving over to utilizing computers for his writing gives us a look into how revolutionary the introduction of this technology to the public was. Before Stephen King did all the traditionally, writing out then printing his work. When he wanted something changed, he’d have to rewrite the entire thing then print it out again. But when he started using the Wang System 5, he need only go back and retype that line. He was able to decide if a character’s fate with a simple press of the keyboard.

Stephen King’s transition to computers reveals how impactful the technology was to writers. We see how it gave them new control, invoking astonishment for what they could do, the potential.

This would only grow as computer technology advanced over the years. More possibilities emerged for writers. They were given more control and writing became far easier. And their feeling of control, having the power to decide a character’s fate would extend to the readers with the beginning of hypertext, giving them choices and the power to choose what will happen.

Computers are a powerful tool, and seeing how it impacted one of the most successful authors in recent history really puts into perspective just how lucky we are to possess it.

I found the topic of trying to understand technology from Steve Woolgar’s “Reconstructing Man and Machine” and Stephen Kline’s “What is Technology” articles to be extremely fascinating. Technology is always expanding, evolving in new directions. As it continues to grow, it is becoming extremely important to discuss what technology really is.

As Stephen Kline discussed in his article, the word technology covers a vast variety of different objects and systems. While many would consider technology to be manufactured objects like phones or even the train, it can also encompass the knowledge to craft and design such objects. It is important to think about what technology really is, as it has become a staple of the human race and has been quick to evolve. Only a few thousand years ago was the bow the most advanced technology, and now we have space stations orbiting the Earth.

Technology has changed astronomically in a relatively short span of time. As we continue to grow as a species, we need to really think about what technology is and how it should be used. As Steve Woolgar discussed in his article, talking about the abilities and capacity of technology is the same as talking about the abilities and capacity of humans. Humans are dependent on technology, and technology is dependent on humans. Whatever technology is capable of doing is dependent on the abilities of people, their knowledge, creativity and depth they are willing to take it.

As technology continues to evolve, opening the doors to new inventions such as AI generated imaging to 3D printed bones, we need to really think about it. Technology is not just some computers or hardware, it is a part of who we are, and its only boundaries are the ones we set. If we do not truly understand what technology is, then we risk letting a powerful extention of humans grow without any constraints.

Gunther Kress’s discussion on modes and multimodality is important to keep in mind in the digital age. Being conscious about how you use modes and approach multimodality is extremely beneficial in the digital age, when we have so many more modes available than before. As Kress points out when discussing multimodality, different modes can do different things, and bringing them together can provide more information that conveys meanings in the form of different medium. Because of the digital age, modes have been able to be combined to create new media like websites, films, and video games. Digital media has expanded the uses of modes, so being more conscious about them is crucial to be able to effectively use them to create such media. This is especially highlighted in the MODE video guide about digital film and moving images.

As discussed by the MODE team, film is very much a multimodal form. Framing, the camera angle, the lighting, the sound, all are modes working simultaneously within a film. Each mode of needs to be planned, most of the time with a whole team working together on each one, then combined together in a cohesive way. All the modes add something to the medium, so if one if haphazardly worked on then the whole film can fall apart. Filmmakers have to be conscious about each mode and how they work together in order to effectively communicate the message of their piece.

We need to learn and be aware of multimodality, how all these modes work and can be put together to convey meanings.

The excerpts from “Papyrus to Hypertext” and “Phaedrus” texts bring up very interesting, and polarizing views to the emergence of writing and its relationship to thought. While Christian Vandendorpe thought that writing was a “great intellectual revolution” (Vandendorpe, 8) Socrates saw it as less valuable, questioning “who deemed that writing was at all better than knowledge and recollection” (Plato). It is interesting because both turned to thought as their reasoning for why it is amazing, and why it is frivolous.

Vandendorpe viewed thought as wild and unstable, our perception is constantly changing, and new associations are being made. In his eyes, text provided a way to record and reorganize aspects of our thoughts. We had the means to record what we were thinking and refine or rework them in new ways.

However, Plato’s “Phaedrus” describes writing very differently. In the text, writing is compared to painting. Socrates discusses with Phaedrus how, like a painting, text can provide someone with a view of life but is unable to answer questions you have on what is being viewed. Unlike the spoken word, you cannot explore what a text is presenting, unable to ask what it means.

It is interesting to view both sides because while they speak from different sides of writing, they both present important points on the subject. Plato was a student of Socrates, taught to view the world from a philosophical point of view. Thought to them was everything, and writing was seen as a cage. Both Plato and Socrates saw writing as too fixed, stopping philosophical thought by placing it on a surface, stuck in time and unable to change or question. Vandendorpe, however, was a writer. He was living during the emergence of hypertext, a new media given rise by the internet. Hypertext gave a new way to explore writing, branching out to new paths and exploring fragmented ideas that could be connected by links. Writing, to him, was able to take the rapidly changing thoughts of our minds, and allow us to organize and transform them.

Both perspectives bring up interesting aspects of writing. Plato points out the fixation of writing, how once it is all you have to go by and cannot question or explore the text further than what is given. While fixed, however, Vandendorpe brings to light how writing provides a way to capture a thought and refine it, instead of losing it in the ever-changing flow of the mind. It is important to keep in mind the advantages and disadvantages of a medium, how it may work in one aspect but fail in another, allowing you the choice of if, or how to utilize it.

While reading about initials, I found the history of the letter J and B to be quite fascinating. Until reading the texts I was unaware that the letter J was one of the last letters to emerge, with it taking 1000 years to join the alphabet. It is interesting to think how before it was created, the letter Y and I were what was used for name like Julius or Jupiter (Iulius and Yupp-iter). This really makes me wonder what other names that use the letter J were actually spelt like and how they sounded. Before the reading I did not think of how each individual letter, never assuming that some morphed and separated from pre-existing letters. For some more interesting facts about J, the Britannica article of the letter discusses the evolution of the letter in more detail.

In contrast, the letter B has been around far longer. While I was aware of the Greek letter for Beta, I did not realize that it itself derives from Egyptian hieroglyphics. The letter B’s long history does match though, as it is a backbone letter for many words.

Both letter exemplify what we have discussed in class about the evolution of symbols and icons. The letter J and B both evolved from the symbols of two different letters, changing over time until the matched how we now know them. It is interesting to see how both letters evolved and eventually took up roles different from their initial forms.

I also think there is something entertaining to look at the history of my initials and see that one is super young while the other is incredibly old. A kind of duality of sorts.