4 Meme

  

 

 

 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

The Sweet Old Etcetera

Out of this weeks readings one in particular stood out to me. This reading was titled The Sweet Old Etcetera , by Allison Clifford. It was another interactive piece of electronic literature, which adopts the poetry of E.E. Cummings which features crazy visual features. Depending on how you click it will form different formations and words. At one point it looked as if I had a dying tree in a hurricane on the middle of my computer screen. 

This piece reminded me of music notes because of how the words would move around and form words, phrases, or just jumbled words. The visuals on this piece were beautiful ad I felt immersed in the interactive. Also, it was apparent that Allison Clifford really had a passion for this type of poetry and went all out to create a great experience for the viewers. This passion relates to the audience and even rubs off on them to keep exploring and playing around with other pieces that are similar. I also enjoyed the way the tree branched out with all of the different lines of words. This feature made it feel as it was a real tree about to tip over.

Although I just had a minor spiel on what I enjoyed out of the piece, overall I was not a big fan of this reading. It had nothing to do with the poem itself, but the way the piece of literature worked. It grinded my gears that at the start at how smashed together the words were and most of them were difficult to see. The way how half of the words were darker or lighter than other ones depending on what you clicked irritated me. I understand the point of contrast, but this was just unnecessary. Majority of the time the words that were formed meant nothing and were just plain useless. I have no issue with going through a piece a few times to get the end or correct meaning, but this made me feel as if I was a dog running in a circle chasing my tail. This piece seemed to have an identity crisis as if the author was not sure if it wanted to be a video game, wannabe music selection, or a piece of electronic literature. What was with the bouncing asterisk marks? I am not sure if my computer was acting up, but when I clicked on them nothing happened. I just assumed this was the ending. If this is true, then the piece would benefit from actually properly stating the poem is over. I do not understand why the most of the supposed parenthesis marks were there they provided nothing to the interactive. End Rant!

Favorite E-Lit Selection

At first, I was a bit hesitant and weary of E-lit because I did not know what to expect. Over the last few weeks I have gotten a solid grasp on what E-lit is and how to properly interact with it. Although E-lit is far different than cracking open a book, I have enjoyed most of the class readings .A few selections from previous reading really stood out to me, but one in particular was my favorite. 

Mr. Plimpton's Revenge was something unique and different compared to most of the other works. It was helpful to see exactly where the story took place and how it unfolded. I felt immersed in the story because I was able to see all of the locations. The small dialogue boxes made it enjoyable to read because it was not an overwhelming amount of text and I breezed through the piece with a great understanding.  

Even though I really enjoyed Mr. Plimpton's Revenge, by far my favorite was Public Secrets. I am sure some of the reason behind this is the similarities to the Netflix show Orange is the New Black. This piece was so emotionally charged and it engaged the reader to show some type of emotion for these women. The piece was mildly depressing learning a vast majority of the women were locked away for life with no chance of parole, but that is what made the piece so powerful. If it did not contain such harsh issues or punishment the piece would not have been able to engage the viewer on such a deep level. In addition, just being able to hear what the women did to get in was fascinating and disturbing at the same time. I have had family members in prison before so I was able to relate to what the inmates families and friends went through. It was not that shocking to learn about the inmates mistreatment due to all of the media coverage and new shows or films popping up depicting prison life. The overall design of the piece was interesting and something different and it drove me to check out all of the features. There is a large amount of content in this piece, but with it being grouped in sections it made it not as overwhelming. At anytime I felt disinterested I would just go back to the homepage and unravel a new section of information. This kept my attention for a long period of time and a regular textbook I would have lost interest long ago.  One minor gripe I had with this piece was that it seemed as if the creators attempted to group similar stories together, but a solid amount of the stories were not directly related. In the grand scheme of things this was not a big deal, but it just caught my attention after searching through the work. 

What is DH?

 To begin, I am Ken Badstibner a senior student at UPJ studying communication. Dr. Justus posed

the question what is Digital Humanities? Great question, he seems to ask a lot of great questions, but in all seriousness from what I have learned in a short amount of time Digital Humanities is a complicated, diverse, and relatively new area of study.   

 

 

 My interpretation of Digital Humanities is that it the study of interloping humanities and research to make information better available. In addition, Digital Humanities focuses on the combination and exploration of all the different art forms of humanities. This study is an art form or even a way of life, especially in the media ridden world we live in today. Digital Humanities is born online in the non physical world so it is like a chain link of knowledge so one can just jump from page to page no matter how different the humanities are. For instance, if someone is doing research on classical paintings they may have to get another book just to understand the definition of a key term unless it is listed on the page. Compare that to the digital world there are hyper links or one can just simply copy and paste the word into Google to find the meaning. The digital aspect of research is much more compelling and less time consuming. Music has benefited greatly from Digital Humanities because it allows one to edit or change the pitch or tone of someone's voice recording. Compare that to 25 years ago this was not plausible. An artist would have to make an absurd amount of recordings of just one song because the technology would not be able to alter one small thing to make the song what it needed to be. Now, with the flick of a finger it can make someone seem like they could sing like Barry White instead of some wannabe American Idol hopeful. Essentially computers are like an extension of us, so we just have to guide them in the direction we want to go. 

E-lit, much like Digital Humanities does not have a concrete definition due to a variety of reasons.  If I had to sum what E-lit is then I would propose that it is literature that is born digitally and not a document in PDF form or Microsoft Word. This literature was created online for a purpose, usually due to it being interactive with the reader or viewer. Although print books and articles do not fit the criteria of E-lit, it does include interactive texts that almost play as video games. E-Lit is still a growing field and nowhere near the exposure of its print counterparts, but over time it will explode in popularity due to society being in a digital age.

There are various form of E-lit and after reading and playing around with the class readings a few stood out to me for different reasons. Mr. Plimpton's Revenge and Public Secrets were both interesting and similar in a few ways. They both engaged the audience with more traditional storytelling, but had the reader click around to follow the plot. Obviously, Mr. Plimpton's Revenge was an example of a classical story, while Public Secrets was a collection of stories which did not need played in any certain way. The similarities between the two lies at the core due to the way they were set up. Both were easy to follow, but engaged the reader and kept the readers interest due to the movement and freedom of the interaction. On the other hand, Text Evolution and Deviant featured a more of a video game style feel to them. Deviant was like a video game and very frustrating. Text evolution was basically just a bunch of words played out of sync, but the viewer could control at the rate they were displayed in order to properly read the text. In both of these instances the viewer had control of the interaction, but both of these examples were much more unconventional. I had to play through both a few times in order to get a feel for them and eventually reach the end. Deviant had me so frustrated I almost smashed my laptop in frustration. This kind of feel can either make or break a viewer. For some, it will drive them to the point of insanity until they complete the game, while others will just concede defeat. I fall into the first part because I am one of those people no matter how bad something is I want to see it through. 

Overall, these all were interesting pieces of Electronic Literature that did a phenomenal job of engaging the viewer in unconventional  ways. If I wanted to show someone a piece of E-Lit I would show them the Deviant game for a few reasons. Although the others were much different from reading a book, Deviant really encompasses something different and unique. In the future I believe a large amount of E-Lit will encompass what Deviant offers. It was just something so different and fresh compared to what most people come across in reading or interacting with on a regular basis. Below is basically how to understand, read, and operate E-Lit for someone who is unfamiliar with the study.