Traces
These pieces of digital literature reminded me of previous works that I’ve experienced. Each one seemed to use a devise that was used in my earlier reading. The advantage to this was that I needed to spend less time learning how to interact with the pieces and could spend more time reading, interacting with them and reacting to them.
The Dreamlife of Letters is a fun piece even though I’m not sure I completely understand it. After reading the introduction and following the links to read DePlessis’ submission and Stefans response, I understood how he constructed the piece but, I’m still in the dark about the project, its purpose, and its meaning. In spite of this I like the poem. In some ways the kinetic text and mimetics reminded me of Faith. For example, when chimneysweep swirled on the screen like I picture a sweep’s broom in a chimney and when steep and split appeared together, steeply angled down the page and then splitting into two distinct words.
The title of Young-hae Chang Heavy Industries Artist’s Statement No. 45,730,944 told me about the piece and gave a hint about what to expect. Naturally, the work employed their trademark big, black, bold text flashing on a white background. But the message in the work is one I think anyone who is involved in creating art goes through, questioning the whys and the purpose of creating art. However, I also thought there was a deeper meaning to it - what is the purpose of our life? Why are we here? Questions I think most people ask themselves at some point during their life. So in a sense, the age old questions haven’t changed, just the way they’re asked has.
posted by Anonymous @ 4:46 PM
1 Comments:
Like Sheela Jane, you note that we get "better at" reading digital literature the more of it we read. I think (and hope) there's a kind of transferrable skills associated with this learning process. All of us are going to have to "get good" at interacting with increasingly sophisticated information-retrieval and dissemination systems as time goes on, and if we can get faster at copping on to how they work, and, crucially, more critical about the way they're shaping our understanding of the information they're presented (so often as if it were "objective'), then we'll at least be smarter consumers and perhaps even more effective citizens.
You've noticed the mimetic aspects of some of Stefans' animation in Dreamlife. I think he's trying to explore the capacity of animation itself--the kinetic dimension of the piece--as a bearing of meaning. Here, it's usually in relation to the word that's being animated, as with "chimneysweep," but sometimes the connection seems more abstract and tenuous. There might be a correlation to the use of meter and sound features in traditional poetry. The rhythm itself, and the sonority of some words, carries meaning in addition to and beyond the semantic meaning of the words themselves. I'll try to come up with examples for our next class meeting. Great observations about all the pieces you mention.
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