Saturday, 31 January 2015

Narrative - old or new

I have always thought that Twitter had the most potential of all of the social media tools I had used,  for creative output. Last year the Newfoundland Historical Trust, @NLHistoricTrust
live tweeted the re-enactment of the great fire of 1892 that destroyed a large part of the city. It was riveting to follow along and relive the entire night through Twitter. It really was haunting and made me think about how difficult it must have been to have lived through such a tragic event.


As Andrew Fitzgerald noted in his talk, the reenactment potential of real life events offers up so many potentially great stories to a listening audience. It can create awareness and help people relive events and make them relevant or reteach lessons such as those from the war.  If you can use a modern tool to retell old stories and reach audiences that may not have been interested or perhaps aware of the stories, then that is truly beneficial. 

Obviously there are curmudgeons like Jonathan Franzen who can never be swayed about the merits of Twitter and what it can offer to the literary world. He will always elegize the “quiet and permanence of the printed word” and use creative words like ‘dumb’ to describe the next movement in writing. After he criticized Twitter a hashtag was created to respond to his luddite tendencies, #JonathanFranzenHates.  Many authors and critics responded and of course it trended. In an article in the Sydney Morning Herald Blake wrote, 

"Even Salman Rushdie joined in, tweeting: "Dear #Franzen: @MargaretAtwood @JoyceCarolOates @nycnovel @NathanEnglander @Shteyngart and I are fine with Twitter. Enjoy your ivory tower."  And then someone responded by creating a Storify book of the tweets received including this cat video!


When the novel was introduced to Europe there were many like Franzen who dismissed it's worth, and in fact the novel was so controversial it divided the French literary community. The Quarterly Review printed a story, including statistics, to prove that the lowly novel was linked to rising crime rates.

The example Buttry writes about, tweeting about surgery in real time was truly fascinating. Having just had someone very close to me go through a long and important surgery I could see the comfort this would bring to people waiting outside, wondering what is happening. Living an experience like this or tuning in for a live tweet that Fitzgerald talked about is novel and fun, and just may get more people interesting in story-telling.

King's piece was wonderful to read and the similarities between Twitter and graffiti were  interesting.  On Twitter she says, "this kind of storytelling is quick, even ephemeral, and largely improvised. It’s really more like broadcasting than writing, and one of the things that makes Twitter so intimate, even in its rowdy, buzzing, crowd-y-ness, is that you are reading someone’s work in real time." I fully concur.


References

Buttry, S. (August 2009). Riveting Twitter Narrative of Robotic Surgery at St. Luke’s. Retrieved on January 26, 2015 from http://stevebuttry.wordpress.com/2009/08/31/rivetingtwitter-narrativea-of-robotic-surgery-at-st-lukes/ 

Blake, E. (May 10, 2014) Authors Who Embrace Twitter. Retrieved on Jan 30, 2015 from http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/authors-who-embrace-twitter-20140508-37wt0.html#ixzz3QQjVh8dG

Fitzgerald, A. (October 2013). Adventures in Twitter Fiction, Ted Talks. Retrieved on January 28, 2015 from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6ZzmqDMhi0 

King, R. J. (2013). How Twitter is Reshaping the Future of Storytelling. Retrieved on January 28, 2015 from http://www.fastcoexist.com/1682122/how-twitter-is-reshaping-the-future-of-storytelling 

Schellinger, P. (1998). The Encyclopedia of the Novel. Rutledge. New York.

Smith, A. (October 2013). Literary Parkour: @Hourse_ebooks, Jonathan Franzen and the Rise of Twitter Fiction. Grandland. Retrieved on January 28, 2015 from http://grantland.com/hollywood-prospectus/literary-parkour-horse_ebooks-jonathan-franzen-and-the-rise-of-twitter-fiction/



Wednesday, 28 January 2015

#twitterorbooks

I like to think of myself as somewhat social media savvy, however, I have to admit that the concept of twitter fiction is completely new to me. I found the TED Talk by Andrew Fitzgerald particularly valuable as it conceptually gave me a foundation for understanding twitter fiction and in some ways, created a curiosity for further exploration. #twitterfictionnewbie

Typically, I view twitter as a news feed and had not given thought to its function as a fiction or literary medium. And, I am not yet completely convinced of its long-term viability. #fictionornonfiction

That being said, I think the digital medium itself has opened the door for new opportunity in writing, publishing and editing. Fitzgerald commented on the way in which e-books have opened a quick feedback system that is not possible in paper publishing. This in turn, opens new avenues and ways for authors to write, edit and vet ideas that likely leads to better end products, or at least end products that resonate more immediately with the audience. #immediatefeedback

Fitzgerald also pointed out an interesting dynamic in the user experience. “Normally the reader can control the pace of the story but that is not the case with Twitter.” This to me poses a problem, at least in the traditional sense of fictional literary works. When looking for interesting examples of twitter fiction, I felt confusion in knowing where I was in the story. Was I reading a 140 character story…was this it? Should I dig deeper to see if there is a collection of tweets somewhere? Did I miss something? #newmediaproblem

The BBC broadcast by Ruth Page likely resonated with me more in that she seemed to comment, for the mots part, on the twitter that I feel I know. One where we can gather information from people we may not normally connect with such as celebrities - even though much of what they share is based on raising a profile or promoting a new product/song/show. Even still, this week’s readings have opened my mind to new possibilities for this  medium and potential for just about anyone with a twitter account, talent and idea to be fiction-based writer. #trytwitterfiction


Ruth Page, (2011). BBC Radio Leicester Interview with Ruth Page on her Twitter 
research, http://www2.le.ac.uk/departments/english/people/ruthpage
Andrew Fitzgerald (October 2013). “Adventures in Twitter Fiction, Ted Talks, 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6ZzmqDMhi0


Twitter fiction. Why do we tweet?


 Bird whisper:
Twitter fiction means addiction.
 Haiku choice in  bird’s voice.

Twitter and Haiku. Two inventions. Why do we need them? Story, nature (birds), strict structure.
Haiku Japanese poems follow a certain organization (three lines, totaling 17 syllables). Twitter: not more than 140 characters. I am just thinking now: tweeting is what the birds do when they feel safe in the forest -they will only stop if they spot a threat! People, on the contrary, will set up a #TwitterRevolution.  Why do we tweet? It is handier for humans, I guess… Twitter has 200 million active users. Among these, some of them are preoccupied with #Twitterfiction. By the way, #twitterfiction has been first mentioned in 2008:



It means:

 I am still looking to see why people use Twitter:

Ruth Page, in her Twitter research says that “finding information from people you never met in the offline world is really attractive” (BBC Radio Leicester Interview, 2011). Andrew Fitzgerald says that it is attractive to use the social media, because Twitter allows “fictional characters [to] engage with the real world” (2013). My opinion is that the engagement is bidirectional: real world is immersed in virtual reality, and vice versa. However, both worlds are realities to me. Another reason: people  use Twitter because “we are still hungry for narrative. New mediums aren’t destroying fiction, they’re allowing us to innovate even more on how we create and consume our stories” (King, 2013). Isn’t it awesome that we can write haiku on Twitter?

Digital haiku tweet cuckoo.
Fictional birdie
Follows a tree.

References:
Andrew Fitzgerald (October 2013).Adventures in Twitter Fiction.Ted Talks. Retrieved from:
Rita J. King, (2013).How Twitter is Reshaping the Future of Storytelling.
Page, R. (2011). BBC Radio Leicester Interview with Ruth Page on her Twitter


Module 4 - Serialization: The Perfect Marriage of Twitter and Fiction

The concept of Twitter fiction is oxymoronic for me – when trying to fully flesh out a storyline, I think of the classic plotline with fully realized, dynamic change as graphed in a Freytag Triangle:
Simpson, 2012
I know I am employing traditional foundations to rationalize a new concept here; the classic plotline is not altogether dissimilar to the Hero's Journey I included at the bottom of my first NMN blog post. Because of the 140-character limit, it seems to me that trying to reconcile the concept of fiction with a tweet is logically impossible. The examples I have seen on Twitter provide snapshtos or tableaux of story: while intriguing, I have found none that are fully matured.

In my efforts to reconcile the two, considering print narrative and Twitter fiction, the first thing I think of is serialization.  This first came about in 17th century France (Wikipedia, n.d.) but blossomed internationally during the British Victorian/Japanese Meiji era (Law & Morita, 2000). These stories disseminated not so much because of their popularity but because of their vehicle: the periodical or handbill. Law & Morita note that the English enjoyed an explosion of newspaper distribution in the mid 1850s, while the Japanese saw the same occur in the mid 1880s.  Dickens’ Pickwick Papers (1836) was first published through newspaper and periodical, but by bit, increasing interest as the novel progressed (Wikipedia, n.d.; Law & Morita, 2000). Eisenstein notes that, with the advent of serial fiction, readers had ample time to internalize the material through discussion with others in “communal gathering places” such as “book shops, coffee houses, [and] reading rooms” (2005, p. 84). This strategy, of course, disseminated the plot, increasing interest and demand.  I would argue that the popular following Dickens gained from that strategy was due to its serialization: a systematic release of the plotline, stage by stage.  This was not entirely due to the story itself, but in the way it was released - a starting run of 1,000 copies released in London grew to a 40,000-copy end-run 20 months later (Perdue, n.d.).

Twitter users have realized the potential of the serially-released fictional narrative via print (Eisenstein) or radio, as Andrew Fitzgerald argues in his TED talk embedded in Scott’s Mod 4 post (2013). Fitzgerald cites individual Twitter Fiction writers such as Jennifer Egan, who wrote Black Box, which was released in serial fashion via @NewYorkerFiction (now defunct) on a scheduled, daily release. Fitzgerald also noted Elliot Holt's use of several Twitter accounts to develop her storyline.

Cutting Teeth Hardcover, 2014
I had a chance to explore Twitter Fiction and found a great Twitter Fiction story by Julia Fierro that was named #4 of the top stories to come out of the 2014 Twitter Fiction Festival. Fierro employed the same strategy as Holt, this time developing accounts for emergent characters: she used the characters from her upcoming novel Cutting Teeth to create a Twitter Fiction storyline of strangers on a weekend getaway who find themselves in the same beach house (Prescott, 2014).  As Cutting Teeth was about to be released, I can only assume that this Twitter Fiction venture created some good buzz through her fans as well as those who came by the storyline incidentally.  As Twitter’s original raison d'etre was to advertise, I think that Fierro followed in Dickens' footsteps and capitalized on an awesome marketing strategy.  

So where does Twitter Fiction go from here?  A couple things have come to mind. First, I would propose that the use of a standardized hashtag when releasing any twitter fiction – the term #twitterature or #twitterfiction, combined with #”title” would help greatly its readers and potential followers; dissemination would be potentially lightning-fast as the retweet would yield the same form of dissemination, this time with Twitter as the digital communal gathering place. Second, where traditional serials employed etchings/woodcuts to illustrate, modern digital serialists can include images of any type to reinforce the plotline. Furthermore, memes could be used to further the genre greatly as they could marry plot and image, potentially leading to a new genre: Twitter graphic fiction.

REFERENCES

Cutting Teeth Hardcover. (2014). Retrieved from http://www.juliafierro.com/author/

Eisenstein, E. (2005). Chapter 11: Aspects of the printing revolution. In Crowely & Heyer's (2011) Communication in history: Technology, culture, society (6th ed.). Boston, USA: Pearson (Allyn & Bacon).

Fitzgerald, A. (2013, October 11). TED Talk: Adventures in twitter fiction [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6ZzmqDMhi0 

Law, G. & Morita, N. (2000). The newspaper novel: Towards an international history. Media History, 6(1), 5-17. Retrieved from http://login.ezproxy.library.ualberta.ca/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ufh&AN=3807807&site=ehost-live&scope=site

Prescott, L. (2014, March 17). 11 moments at the 2014 Twitter Fiction festival [blog post]. Retrieved from http://www.buzzfeed.com/laraprescott/moments-at-the-2014-twitter-fiction-festival#.yvXbabeZa

Serial Literature. (n.d.). In Wikipedia. Retrieved January 28, 2015 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_(literature)

Simpson, J. [Jenn, aka jesais (I know)]. (2012, January 11). Freytag triangle [diagram]. Retrieved from http://akajesais.com/page/2/

Tuesday, 27 January 2015

140-character fiction

I'd like to start off today's blog with my favourite literature-themed Twitter joke:
I've been on Twitter for a couple of years now, but I'm generally more of a dabbler. So, this week's NMN module is broadening my perspective (thus helping justify my tuition).

For my #NMN tweets, I stuck with what I would consider the purest and simplest form of Twitter fiction: complete stories told within the 140-character bounds of a single tweet. My first example:


I couldn't find another example on the web that accomplished so much in the space. It's a complete min-narrative—setup, dramatic tension, resolution (complete with a twist). Ten sentences, including the use of a dating website initialism (GSOH - good sense of humour) to stretch things out even further.

My second example is a stark contrast: a single, lovely sentence that utilizes the reader's own cultural literacy (in this case, knowledge of the Old Testament) to expand the narrative's borders.


Twitter fiction erases many of the barriers of working within traditional print fiction. Anyone can do it. It doesn't take much time (although it does require a great deal of creativity, if done well). You have access to the same platform as anyone else; there's no mediation between you and your audience.

Much of the Twitter fiction I read on the Web could be better described as setups, or clever short jokes, rather than what I would consider narratives. The two examples I chose, though, are fully developed snippets of literature. They are true short stories, although they take the concept of "short" to a new level.

At the same time, my two examples don't change the medium of print fiction greatly, except in terms of brevity and platform. Both are self-contained text stories, published by a single author at a single point of time.

I went down a bit of a Twitter-fiction wormhole, however, when I viewed this TED talk (embedded below) about the subject. Andrew Fitzgerald talks about several new expressions of Twitter. The New Yorker "broadcasts" a short story by author Jennifer Egan, via Tweets during an hour each week. Crimer Show parodies U.K. series television. Fictional West Wing characters engage with actual modern-day current events. Author Eliot Holt sets up a mystery story using his own Twitter account, and then executes it through additional accounts he sets up for his various characters (you can read the entire result here on Storify).

(Update, 12 hours later: Just working my way through this week's reading list, and discovered that Jessica assigned this very video. I didn't know beforehand, honest!)

I think that's where the truly exciting future of Twitter fiction lies (and fiction on other Internet platforms)—authors using technology to stretch and even reinvent the very idea of literature.



References

Fitzgerald, A. (2013, October 11). Andrew Fitzgerald: Adventures in Twitter fiction. Retrieved January 27, 2015, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6ZzmqDMhi0

Orloske, S. (2014, April 6). 590. Retrieved January 27, 2015, from http://nanoism.net/stories/590/

Twitter fiction: 21 authors try their hand at 140-character novels. (2012, October 15). Retrieved January 27, 2015, from http://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/oct/12/twitter-fiction-140-character-novels

Sunday, 25 January 2015

Inanimate Alice, episode 6, Blue World

In this episode Alice pays homage to the water world and seeks adventure on the Atlantic ocean, sailing along the coast to greater destinations and wilder experiences. Dolphins and icebergs were a great start to her voyage.


The freedom and openness of the ocean compared to the cityscapes of Alice's previous travels reflect a new direction, where a wayward life with only a compass bearing constitutes a plan.

This was a fun project and I loved making this episode. I wish it could have been longer and I wish the program had been friendlier to use. The watermark that is embedded in my video is terrible and I tried everything I could (except paying for the program) but to no avail.  All of the images and video are mine, from my sailing adventures on the sea.

In my story, Alice is in Edmonton and she is 20. The pictures I have used in my video were created with Paper Artist, an application on my android phone. Although, it's been quite a busy day to figure how to remove the animoto watermark, finally Alice is alive, telling her 30 seconds story. Here it is:
alice

Inanimate Alice - Episode 6 - Lisa Slywka

I really enjoyed Inanimate Alice - I found the evolution in the technical aspects suited Alice as she grew older and her aptitude with her player developed.  Based on the fact that I have a 9 year-old girl in my house, I found the narrative voice to be spot-on for Alice.  I was drawn in more as I watched each episode; my son and daughter were also intrigued and have intimated that they'll watch each episode.  I've already sent the series links to two other moms whose daughters would be interested, too.

My Episode 6 narrative continues right from where Episode 5 left off, so I chose a complementary Animoto theme as I wanted to maintain the tension introduced by the men in black as well as Hari's unexpected appearance.

How the heck each of you stayed within the 30-second limit is beyond me; I hope you enjoy it, in spite of having to peer through the free-trial watermark.



Gah!  Just realized I reversed the order of the last two cells - pretend the credits come before the end text, okay?

inanimate alice in colour

After watching/reading the Inanimate Alice episodes and determining how I would create the next episode, I was struck by the way in which various mediums can significantly impact the feeling or emotion of a story.

From this idea, I decided to craft inanimate alice in colour. Of all the tools a designer can use to create or encourage emotion, I think that colour is one of the most powerful. The visual impact itself can be powerful from an art perspective and personal from the cultural ideologies already associated with the colour. For example, while one person may associate the colour blue with peace and tranquility, another may be reminded of sadness and despair.

From this perspective, I would suggest that colour is powerful. But the power often rests more with the interpretation of the user rather than the intention of the creator.

Note: The images used in this are licensed under the creative commons.

Module 4: Twitter Narratives


Module 4: Twitter Narratives
Monday, Jan. 26, 2015 - Sunday, Feb. 1, 2015
  • Jan. 28: Tweet links to two examples of twitter fiction. Remember to include the course hashtag: #NMN
  • By Jan. 30 Write a blog post in which you critically compare print narrative to Twitter fiction.  Analyse differences of story, readership and potential of the public to publish. Refer to the module readings. Reference sources using APA style. Your critical analysis should be 3-5 paragraphs. Please use examples. And, since you are writing online, please be multimodal in your response; embed videos, images, screen captures of tweets. Cite all using APA style in a references section at the end of your post.  

Saturday, 24 January 2015

episode six … the Florida scrublands

Greetings from Orlando, everyone!

Today, our family ended up taking an impromptu nature walk through the Florida scrublands, after a planned Everglades boat tour was rescheduled due to high winds.

The trail was fun, and featured lots of weird and different flora (I especially liked the sand pines—tall, towering, spindly trunks with branches way up at the top.

The trail was long and windy, and not at all well marked. I did feel a little bit like Alice—lost, and with no parents in sight. Oh, right, I'm supposed to be the parent. Fortunately, we did eventually find our way back to our car.

I started shooting various short time-lapse videos, to capture the unsettling feeling of being completely out of your element and disoriented, but on a bright, sunny afternoon. I used a FANTASTIC free time-lapse iPhone app called GorillaCam.



Episode 6: Scrubland!

Thursday, 22 January 2015

Podcasting Tips & Tricks

Roscoe Considers Recording a Podcast
Roscoe Considers Recording a Podcast by zoomar, on Flickr


Now that everyone has had their chance to create a podcast (their first.ever.) and reflect on its creation....here are some notes we might want to keep in mind for future podcasts or any narratives we craft. I found a few articles that were very helpful. Feel free to add in (in the comments) ones that you found helpful.



"We can all think of famous first lines in literature, lines that continue to resonate long after the novel has been put back on the shelf. The classic “Once upon a time…” may be considered cliché, but it does a lot of work in just four words:
  • It lets the reader know that a story is at hand.
  • It eases the way for suspending disbelief.
  • It sets the story in a different place and time.
  • It awakens curiosity and raises questions.
These are the kinds of things you want your own beginnings to accomplish."


"Open your story with the voice of a narrator we can instantly identify with, or one that relates things in a fresh way.
  • “As I begin to tell this, it is the golden month of September in southwestern Ontario.” ~Alistair MacLeod, No Great Mischief

"A script should be invisible. When delivered, it shouldn't sound like a script. If it sounds like
a script, your program won't sound spontaneous and won't sound friendly to your audience.
The invisibility of your script depends on how it's written and how it's presented."


"And when we talk about active versus passive verbs, you’re talking about instead of having an action done to something, someone is doing an action. So where it would say, “The dog was kicked by that man,” it would be just a simple inversion: “The man kicked the dog.” So yeah, talking about Ernest Hemmingway, I just remember reading it, such a simple sentence structure. Basically it was just subject and verb.And I think that as far as we’re talking about, like ways to become better at this, is practicing writing that way. Simple sentence structure. Subject, verb."


Podcast
Podcast by Peter Lakos, on Flickr


Sunday, 18 January 2015

Module 3: Digital Literature


Module 3: Digital Literature
Monday, Jan. 19, 2015 - Sunday, Jan. 25, 2015

  • Jan. 22: On my Module 3 post, add your comments summarising three readings that you found most interesting
  • Jan. 25: Having read Inanimate Alice, episode 1 to episode 5 (the most recent), craft your own 30 second episode of Alice. Think of this as Episode 6. You will use the free version of Animoto, https://animoto.com/home. You can use images/photographs of your own making or creative commons licensed ones. You must include images, text and a soundtrack. Have a look at this example from a previous student: https://animoto.com/play/RpxpiFjbYjDxIRYqyD9IjA. Embed your Animoto video within a blog post.

Friday, 16 January 2015

Building on foundations


While I am not very familiar with the TV show referenced in this week’s readings, it’s obvious that the character is supposed to fit the stereotype of a geek who would be the type who would seek out ‘classic text based computer games’ using the ‘worlds most powerful graphics chip – imagination’. This is typically how books have worked for so many years, relying on the imagination of the reader to visualize.

In my short lifetime I have gone from being an undergrad studying English with a focus on bibliography to studying new media in a class where nary a book was to be found. Eisenstein’s piece was a refreshing read and certainly squelches the panic and doomsday scenario that preaches the end to all things biblio. As she points out in her paper, there have been fears from the time of Voltaire that the publications were in fear of being commercialized and compromised. As I was reading Eisenstein I thought of the recent events in France and the murders of the Charlie Hebdo staff.  France has long been a staunch defender of freedom of expression whether it is via literature, books or journals. New media is the newest form of this expression.  

How does this all relate to the YouTube piece? The character Sheldon is obviously portrayed in the show as somewhat of an eccentric who would be just the type to seek out old text based games such as Zork or Colossal Cave Adventure. He is fully engaged with the program, even fascinated.  When games such as these were created at MIT1 it was breaking new ground.  Yet what was once ground-breaking is, in today’s world, retro.  In a study of the influence of games such as Zork, Barton compares Zork to the Illiad in terms of influence arguing that the game Zork laid the foundations for games that came after it.  Sheldon was experiencing the computer game as it was originally conceived, in a way that Barton claims can 'simulate a rich virtual environment' and Sheldon's reaction is fitting.

What I did find rather interesting is in the background of the room where Sheldon is located there is a book shelf filled with…BOOKS!  Clearly this debate will continue to be played out with the advent of each new technology and in the interim we will continue to embrace new technologies while clinging to those that we have come to trust from the past.

As an aside I found a current site where you can go in and play the game that Sheldon was playing in the TV show.




http://www.amctv.com/shows/halt-and-catch-fire/colossal-cave-adventure/landing
http://www.amctv.com/shows/halt-and-catch-fire/colossal-cave-adventure/landing
References
1 Barton, M. (2007) .The History of Zork. Gamasutra. Retrieved from http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/129924/the_history_of_zork.php?page=6


2 Eisenstein, E. (1995). The End of the Book? Some Perspectives on Media Change. American Scholar, 64, 541-555.
 

Creative machines?


There is a reason for the “persistence of the past”. And it is not always a bad thing. It’s ok for the past to be persistent, even if it is outmoded. It is how it’s supposed to be. Sheldon and his text-adventure game story tells something: He lacks the creativity if this is not delivered by present technology-- not having a visual map in front of his eyes, he does not realize that “going North” three times will bring the same result.
To me, Sheldon is representative of the modern man completely absorbed by technology: without visual representations fed by external sources, he can’t see the forest for the trees. By the way, why it is necessary to play laughing machines when something funny happens in the movie? Do we need technical assistance to figure out when to laugh? Aren’t we like Sheldon?
Well, if we don’t take away what is good from the past, will be difficult to be creative in building a future, even with the best technology at hand. That is why I liked Elizabeth Eisenstein’s  persistence of the past idea because the expression “blocks of text get moved by punching keys” reminds me of some  XIV century great invention: The keyboard we are using these days are, in fact, some mini-copies of the Guttenberg’s movable type. The old printing press was not used to represent smiley faces or other emoticons, but the books were embellished with flowers, birds, fruits, human faces. 



A nice  handwritten letter was also created with imagination: To express their passion, excitement or anger,  people cared to use different ink colours, to include flowers or other graphic representations in their writings. They used their hands and brains to create something. 



The past remains persistent because human nature does not change in space or time. We just change the tools to express ourselves.
I just hope that modern tools will not transform us in 24 h/day couch-potatoes. I hope that will find the right balance between text and visual, computer and brain, technology and human thinking.

Thursday, 15 January 2015

The world's most powerful graphics chip

"It runs on the world's most powerful graphics chip: imagination."

Sheldon's line gets a big laugh, but he makes his point. In a world of new media, and intricately scripted photo-realistic first-person video games, the thirty-year-old medium of text-based role playing seems hilariously quaint. At the same time, though, if we can set aside our skepticism and immerse ourselves in the experience, we can still enjoy the same thrill we did back in the 70s and 80s.

It's easy to panic in the face of new media. We think of it as a tsunami, obliterating everything that comes before it (and with the next new wave perpetually approaching). Eisenstein gives our fears some welcome historical context: the end of the book has supposedly been upon us for centuries, yet the book persists. The new doesn't necessarily displace the old. Journalism didn't end the book. Movies didn't destroy live theatre. Television didn't put radio out of business.

That said, does Eisenstein's faith in "the ineluctable persistence of the past" have a best-before date? I do believe we'll still be reading Jane Austen in a century's time, even if we're not always doing it through ink and paper. We may even still be reading John Steinbeck, and Kurt Vonnegut. I hope there are many Austens, Steinbecks, and Vonneguts yet to be born. But, will those unborn authors express themselves in book form? And, if they do, will their efforts find an audience in the ever-increasing flood of data that vies for our attention? Will the work of future authors achieve its own "ineluctable persistence," or flicker briefly only to get washed away? And how will we continue to focus on long-form narrative fiction? After all, these days people worry that the two-minute YouTube video has been irreversibly supplanted by the six-second Vine.

Eisenstein's reassurances don't fully quell my worries, clearly. But I try to balance my apprehension with excitement. We can wring our hands over the ever-increasing pace of the changes we confront. Or, we can embrace the best of what's new, and cherish and nurture the media that continue to speak to us. I have faith that we will sort things out, one way or another. I have faith that we'll keep reading novels, seeing live theatre, and going to movies featuring human stories and human actors. And we'll be experiencing new media that we can't even envision yet. 

And, we will still have the Sheldons of the world, who find ways to thrill in the power of their own imaginations. We will still have text-based RPGs. We will still have LARPers and cosplayers. The world's most powerful graphics chip will keep on ticking.

We can also cherish new media's technical tools that allow us new outlets for our creative instincts, and new ways to connect with an audience. Before the written word, everybody had equal access to state-of-the-art storytelling technology: the human voice. For centuries, though, we surrendered much of our own storytelling instincts to those who controlled the media. Now, storytelling capacity is gradually moving back towards the masses (at least in the developed world). For now, much of that capacity is devoted to cat videos.

Bonus reading: New York Times writer Leah Price muses that books may survive, but that libraries may disappear—in her 2012 essay "Dead Again."

Does technology fundamentally change things?

With much of the literature that I have explored so far as part of my MACT journey it seems as though every major communication development in history receives commentary in relation to its importance, relationship with a previous technology and transformational impact on its ability to connect and influence society.

Even still, it is hard to comprehend the extent of societal changes that have been influenced by the development and adaptation of technology and also how early confidence in a new system seems to be part of its success.

I find the idea of confidence in communications mediums an interesting phenomenon, particularly in relation to the extent in which we trust and use communications today.
  • Cloud Computing = trust in storage and access to information
  • E-commerce = trust in credit card security and accurate product representation
  • Social Media/On-line Gaming = trust in or disregard for personal privacy

Perhaps it is because of the confidence with which we adopt new technology into our lives that we are most connected to the views and actions of the past. In the Big Bang Theory clip that we viewed, Sheldon displays a certain level of fascination with the historical text based game of the past, but, in my opinion, demonstrates the same type of thought process that he likely uses in new age gaming as well. Regardless of the medium, I would suggest that the satisfaction of gaming is built on communities of trust. Trust perhaps in the technology and, in an online environment, trust within the community of users.

Whenever a new technology is adopted there seems to be a learning curve that contributes to a certain level of societal disruption. Although simplistic in nature, the game Sheldon is playing no doubt came with a learning curve when initially released. In fact, he looks to Leonard for tips when some of his ideas don’t generate anticipated results, demonstrating the disruptive nature of online interaction.

In a previous MACT class we explored the concept of technological convergence in order to interpret the way in which digital technology impacts our societal interactions. “Technological convergence is the erosion of boundaries between media, which disassociates texts from particular mediated contexts and transforms them into nodes within a network of many different media (Jenkins, 2006).”

On some level, I am sure we are aware of the impact of this convergence. However, this quote reminds me how much the line between technology-based and traditional communication tools has blurred and in theory, and perhaps function, fundamentally remains the same. This is well aligned with the Elizabeth Einstein's quote. 

Einstein’s reference to ‘cut and paste’ and the ‘ineluctable persistence of the past,” made me think of the following image. I believe it speaks to what she was talking about in that regardless of the game, text or communication at hand, the technology alters the function without changing the perspective or the form.




References


Jenkins, H. (2006). Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. New York, NY: New York University press.