Module 3: Digital Literature
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Monday, Jan. 19, 2015 - Sunday, Jan. 25, 2015
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Sunday, 18 January 2015
Module 3: Digital Literature
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Module 3: Digital Literature
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Monday, Jan. 19, 2015 - Sunday, Jan. 25, 2015
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I enjoyed mediajunk, The blog as a Narrative form, particularly since I am working on a strategy to ensure weekly blog activity on a work-related website that I manage. Even though I felt like this reading was geared towards a single author blog, I found it interesting to think about how some of these ideas could be applied to a professional, group-authored blog.
ReplyDeleteI had not considered the idea that a blog needs an underlying narrative, however, can now see how this is integral to the intent of this medium. The idea that a blog needs to create an identity also resonated with me in this thought process since blogs are intended to “feel more human than non-narrative sites.”
I think these concepts can be considered in relation to this course blog as an example. Although there are many contributors, and the tone perhaps changes with each new group of students, the underlying story would have common threads since it is ‘built’ by one person (Jess) with an underlying goal common to all.
Complimentary in many ways, was Judy Malloy’s reading, Hypernarrative in the Age of the Web. From this text I was reminded of the shift in structure from the familiar, structured form of the novel to the hyperactive nature of online literature and interactive function. While the detailed, structured form of the novel may seem more familiar and aligned with traditional expectations of literature, I appreciated the idea that “Hpernarratives imitate the associative, contingent flow of human thought and the unpredictable progression of our lives.” I wonder if this unpredictable new format a positive or negative in terms of the reader’s literary experience? Regardless of perspectives on this issue, the interactive nature of hypernarrative has created an opportunity for anyone to be a publisher.
Rettberg also referenced how e-literature as opened an new world to the self-published author. I was amazed by the history of electronic literature as presented by Rettberg. I would not have imagined that it’s beginning can be traced back to perhaps 1952. I also found the cycle for mainstream adoption of literature profound. “It is really the same pattern, the same old metaphor of the rise of the novel come alive in 20 years or so.” Examining this cycle of when the novel moves from being a novelty to being a necessity can certainly lead to understanding the adoption of digital media now and in the future.
I can't see either. Maybe Alice fell off the stairs and blacked out in episode 4.
ReplyDeleteI wonder what the issue is with Episode 4? I had no prob downloading it on any of my mac devices...I'm using Chrome.
ReplyDeleteI have tweeted to the team to see if they have any ideas. Episode 4 is a good one to read...Scott! It's better (more engaging) than the first episodes :)
http://inanimatealice.com/episode4/index.html - this is the direct link.
ReplyDeleteThe episode 5 is the one that is causing us problems...episode 4 works just fine here.
DeleteThese comments are the result of a long and bewildered look at the myriad approaches to print-based narrative offered in the readings. It has taken me several days to wrap my head around the various points of view offered with regard to the written word and its various forms, hard and soft alike. Yet, I found many interesting. Here goes:
ReplyDeleteMy first reaction to the title “The Writing Is on the Paywall – but the End of Print is Not Quite Nigh” was fear and sadness – the ubiquitous human reaction to change. It was a similar feeling to reading the Jeff Bezos-Washington Post article. I have been much more aware of the number of Post articles I’ve been reading, especially those I find in the Edmonton Journal! Will this be the future of news as we know it? All that which is wise and good is directed from Washington? As Catherine O’Hara’s hilarious Schitt’s Creek character Moira Rose wails while sitting in the diner booth in the series pilot: “the world is falling around us…and I am dying inside…!” while her husband peruses the menu for brisket. No wonder my fingernails are so short!
But.
What if they’re wrong?
What if it isn’t the end of the newspaper so much as it is the end of newsprint? More and more Canadian dailies use paywalls, along the lines of a monthly magazine subscription. I’ve noticed that Paula Simons, a primary columnist with the Edmonton Journal, consistently feeds her new columns for viewing via Twitter the night they are sent to press – encouraging digital readers to get all the news that’s fit to print (pardon the pun) ahead of their hardcopy counterparts.
When I become attached to periodicals, I do so not because of the rag’s stellar reputation; rather, it’s because of the people whose features and articles are published within. As Erin Blake noted in his reggae beat-laden post, the study is on objects whose “focus is on intentional marks for the purposes of interpersonal communication” (para.1). Thus, the artifact’s purpose has not changed so much as the artifact itself, typified by the three versions of horse Blake included in his post – each is “privileged,” as Blake notes (para. 7), by different audiences. However, it is fact that all three can be perceived as a horse – it requires adaptation on the part of the audience.
I remember the first time I was asked to contribute to a paywall scheme – I came across Longreads.com and have been privileged to read some amazing narratives. It has required flexibility on my part, willingness to adapt (not altogether unlike taming audioboo for a certain course…ahem), that has resulted in my world being enriched.
So what’s the big deal?
Bonnie Mak notes “Although a handwritten folio of animal skin in a medieval manuscript is as much a page as the leaf of a mass-produced paperback, the characteristics of each communicate vastly different messages about their respective manufacture, circulation, and cultural value…as evidence of social history” (p. 10). Yes, the idea communicated in the words has its own value; coupled with this is the social and historical significance of the artifact upon which the words are impressed. But are we arguing about which is more important here? Or is it the subtext, what the artifact brings to the idea, that we’re focusing on?
The two in complement, in synergy, bring much more than each does separately. As manosanta presents in his Pulp fiction as typography or as Weird Al did in #wordcrimes, the medium and the message are inextricably linked as they reinforce the idea to the audience synergistically. If we were to go back to the original Pulp Fiction movie scene, or if we were to hear #wordcrimes on the radio, would we not be missing something? In neither of these cases are we experiencing the idea in a tactile fashion. However, we are experiencing something in a multimedia, multisensual form. Is that not enough?
Reflections: The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age
ReplyDeleteI am sure that Birkerts got his point across twenty years ago when he wrote “The Gutenberg Elegies”, but technology transforms our perceptions: words and images get new meanings. For instance, this is what I visualize when I read his last sentence in the book’s intro: “Everything here ultimately originates in the private self – that of the dreamy fellow with an open book in his lap[top]” (Birkerts, 1994, p.7) Am I wrong? After all, a laptop can contain an open book… How will be understood this phrase two decades from now?
Reflections: Inanimate Alice and Hypernarrative on the Web
Watching Inanimate Alice today, I realize that I am a protagonist in the story: I click to solve puzzles, to dress her up, to see the city, etc. I am not a passive reader, I am part of the story. Hmm…not bad! So, it's true: “the interactive ways of reading and writing that they are experiencing on the net will become second nature to this generation.” (Malloy, n.d.).
Reflections: Electronic Literature Seen from a Distance
“Electronic Literature Seen from a Distance: The Beginnings of a Field” is an interesting article wrote by Jill Walker Rettberg (2012) that analyses the evolution of the “electronic literature”. I am surprised to find out that this term existed even before I was born. Ok, I am not that young. We (the digital literature and I) are about the same age. Anyway, the author says that initially, e-poetry was almost nonexistent, “lying flat”, but, by 2008, we witness at “the rapid rise of the digital poetry”. Because I like to go with the flow, here I express my New Year resolution in a new media narrative way:
In the month of January,
I will do e-poetry.
So, to use an epithet:
I am geek, I am poet:
Electronic, a bit chronic
I taste wine and ultrasonic.
Don’t judge me,
I’m not sick
I write poems
In a click.
The extremes between the readings this week struck me on first read, yet connections did emerge upon reflection.
ReplyDeleteBirkets, The Gutenberg Elegies, is focused on the demise of reading. Birkets argues and pleads for the displacement of 'the page' in modern society, claiming the bound book to be 'the ideal vehicle for the written word'. Birkets acknowledges that 'his investment .... is too deep and partisan for detachment.' I agree with Birkets that we have seen a metamorphosis in our culture with the advent of electronic communications, but to write an elegy for the book is rather early. Judging by the number of my peers in St. John's who are still striving to become published writers, I believe the book is alive and well and will be for many years to come. I did like his interpretation of how the system has changed from a linear model to one similar to a pretzel configuration, although the author is clearly disturbed by this progression or regression as he sees it.
Meanwhile Walker Rettbergs analysis of electronic literature looks at the evolution of e-literature and how it has grown. Her research looks at the genre and how or whether it has emerged to assume critical mass in modern society. I would argue with her interpretation of Moretti's work which she uses to support her concept of the twenty year cycle required to assume critical mass. Considering the fact that novels have been in existence since the early Greeks, the timeline of the 'rise' of the novel is a stretch.
And finally mediajunk wrote about the blog and its growing presence and relevance today. The blog has succeeded in combining reading with interactivity, creating communities and the critical mass that both Birkets and Walker Rettberg write about. The blog is described by mediajunk as a disruptive narrative form, which is similar to how Moretti interprets the novel in his epic five-volume work, The Novel. Its important to remember today, that when the novel became a popular form of fiction it was controversial, accessible and innovative, much like electronic literature today. Perhaps Birkets and Walker Rettberg are not as far apart as they first appear.
References
Birkets, S. (1994). The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age. Faber and Faber. New York. p 3-7.
mediajunk () The Blog as a Narrative Form. Retrieved from http://www.mediajunk.com/proposal/proposal.html
Moretti, F. (2007) The Novel, Volume 1: History, Geography, and Culture. Princeton University Press. Princeton.
Walker Rettberg, J. (2012, September 05). Electronic Literature Seen From a Distance, the Beginning of a Field. Retrieved from http://www.dichtung-digital.de/en/journal/archiv/?postID=278
I found that all of the selections here were written with a tone of honesty and humility, a desire to discover wisdom rather than to bestow it, and have presented my preferences in progressive order. Hope you enjoy my reflections!
ReplyDeleteRETTBERG
The presentation of data Rettberg devised was interesting, but most compelling for me was her comment with regard to applying contemporary thought processes to mew media: “This amplification and reinforcement of certain ideas, works and citations is typical of a print-centric culture, Elizabeth Eisenstein wrote in her history of print, but perhaps we should say, more broadly, that it is typical of a culture such as ours that privileges that which is recorded, whether analog or digital; written, aural or visual” (para. 24). It is similar to that which I was trying to get at in my earlier comment posting on this module. I think that her concluding suggestion of formalizing the study of early electronic literature is akin to studying classic literature – but will it be approached print-centrically?
BIRKETS
Sven Birkets suggests that there is a threshold in each of us regarding our capacity for literacy, and that knowledge is better than having access to it: “where the electronic impulse rules, and where the psyche is conditioned to work with data, the experience of deep time is impossible” (p. 77). I used to think like this, until I joined this program and was convinced that it was not knowledge but the ease of our access to knowledge that leads to literacy. No one deems it necessary to memorize the phone book, everyone needs to know how to use it (or www.canada411.com or the like) in order to be functionally literate.
Birkets is a true wordsmith, and his narrative took me in from the first sentence. However, his take on the dying of the book as “the ideal vehicle of the written word” (p. 6) is tired and reflective of those who see the digital revolution as a violent one: “suddenly it feels like everything is poised for change,” he laments (p. 3). Given that this book is over 20 years old, I pity his bewilderment and can only hope that he had the opportunity to alter the “assumptions” he “inhabit[s]…like a comfortable room” (p. 4). I think that he would be the scholar Marshal McLuhan was trying to wake up and shake up with his predictions re: how the electronic age would change western society in his March, 1969 Playboy interview.
MEDIAJUNK
I really liked the argument presented in the last reading, that blog narratives are disruptive. I was thinking that the blog could link ancestrally with the newspaper serial, but because they “are open-ended… and structured to engage readers in an ever-unfolding, interactive dialogue,” they are unique and evolutionary in nature. I agreed with the argument presented and really liked the concluding statement: “The blog is not just a narrative form; it is a disruptive narrative form” (para. 15). I found it most intriguing, though, that while the post argued that the blog facilitates the development of identity, that there was no author name offered here – in fact, the cartoon included suggests this ambiguity. As I read, I find it easier to absorb the information for the long-term if I try to picture the author reading it aloud. Here, I cannot – however, picturing dog as the author makes me laugh a little, lightening the argument and attaching an emotional element to it. As a result, I am certain I will retain Mediajunk’s message most readily of all...go figure.