Pass 4- Ideas
To take my project to the next step of interactivity, I want to use place and objects to add to the story. I used a box that is shaped like a book and hollow inside. I used that object to put my project in. I sectioned up the story into the vignettes and burned them to CD’s. Each CD has a different image on it. I made pages out of the CD’s and put them in the book box. I have hidden the box in the library, but the book is placed so that it is camouflaged to look like a real library book. There will be an opportunity for people to find this object, watch it, and return it to the shelf for others to find. I felt it was important to the narrative to have the reader in a library and interacting with the space of the library. I considered many ways to get them there, but this positioning allows the reader to do what the character does in the story. There will be real life interaction with the tactile object of the book. The materiality of the book and the detail of it became very important in the making of it.
The poetry of a hollow book filled with CD’s is very important to the idea of “Nostalgia.” I hope people see the irony of mixing books and CD’s and finding it hidden in a library. I actually doubt it will be found for a long time. I left my website of this class in it so people may contact me to find out about it, but otherwise I do not have my name on it. I really want to emphasize the act of looking for a book and the materiality of the book. I have used the format of a book in a library to emphasize the books place: due date card, call numbers, and bar codes. The call number is pseudo-based on my name and placed in the literary section of the library. The bar code says “Read a Book” if scanned. The reader has to “read” the CD’s in the book which o not flip the way pages flip; they flip up. I think the idea of “turning up” is very different than “turning over”. I think the materiality is lost in the transference to digital media. I want the reader to interact with these symbolic objects of print media and digital media to fully understand the narrative.
Filed under: Assignments, Residual | Leave a Comment
Game Idea- Assignment 6
You wake up in a hospital, hazy and slightly delirious. You don’t remember hurting yourself or getting hurt. How did you get here? The story begins here with the player in a first person perspective of a patient in a hospital. You can look around and explore the room. You can look in a mirror in the room and see yourself as a petite, busty, red-haired girl. You are in a hospital gown and your chart says your name is Rachel, age 22. You can collect inventory in the game; there will be several types such as information and weapons. You must first find clothes to wear. Look in the closet to find a mini-skirt, black boots, and a band t-shirt. You hear your stomach growl and comment to yourself that you must be hungry. You head out of your room to go find food and explore. Mysteriously, you see no doctors or nurses and it is eerily quiet—all you hear are the sounds of machines that go ping. You look into the other rooms to see people sleeping. You hear someone coming around a corner with a cart. It’s a nurse, but her mouth is sewn shut and her hands look like they’ve been cut off.
She’s pushing the cart with her bloody stumps. You continue to encounter wild body oddities, but they all ignore you while you make your way around to find food. Using an elevator, you get to the cafeteria. Cut-scene with elevator music and the doors opening to green and red lights, fog and a room with tubes, power generators, and fans everywhere. In the center of the room, you see a giant beast like man covered in scars wearing a doctor’s mask and gloves. He is holding a woman’s leg and has a pile of body parts on the tables around him. He is Frankenstein’s monster and he is building his perfect match. You were supposed to be the head of his perfect bride, that’s why you were in a semi-coma. Discovering this information in the games actually is progressive. You find maps, instructions, and diagrams throughout the game that describe how and why you got there. All the other patients are being used for body parts and experiments. Once he sees you, he realizes he must get you away from him and his work. He wants to capture you and put you back in a coma to build his woman later with your head. To get you to leave, he starts throwing body parts at you. You can grab a chainsaw and chop them up to defend yourself. He goes around to a storage unit by the kitchen with hundreds of bodies hanging vertically that have been pieced together from other bodies. He flips a switch and they all come to life to do his bidding. He points to you, runs off, and the real game gets going.
You have to kill the monsters, find Frankenstein’s monster, and stop him before he gets you. He has set traps throughout the hospital to try and catch you. You must figure out the mechanical traps and escape to reach him. All the while, you see cut-scenes of him building the perfect bride, getting closer and closer to just missing your head. You find out where he is- the nursery wing- and you have to make your way there. Each wing you go through you encounter different monsters: baby monsters, crippled monsters, decapitated monsters, bald cancer monsters, and more. As you find more information and collect weapons, you realize that he plans to try and procreate with his new wife and create a race of patchwork freaks. You find out that your character used to be in medical school and ended up becoming a stripper to pay for school. Frankenstein’s monster was prowling strip club to find girls for his experiment.
The game resolves with you finding the monster, shooting explosives down his gut with a make shift cannon, and then watching him explode into pieces. You look at the body he has made and touch it. Suddenly, you get a montage of lives that flash before you-the lives of all the different girls he used to make the body. The game ends with you burning down the hospital to the ground and promising to yourself to go back to school.
Filed under: Assignments | Leave a Comment
Nostalgia- Pass 3 download
I approached this pass as an entirely new project. I used all different images and ideas to create something very rich and sensory. I video taped in the library and recoded sounds of books. I made many new photos and digital collages just for this piece as well. The pace was an important factor to me; really slowing down the speed to create a silent mood. I tried to really embrace video, despite it not being my preferred medium. I wanted to create little spaces of disconnect between the story and the visuals, where as before I was matching them in a one to one ratio. I think it makes it more interesting and allows for a more open ended interpretation. Though it may not have a traditional three act structure, there are definite shifts in the tone and structure of the video.
Filed under: Assignments | Leave a Comment
Nostalgia- Pass 3
A very different presentation of the original text.
Filed under: Assignments | Leave a Comment
NSFW- Video “Read a Book”
I think this is fabulous for many reasons. I love books and just have to share this.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
Flickr image
Certain objects exist in our lives that become the basis of comparison for everything else–a touchstone. Freud discussed objects like this in terms of dreams and the act of condensation and displacement. For me, flowers-certain flowers- have always held special condensed meaning to me. I feel this way about lilies, orchids, and gardenias. The images, objects, and smells of these flowers have changed and expanded over many years of encountering them; this has created a layered effect of potential connections. I choose this image because it was specific and vague enough to represent this potential for connections while being obviously identifiable as a gardenia blossom. I used notes that spiral into the center to mimic the spiraling petal growth and to reference the passage of time and cycles of life. I hope others will add to it their layers of meaning in connection to gardenias.
Filed under: Assignments | Leave a Comment
Jerome Bruner analysis of Hostel
Hostel is the story of three backpackers, two Americans (Josh and Paxton) and one Icelander (Oli), who are seeking sexual exploits and drugs in Eastern Europe. After getting locked out of their hostel in Amsterdam, a guy tells them of the sexy, promiscuous, American- loving women of a small town in Slovakia—that everything they dream of can be found there. Once in Slovakia, they quickly find out things are not what they seem in this small town. Their hostel is hiding a dark secret and not all of them will last to tell the stories of their fun on vacation. This movie has the plot content of two entirely separate genres. Two very different fabulas are told in succession; first a plot of fun- seeking college kids on a European vacation and second a horrific thriller of gore and human survival.
Using Jerome Bruner’s theories of narrative construction, in his article “The Narrative Construction of Reality,” his concept of genericness seems to be a useful way to analyze the film Hostel. Genericness is the structure of a narrative based on gene and genre conventions. Bruner argues that narrative is governed by cultural and social conventions, not logical structures. He attempts to classify some types of narrative by how they relate to reality; “how narrative organizes the structure of human experience” (21). He states that as humans our experiences and memories all happen in forms of narrative. The tradition of genre narratives is understood as the retelling of familiar plots, like a story of underdog beating the odds. Bruner discusses how there are actually two distinct parts to genre narratives: the plot or fabula with the content of the story and how the narrative is presented to the viewer, or the sjuzet. Within the conventions of genre, both of these factors play a role and prove that though storylines might be universal, their presentation is not (15).
In Hostel, the two genres are presented in natural succession, creating more distress in the unassuming viewer. In the first section, the viewer is presented with bright visuals, upbeat music, and wide panoramic views of a beautiful city. These visual representations, part of the sjuzet, support the conventions of a juvenile comedy, a type of European adventure movie. Bruner says that genre offers the viewer a simplified task of understanding the narrative by using conventions of the culture and society (14). Viewers might find the plot predictable, silly, and stereotypical in the first section of the movie. The fabula follows the conventions of three over-sexed boys looking for a good time in a foreign land, which sets a certain pace of consistent expected events and reliable gag jokes. Though a viewer might enter into this movie knowing it is a horror movie, the director uses genre to lull the viewer into a happy immersion of the narrative. The movie follows this genre for at least half of the movie, which by then, some viewers might have even forgot where they where. Another possible outcome is that the viewer is waiting for something bad to happen and the anticipation is building dramatically because everything is so lighthearted.
Within the second half of the movie, the genre shifts entirely—plummeting into a dark vortex of gore and unabashed violence. The amount of sexual content in the first half is mimicked by the amount of raw brutal violence in the second half, an interesting contrast of how males express energy. The scenes are dark, low light, de saturated, and grainy. There is creaming, crying, and begging. Blood, body parts, and graphic imagery saturate the representation of the horror narrative. Bruner says that narrative genre provides a “guide for the mind” based on the use of language and how it is presented (15). Hostel uses colors, sounds, imagery, and texture to support the content and guide the mind of the viewer. The way of knowing the world in this narrative of double genres is troubling, uneasy, and frightening. By using the two genres and their conventions, the director leads the viewer down a carefully structured path which starts in humor and ends in horror. Though movie genres and literary genres differ significantly, particularly in the realm of the sjuzet, the use of Bruner’s analysis of genre is useful in revealing the construction of the narrative and how genre affects the experience of the viewer.
Filed under: Assignments | Leave a Comment
Skin
I am currently doing research on surfaces- specifically skin, and all the symbolic, imaginary, and real relationships with skin. I will eventually be writing something, but for now, reading a lot. I just came across this and found it very exciting: “In the development of the embryo in vertebrates, the ectoderm gives rise to both the skin and the cortex, so that the skin is in a sense the surface of the brain.”
So, the idea of surface designating inside and out is ludacris–we are all surface. This contrast sharply with the traditional view that somewhere deep inside of us ( a physically and visually hidden space) we shelter our spirit/ true self/ soul. If your skin is your soul, then tattooing and piercing look entirely differently- penetrating the soul.
I’ll be looking at information on Grammatica and pop-up books next. I think I can draw enough together with early dissection imagery to create a solid inquiry into skin and breaking surfaces- removing skin- opening up the body to reveal the inside.
Filed under: Residual | Leave a Comment
Nostalgia- Text only
When was the last time you saw a book plate?
“Ex- Libris” it reads; it means from the library of _____ and you are supposed to write your name in. If you have fancy bookplates, your name will be imprinted already beneath the “Ex- Libris.” I always see them and think about cemeteries and “ex” being a marker of passing, like an ex- book. Wandering in a library of dead books, I wonder if people see bookplates as gravestones that mark the death of the book and possibly (in that postmodernist way) the death of the reader.
Do people have libraries anymore?
I have an infestation of silverfish in my collection. I am constantly finding the metallic word eaters and smashing them into miniature nickels. I feel slightly let down when ink doesn’t come out of them, like somehow all the text they have eaten will be broken from their tiny forms and released for my sorting.
I think that is why I am attracted to squid; they make ink. I wish that I could make ink out of my body. Instead of making milk one day when I have a child, I wish I could make ink and could have my child suckle on the seething blackness. I feel as if I might have more nutrition to offer someone through my ink—that my child would grow up smart and well-read because she was breast fed ink as a baby. My ink would be tasty and full of linguistics. It would have a high percentage of semiotics and deconstruct easily in the system. I will sink into the hot tub massaging my breasts and make beautiful swirls dissipate into the water. I will be an artist; my ink paintings will be seen as a revolution in body art and feminist theory.
But, instead I will make milk and dream of being part squid.
I am standing in front of a behemoth that in punctuated by small brass nipples on rectangular drawers—a wooden elephant scared with secrets. Each drawer is labeled in small black typed letters and numbers, reminding me of a time when typewriter noises were common. I pull out the top left drawer because I am searching for something in particular today. I like to pick drawers at random and flip through the cards until I come across something that simply strikes my interest. Today, since the warm breezes of summer have swayed me, I feel like returning to an old friend. I read this book when I was a child, entranced by the watercolor paintings and mythical beasts within its story. The drawer extends past my arm and threatens gravity by staying perfectly rigid. The heavy smell of forgotten paper clutches to each index card. The years of fingering and flipping have made all edges soft like an worn cotton shirt, no trace of any angles are left. I casually run my hand across the tops of all the cards to find the designated call number for my book. Whispering, I speak aloud the number for my reaching my old companion and orient myself like a compass point toward the children’s literature section of the library.
Do you ever think about where books come from?
Like babies, books are born from bodies. Unbound bodies are skinless bodies. Vellum is made from sheep’s skin. The cover of the creature’s body becomes the cover of the pages of the book. The site of the book’s creation is also the site of the body’s sacrifice. Books are born from bodies.
I find myself feeling the shelves of spines, my hands reached out as I wander towards my book. Each spine is slightly different, but it is like being in a room full of strangers all with their backs to you. The insensitivity to the relationship between books and people makes a chalky taste arise in the back of my throat.
I must quickly find my book and escape this indifferent book brothel.
I wander what conversations occur between books when no one is watching. Do they converse spine to spine or do they embrace covers open, page to page?
Do books die of old age? Do they cower forward with the weight of textuality bearing hard on their spines?
Knowing my book is within reach, I press my body into the shelf, trying to feel as many spines against me as possible. I am opening my flesh to these books, these strangers, as if to honor the sacrifice of flesh from others. The feeling is perverse, like a loose woman who experiences life purely based on not wanting to miss out on any possible sensory input. Slowly pulling back and easing into the actual act of taking my book off the shelf, a large volume with gilded pages catches my shirt where the buttons meet holes. I gently tug my shirt back, and in a mix of curiosity and reproach, I examine my stalker. I inventory the old book: thick burgundy leather cover, faded gold embossed lettering, more gold edging each page, marbled front and back pages in navy blue and ivory, and an inscription that reads “ To my love, hold this close and think of me” written in large cursive on the title page. The beauty of someone else’s love strikes me so swiftly I know I must take this book away from this place. I don’t really care what the book is about; it joins the growing stack in my left arm as I head towards the check-out desk.
Feeling like I have picked up a maudlin hitchhiker, I approach a seated woman of unassumingly average looks. She has the kind of face that a person will forget within seconds of leaving her presence. I’d feel bad for her, but I already hate her. She, and the others like her, disgust me—irreverently tossing and stamping, gluing, and folding, their filthy hands pimping out precious pages. These poor strays deserve better homes, homes where they are dusted, cleaned, read, caressed, and curled up with; a home like mine. I would love them all if I had time. These people don’t understand—these pushers, these pimps. Breaking free of my internal soliloquy, I give the woman my card and my two books.
“The Myth of the Unicorn,” she reads aloud the metallic leather letters and runs her index finger across the front cover. She flips to the back page and pulls out the due date card. Stamping without gusto, she moves down the stack to my book that I came for.
“The Terrible Nung Gwama,” she stumbles across the painted text.
“What’s it about?” she inquires still not looking me in the eye.
“A monster and a woman who beats him,” I coldly spit out.
She makes some kind of “mmhm” noise and stamps the return date on the card that only had two other dates on it. She hands me the books and looks me in the eye.
“Sounds fun,” she says in a tone that I would think was sarcastic if she was not so obviously void of affectation.
I find that people who read books for what they are about miss the reason books exist in the first place. If it was all about what was said, people would never care what font it was in or what color the cover was.
Sitting in my car, I put the books in the passenger seat. I entertain a fleeting thought of buckling them in, but decide to move them to my lap instead, wedged between my breast and the steering wheel. As a child, I remember joking my parents that I didn’t need to study for a test, that I would simply sleep with the book under my head and absorb all the knowledge, like osmosis. Driving home, I imagine the words shaking themselves free from structured sentences and migrating to the margins. They collect and collide like drops of water, creating new combinations—puddling together and pooling into poetry. The poems glide out of the pages and move to the boundary of my being. Black inky sestets and short shiny couplets penetrate my pores. I am injected with a dose of language; I become written.
Once home, I shelter the books inside and create my reading environment. I like to read under this certain light- a sixty-watt true-light bulb in a frosted shade- that hangs over my thrift-store recliner in the corner of my living room. I turn on the light and grab some throw pillows off the couch to blockade myself into the curled position of a fetus in a womb of fluff.
I settle into the decrepit corduroy cushions of the recliner and reach for the book on unicorns. As my hand closes over the edge, between the two covers, an instant message noise from my computer in the back room disrupts my movement. My grip slips and the pages flare open and slice down across my pale fingers.
Three red lines erupt from my hand. I stand up slowly.
Papercuts–the books way of thanking me for bringing it home. A drop of my blood drips onto the flayed book on the floor, striking out this sentence on page 342.
“When he saw the maiden, the Unicorn would run up and lay its head in her lap, at which point it could be easily taken by the hunters hiding nearby.”
I sit back down and ponder over who has been marked more by this incident, the book or me. I decide the staining of my blood is past any effort to clean it off. I squeeze my hand over the crease of the book. Little red drops pause and shoot to the edges of the page. I decide to let my blood seep into the ivory page. I pick up the misfit book and close the covers quickly. I press the book together between my palms. An abstract image of blood and text greets me with mirrored symmetry when I reopen page 342 and page 343.
I wonder if the book feels my ink inscribe its pages.
I wipe my hand off and turn my attention to the din of noises calling me to my computer.
Filed under: Assignments | 2 Comments
Search
Recent Entries
Categories
- Assignments (10)
- Residual (4)
- Uncategorized (1)
