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.
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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.
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Nostalgia- Pass 3
A very different presentation of the original text.
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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.
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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.
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Plan for Story
Last semester, I began a hypertext project that intermixed five sections of reading: one set of poetry, two narratives, and two theoretical/historical texts. I began linking across the separate texts trying to create reading through the form, not just the content. I didn’t finish this project and feel it could be pushed further in this class. I’d like to tell one of the narratives about a girl in a library. She will be described by her interactions with books and her feelings about them. It is a postmodernist fiction that is told in third person omniscient external focalization. I think several metanarratives may emerge as the story progresses and I can payer media upon text and text upon media. The story is intended for adults of our technological age; I want to focus on reflecting a nostalgic longing for print technology and the intimacy of reading.
The story will be set in a library in contemporary times, but no specificity to temporal aspects will be given. The purpose is to entertain and enlighten readers with a view of how sensual reading can be. I think that as I go through this project, other possible focalizations might emerge to better tell parts of the story, like letting the books themselves speak. I think by making it interactive and digital I can force the nostalgic aspects of the narrative to the forefront and make the remediation of the forms a central development tool. I anticipate making each pass more focused of sensory experience; I could include noises and images from libraries or the act of reading. I’d like to make the act of reading, page turning, and connection with a book an experience that is missed in reading the digital text (if not missed, at least reflected upon).
Some possible challenges for me will be specific to the technology and trying to blend together the different media while holding to a central form that is lead by content. I am concerned about overloading the reader with too many inputs that do not relate to the story. I am also worried about using technology purely as a gimmick, not something that adds to the overall feel or readability of the narrative. I have to keep it simple and stay focused on what the experience should be like for the reader. Each pass to the next level of narrative development has to center back upon this plan; I know I tend to get excited by new possibilities for expression and can over indulge in them. I think having the story mostly written or thought out will help me center on the narrative expression and allow the technology to flow into it instead of imposing the technology onto it.
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Introduction
My name is Kristin and I am from Gainesville, Florida. I came to Orlando following my boyfriend of ten years. We live surrounded by woods and water in a cute apartment complex with our giant great dane, Sega. I like being around nature and getting surprised by the creatures that show up here (otters and falcons!). I paint, make digital collages, write, travel, and speak. I love teaching and creating. I am vegan and very sensitive to environmental issues. I love to bake and cook; Alton Brown and Iron Chef are icons to me. I love dancing and getting dressed up. I enjoy art and theories from Dadaism, Abstract Expressionism, and Avant Garde work.
I like postmodernist fiction, where narrative is generally mixed up and nonlinear. I love Haruki Murakami, Chuck Palahnuik, Mark Danielewski, and Craig Clevanger. I am more interested in the reader’s personal experience of interacting with media than the authorial intentions of meaning or interaction. I enjoy finding alternate contexts or meanings from readings that could be used to teach or relate something else unexpected. I love movies, but haven’t seen most traditionally popular movies. I see more esoteric Japanese horror films than anything else, most of which have multiple story lines, abstract plots, and unexplainable endings. I like to play puzzle video games on my own, but I watch my boyfriend play narrative games so I can analyze them. I like to look for inconsistencies or residues; things that don’t entirely calculate into the logic of the game.
I have an amazing attention for details and aesthetics. I work mostly with the parallels between the body as a form and the book as a form. I have a serious nostalgia for traditional print media; you will often find me romanticizing libraries and old books. I find the experience of reading highly sensual and intimate. New media interactions have shifted this experience to be more public and performance like. Games are able to be watched and experienced by others–multiplayer books do not exist. I am interested in the ways people are physically involved in playing games or exploring a hypertext. I filter most of this through Lacanian psychoanalysis because of my interest in language and semiotics. I agree with Lacan’s position that the unconscious is structured like a language. Psychoanalysis is greatly related to narratology and storytelling since it is based in the experiences of one person talking and another listening and analyzing the words and meanings of the story. My most recent presentation in Australia was about how tattoos act like bookmarks and how we orient ourselves with narrative storytelling.
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Define:
Caput Mortuum is a Latin term meaning ‘death’s head’. In alchemy, it signified a useless substance left over from a chemical operation such as sublimation. Alchemists represented this residue with a stylized human skull, a literal death’s head. In its current limited usage, the caput mortuum represents decline and entropy.
Caput mortuum (also spelled caput mortum or caput mortem) is the name given to a purple variety of iron oxide pigment, an “earth color”. It is used in oil paints and paper dyes. The name for this pigment may have come from the alchemical usage, since iron oxide (rust) is the useless residue of oxidization.
It is the name of a brownish paint that was originally made from the wrappings of mummies. It was most popular in the 1600s. It was suddenly discontinued in the early 19th century when its composition became generally known to artists [The Artist's Handbook, p. 52]. A London colorman claimed that he could satisfy the demands of his customers for twenty years from one Egyptian mummy [The Chemistry of Paints and Painting, p. 236]. In recent years, it has been made with iron sulphate and impurities obtained from the residues of the distillation of scisti piritosi in the fabrication of sulphuric acid. The paint color is also known as Colcothar, Mummy Brown, Mummy, Egyptian Brown, and by combinations like Caput Mortem Violet.
from wiki
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