Electronic literature part 1: 4 electronic texts
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1. RedRidinghood by Donna Leishman
This "text" is really fascinating, in that it is a flash-created interactive comic book. There is hardly any text. Th entire game is animated, with you deciding at intervals what happens to "red." And I though this was going to be another boring and endless "Heist" story. I had no idea "text" didn't necessarily mean "words." I'm going to stop at the point where the player decides to let Red dream or wake her up. I'm definately coming back to this one.
2. Urbanalities
Wow, there was no reader-assisted progression in this one. Another flash-generated program. It was way too weird. from what i gather of the first eight minute, the "text" is an animated poem that throws existential comments at the reader while pictures of the city skyline flash. Then, the game morphs into a barrel of a gun which shoots at the skyline, dispersing bloody flashes while more strange comments are thrown out. The text was way too avant-garde for me. And that's saying something, because I like Beckett. Urbanalities is performance art.
"Many authors recognize the feeling of being "lost" in a digital text, and try to exploit it for artistic effect." prime example right here.
3. The Body by Shelley Jackson
If you're offended by graphic body descriptions, don't "read/play" this text. The layout is the authors body. Clicking on body parts reveals anecdotes and stories involving them. I think the general theme of the story is sexuality. for instance, the shoulders link reveals a story about how glad the author is she's a woman, which leads to a story about breasts, and so-forth. It's sort of a hypertext "coming-of-age" collection.
4. Storyland by Nanette Wylde
The computer does most of the work here, generating a new story each time from a bank of possibilities. All the reader does is click for the next line to appear. Each story is a basic synopsis of a situation, leaving the reader to decide on what actually happened. Certain clues in the text imply. I would consider this text slightly "absurd"istic
1. RedRidinghood by Donna Leishman
This "text" is really fascinating, in that it is a flash-created interactive comic book. There is hardly any text. Th entire game is animated, with you deciding at intervals what happens to "red." And I though this was going to be another boring and endless "Heist" story. I had no idea "text" didn't necessarily mean "words." I'm going to stop at the point where the player decides to let Red dream or wake her up. I'm definately coming back to this one.
2. Urbanalities
Wow, there was no reader-assisted progression in this one. Another flash-generated program. It was way too weird. from what i gather of the first eight minute, the "text" is an animated poem that throws existential comments at the reader while pictures of the city skyline flash. Then, the game morphs into a barrel of a gun which shoots at the skyline, dispersing bloody flashes while more strange comments are thrown out. The text was way too avant-garde for me. And that's saying something, because I like Beckett. Urbanalities is performance art.
"Many authors recognize the feeling of being "lost" in a digital text, and try to exploit it for artistic effect." prime example right here.
3. The Body by Shelley Jackson
If you're offended by graphic body descriptions, don't "read/play" this text. The layout is the authors body. Clicking on body parts reveals anecdotes and stories involving them. I think the general theme of the story is sexuality. for instance, the shoulders link reveals a story about how glad the author is she's a woman, which leads to a story about breasts, and so-forth. It's sort of a hypertext "coming-of-age" collection.
4. Storyland by Nanette Wylde
The computer does most of the work here, generating a new story each time from a bank of possibilities. All the reader does is click for the next line to appear. Each story is a basic synopsis of a situation, leaving the reader to decide on what actually happened. Certain clues in the text imply. I would consider this text slightly "absurd"istic
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I was like you with the definition of "text" until we discussed it in Thinking and Writing. A text is just anything that is being focused on like a book, a picture, or a CD. I found it interesting, too, that most of these were like the cheesy flash games that I would always play online. I think that is why I am having trouble finding the artistic merit in a lot of these works.