In light of our most recent blog assignment, I decided to take my time with each of the four "electronic literature" selections that I chose while taking notes as time passed.
Although this poem is rather short, the authors deliver an eerie message with the help of creative prose mixed with photographs. The only part of this selection that I disliked was the audio background. Although the "windy" atmosphere might have enhanced the piece as a whole, the "crackling" only distracted me from the piece as a whole and prevented me from further analyzing my emotions on a deeper level. The images in the background, especially that of the girl standing alone enhanced the reading. In the case of the girl standing alone, it went hand-in-hand with the dialogue the day I die she will rise up... This was the only section that actually repeated along with the poem. The rest of the images alternated with the poem, which encouraged me to continue to read the poem, even if I was reading the same prose more than once.
Star Wars, one letter at a time
I am going to be blunt and say that I am note a huge fan of this selection. Although the idea is creative and intuitive, it fails. While "reading" Star Wars one letter at a time does cause readers to view the piece in a different light, it also annoys them, and I think that only life-long fans would be able to follow the letters. I myself found it very difficult to follow. I could pick out a few words here and there, mainly ones that were pivotal to the story, such as "Star Wars," "civil war," "tatouine," and "C3-PO." Like I said, the idea was creative, but rather ineffective.
This creative selection "strings" words across the screen to get a message across. My favorite section was arms: the string creates "your" "arms" "O" "me" which clearly suggests the real meaning of "your arms around me," but cleverly illustrates this with the strings. Even the haha section demonstrates laughter accurately. The "haha" slowly expands until it fills the entire string, which perfectly assesses that laughter is in fact contagious. Side note: this reminds me of the Laughter Club in Daniel Pink's A Whole New Mind.
Inanimate Alice, Episode 1: China
This selection provoked the most emotion for me. It depicts the life of a young girl growing up surrounded by advanced technology, but even though technology has done so much to improve her life, it has also caused hard-ships, such as when her father goes missing and cannot contact his family because he has "no signal." The author utilizes not only grainy photographs but also static text to identify technology as not always being reliable. The static photos in the background also revealed anxiety in me; I suppose I've seen far too many dark and scary movies--I assumed that by the end of the selection, a vampire or werewolve would jump out and kill everyone.
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