Thursday, October 21, 2010
Alpha Thoughts
I had an idea for the short animation project. I feel as though I am a grazer of information. That being a grazer is diffrent now then it once was. The net offers a venue for grazing on such a wider scale then before and I was thinking of it earlier and your idea/joke to Nick's hypothetical phone menu adventure struck a chord with me, and the orchastra choose to follow suite. I Stumble with many modes and that it what I plan on writing/animating about.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Conversation Plan
For this project, Martha and I plan on researching and presenting different sides of the debate over the ethicality of genetic research. Specifically, we will probably focus on stem-cell research, as it seems to represent a more real possibility for the near-future than many other areas of study (and therefore a more pressing and controversial issue), although we also considered investigating the ethics of various eugenic practices (trying to eliminate genetic diseases through gene manipulation, choosing the "best" genes for one's fetus, etc.). We think that these are also very interesting topics, though we're not sure if they fit the parameters of this assignment (whether or not they're really "current").
The research we will need to do will include, obviously, the different arguments on whether these scientific advances are really positive or negative. We will also look up some of the science behind whatever sub-issue we choose, so we are better informed of the facts.
We thought about having our two "voices" talk over the phone, with the classic zig-zagged line down the middle to indicate who is saying what (as well as using font shape, color, etc. to better illustrate the speaker's character). We also talked about taking pictures of each other's reactions to each statement (confusion, outrage, disgust, etc.) and having our words appear in front of our reactions. We can figure out the reading speed easily by trying a number of different fps speeds and seeing which is most readable, both to ourselves or to others we show it to for feedback.
The research we will need to do will include, obviously, the different arguments on whether these scientific advances are really positive or negative. We will also look up some of the science behind whatever sub-issue we choose, so we are better informed of the facts.
We thought about having our two "voices" talk over the phone, with the classic zig-zagged line down the middle to indicate who is saying what (as well as using font shape, color, etc. to better illustrate the speaker's character). We also talked about taking pictures of each other's reactions to each statement (confusion, outrage, disgust, etc.) and having our words appear in front of our reactions. We can figure out the reading speed easily by trying a number of different fps speeds and seeing which is most readable, both to ourselves or to others we show it to for feedback.
Research paper plan
Neil Hennessy is the writer I wish to research, because after searching a slew of poets on Wikipedia, Google, and several of your suggested sites I link-hopped to ‘poems that go’ which lead me to JABBER: The Jabberwocky Engine. It is a program that makes up words. It was fairly neat and additionally it seemed extremely experimental to me, so I looked up Mr. Hennessy and found he had indeed written other works for me to draw upon.
I would like to research Neil Hennessy’s other works to see if he incorporates any themes. I find myself interested in the nature of nonsense in experimental poetry. To me the two seem to have a close connection, each blurring the other in experimental poetry.
I would find it helpful if you can think of any good examples of nonsense as a subject in papers or poems, that would help. Nonsense isn’t really a poet or movement so I would like feedback as to how much of the paper you think I should devote to this poet or the idea of nonsense. Like if I should write a paper on nonsense including Neil as one of my of my examples in a paper about nonsense in experimental literature or if I should write a paper on Neil with nonsense being one of the aspects of his works that I explore.
According to the calendar the first draft of this paper is due 11/11, so by then I should have one or two nights of gathering as much information as I can of the type that will best suite the theme of my paper that by then I will hopefully talked to you about by then. I will use the 22nd and 29th of October as days to use the library to find articles on nonsense in poetry and literature, and if I’m lucky, in experimental literature. I’ll look for Neil’s other works and other works that contain elements of nonsense. After the first draft is due I can work on revising and I will probably work on the paper when I get feed back on it and then I will work all night the first of December when I freak out that it is due.
I would like to research Neil Hennessy’s other works to see if he incorporates any themes. I find myself interested in the nature of nonsense in experimental poetry. To me the two seem to have a close connection, each blurring the other in experimental poetry.
I would find it helpful if you can think of any good examples of nonsense as a subject in papers or poems, that would help. Nonsense isn’t really a poet or movement so I would like feedback as to how much of the paper you think I should devote to this poet or the idea of nonsense. Like if I should write a paper on nonsense including Neil as one of my of my examples in a paper about nonsense in experimental literature or if I should write a paper on Neil with nonsense being one of the aspects of his works that I explore.
According to the calendar the first draft of this paper is due 11/11, so by then I should have one or two nights of gathering as much information as I can of the type that will best suite the theme of my paper that by then I will hopefully talked to you about by then. I will use the 22nd and 29th of October as days to use the library to find articles on nonsense in poetry and literature, and if I’m lucky, in experimental literature. I’ll look for Neil’s other works and other works that contain elements of nonsense. After the first draft is due I can work on revising and I will probably work on the paper when I get feed back on it and then I will work all night the first of December when I freak out that it is due.
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
NeveR reactions
My flash of the word never accumulated a few comments that were interesting to me. Someone commented on the darkness of my animation, that I had not considered untill then. I realized I did have the word never basically just fighting other words. Another interesting comment was about the meaning behind the never turning into a clock and the temporality of never.
If I had more time I was going to add another scene where never had to get away from 'join us' and I had origanally made die have spikes and tendrils. I also had a scene planned where never fought 'always', and then woke up next to 'ever' and had a thought bubble with 'always' in it.
Everything I learn about flash is new to me, but a book or maybe some screenshots of some of the more complex uses of flash might help me. In reguards to writing more expressive animated writing the component of the class that ties in with this is when we critique eachother. I understand that there is no secret that if we knew it we would be more expressive writers. The readings we do help me understand how to be more expressive in specific ways.
If I had more time I was going to add another scene where never had to get away from 'join us' and I had origanally made die have spikes and tendrils. I also had a scene planned where never fought 'always', and then woke up next to 'ever' and had a thought bubble with 'always' in it.
Everything I learn about flash is new to me, but a book or maybe some screenshots of some of the more complex uses of flash might help me. In reguards to writing more expressive animated writing the component of the class that ties in with this is when we critique eachother. I understand that there is no secret that if we knew it we would be more expressive writers. The readings we do help me understand how to be more expressive in specific ways.
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Perplexing
In the first paragraph four movements were referenced. I know a little about Cubism and Dada, and I have at least heard of Futurism, but Vorticism I have never experienced. I also noticed that, at least to me, the style of art that the paper addresses is very much like the Concrete movement. The Concrete movement was mentioned earlier in one other readings in passing and I looked up what it meant and then proceeded to complain about it not making much sense to me why you would want your art to lack all symbolism and have to stand on its own as a hunk of wood or an oddly shaped piece of writing.
Lo, “This insistence on the ontological status of what had been considered representation as equivalent to the status of real being was theorized in the work of a number of artists and writer within the various groups an circles in avant-grade society…There is no homogeneous synthesis available from these dispersed and disparate positions.”(page 2) I thought that this description was very similar to the concrete movement, which confused me because it was stated that the different ideas couldn’t be lumped together under one idea. Although I could easily be wrong. The wording in this article was difficult for me to understand, being rife with words I didn’t understand and referring to artists I have never heard of. I didn’t comprehend that the Throw of the Dice was depicted in my first read-through because of its French name but more-so because after the lengthy description I assumed The Throw of the Dice would look so much more complex. I don’t know why.
I did like the brief history that I could glean from this article though. The idea that there were revolutionary writers who moved the spacing between the lines of their poems around had not occurred to me as real-ly before reading the article. But once I thought about it, it was obvious that deviation from the norm had to have started somewhere.
From this reading I got a few ideas for meta-writing. Writing about writing (not journalistically of course) seems a bit cliché or campy (je ne sais quoi) to me. But after reading about how writing can be an end in of itself, I want to write in loops or perhaps cross-referencing stories inside each other. Or maybe single sentences that do not need to be read into. Wait the sentence idea has already been done. And my cross-referencing idea sounds a lot like Cloud Atlas or any frame story I guess. At least I feel inspired.
Lo, “This insistence on the ontological status of what had been considered representation as equivalent to the status of real being was theorized in the work of a number of artists and writer within the various groups an circles in avant-grade society…There is no homogeneous synthesis available from these dispersed and disparate positions.”(page 2) I thought that this description was very similar to the concrete movement, which confused me because it was stated that the different ideas couldn’t be lumped together under one idea. Although I could easily be wrong. The wording in this article was difficult for me to understand, being rife with words I didn’t understand and referring to artists I have never heard of. I didn’t comprehend that the Throw of the Dice was depicted in my first read-through because of its French name but more-so because after the lengthy description I assumed The Throw of the Dice would look so much more complex. I don’t know why.
I did like the brief history that I could glean from this article though. The idea that there were revolutionary writers who moved the spacing between the lines of their poems around had not occurred to me as real-ly before reading the article. But once I thought about it, it was obvious that deviation from the norm had to have started somewhere.
From this reading I got a few ideas for meta-writing. Writing about writing (not journalistically of course) seems a bit cliché or campy (je ne sais quoi) to me. But after reading about how writing can be an end in of itself, I want to write in loops or perhaps cross-referencing stories inside each other. Or maybe single sentences that do not need to be read into. Wait the sentence idea has already been done. And my cross-referencing idea sounds a lot like Cloud Atlas or any frame story I guess. At least I feel inspired.
Monday, October 4, 2010
Water, Water
‘The Pros and Cons of Being a Mermaid’ by Dana Mezzina and Sean Donohue was a multimedia piece. The title flows and swirls into a coherent sentence on the main page. The poem is navigated by moving bubbles in the corners of pages. I didn’t understand at first how to find the cons of being a mermaid. The pros of being a mermaid are attracting hot sailors and having a pretty tail while the cons include the possibility of dying in a net and the uncertainty if mermaids can have sex. I think that as the reader I was supposed to feel the aquatic motion the swirling letters convey and consider the want of being a mermaid pragmatically, citing developed reasons for and against an idea that is generally considered the thought of a child. I think the navigation back and forth from pro and con allowed the reader to feel the shape and weight of each side of the argument. On the one hand I would be able to swim constantly, on the other I might be allergic to myself is an idea that is never written but easily extracted. The flowing style of the words could also stand for the stream of consciousness the individual considering their options might have.
‘Untitled’ by Gerry Loose, but for the purposes of this paper I’ll refer to it as ‘Water Wort’ was not a multimedia piece. Instead it is a series of aquatic plants with several adjectives preceding them. The adjectives all have the word ‘the’ in front of them, so that they can be read individually or so that the plant can be a series of things. The last line of the poem is the plant water wort by itself with no adjectives. Because of how the poem is structured and the impromptu name ‘Water Wort’, I think the message of the poem hinges on the water wort. Because the water wort has no adjectives I feel as though the reader is supposed to come to the conclusion that the water wort might lack any qualities that the author considers worthwhile or mentionable. Other plants are larger, smaller, whorled, or spiked, whereas the water wort is all-and-all uninteresting in every way. On my first reading I took the piece as a statement on being mundane. My second read through made me think that perhaps the numerousness of the adjectives made them superfluous and that they might be unnecessary, where the water wort is unburdened by the shallowness of other aquatic plants.
The reason that the authors of these pieces chose not to use the more traditional approach is that I think their messages are greatly aided by the nontraditional aspects of their writing. Both of the pieces could conceivably be written in the traditional manner but I feel as though ‘The Pros and Cons’ would loose a lot of the ascetic feel of being underwater and the waffling feel of the thought process. ‘Water Wort’ would have to go into detail about different kinds of flora, or offer more information on what the piece is supposed to be invoking in the reader opposed to being more inscrutable and allowing the reader to draw almost any conclusion from it.
Both of these poems can be understood by anyone. Knowledge of mermaid mythology or botany does not add or subtract a significant amount of meaning from either poem, which I appreciated. I think that the ‘Pros and Cons’ piece works as an experiment in animation and provoking readers to take a fanciful hypothetical to be seriously considered. I think that ‘Pros and Cons’ could have expressed its idea more fluidly with different navigational buttons. The pictures that made up the imagery behind the poem ‘Pros and Cons’ greatly added to the effectiveness of the piece in my opinion. The pictures were all real photographs of women and sharks or water; there were no drawings of mermaids, just real imagery that implied the idea of mermaids. ‘Water Wort’ worked very well if I understand its purpose, which would not surprise me. Even though ‘Water Wort’ was purely textual while ‘Pros and Cons’ is mostly visual, they were both good examples of experimental literature that makes the reader think. Also they both dealt with water.
‘Untitled’ by Gerry Loose, but for the purposes of this paper I’ll refer to it as ‘Water Wort’ was not a multimedia piece. Instead it is a series of aquatic plants with several adjectives preceding them. The adjectives all have the word ‘the’ in front of them, so that they can be read individually or so that the plant can be a series of things. The last line of the poem is the plant water wort by itself with no adjectives. Because of how the poem is structured and the impromptu name ‘Water Wort’, I think the message of the poem hinges on the water wort. Because the water wort has no adjectives I feel as though the reader is supposed to come to the conclusion that the water wort might lack any qualities that the author considers worthwhile or mentionable. Other plants are larger, smaller, whorled, or spiked, whereas the water wort is all-and-all uninteresting in every way. On my first reading I took the piece as a statement on being mundane. My second read through made me think that perhaps the numerousness of the adjectives made them superfluous and that they might be unnecessary, where the water wort is unburdened by the shallowness of other aquatic plants.
The reason that the authors of these pieces chose not to use the more traditional approach is that I think their messages are greatly aided by the nontraditional aspects of their writing. Both of the pieces could conceivably be written in the traditional manner but I feel as though ‘The Pros and Cons’ would loose a lot of the ascetic feel of being underwater and the waffling feel of the thought process. ‘Water Wort’ would have to go into detail about different kinds of flora, or offer more information on what the piece is supposed to be invoking in the reader opposed to being more inscrutable and allowing the reader to draw almost any conclusion from it.
Both of these poems can be understood by anyone. Knowledge of mermaid mythology or botany does not add or subtract a significant amount of meaning from either poem, which I appreciated. I think that the ‘Pros and Cons’ piece works as an experiment in animation and provoking readers to take a fanciful hypothetical to be seriously considered. I think that ‘Pros and Cons’ could have expressed its idea more fluidly with different navigational buttons. The pictures that made up the imagery behind the poem ‘Pros and Cons’ greatly added to the effectiveness of the piece in my opinion. The pictures were all real photographs of women and sharks or water; there were no drawings of mermaids, just real imagery that implied the idea of mermaids. ‘Water Wort’ worked very well if I understand its purpose, which would not surprise me. Even though ‘Water Wort’ was purely textual while ‘Pros and Cons’ is mostly visual, they were both good examples of experimental literature that makes the reader think. Also they both dealt with water.
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