The question of whether computers and the Internet offer anything actually “new” is apparently quite heated. This is surprising to me. I’ve come to think and know of the time period we’re living in as the “digital age” where new things are happening, and everyone is all excited. At the Poesis Symposium ideas where presented that challenge this assumption. Block and Cramer suggest that much of what makes up computer and net art in reference to literature can be traced back to historical ideas. I’m having a hard time thinking of the computer and Internet as not being innovative. Cantz thinking is more inviting.
If I write a word on paper, and then write the same on screen, the two are going to be fundamentally different. I’m not sure how one really argues this. The medium always will change the message. I think of the process of choosing a medium as choosing a tool to create or deliver a message. I think this concept is only amplified when considering a literary text as a whole.

...to be continued...

First Thoughts

Ideas for the short project -> involving words in any shape or form -

I would like to add some audio to this project. Maybe I could write a line or two - a short snippet of a song and animate the phrases that are being sung. Or possibly I could play some guitar over a poem. Just ideas.

Conversation Project Plan

While talking, we decided that the topic we will be animating will be the movie “The Social Network.” This movie has caused quite the stir, and has been widely criticized and praised for its portrayal of one of the most influential people on the internet; Mark Zuckerburg, creator of Facebook.com. We will be seeing the movie, reading about the criticisms of it online, and listening to people and why they are so upset about the content. The conversation will loosely follow a question I have asked plenty of people; Are you going to see “The Social Network?” We will use fonts, the speed of the text, and the positioning of the text in the frame to display differences in the two people talking.

Research Project

I found the work of Billy Collins to be very interesting. He is able to communicate ideas and feelings beautifully in his videos. He has a way of using video that adds an entire new dimension to his work, not just simply recreating the words that are being spoken. I hope to learn about Collins' process and way of thinking. From here on out I need to dive into all of the works by Billy Collins I can get a hold of. I need to research the history of his professional life and the projects he's working on, or hopes to accomplish in the future. I'm going to use the next two weeks for research, and then the week after for writing my first draft.

See my animation

SOUND!

Response to Feedback on Word Animation

I wasn't sure if I had effectively displayed sound in my animation. In the feedback from my peers, they mentioned that the animation did express the qualities of sound in silence. This was probably the most surprising feedback I received. If I had more time... tough question. I felt I had plenty of time so I think it would of ended up very close to how I created it in the first place. This morning however, I was trying to fix up the ending but my program kept freezing up. This is why the animation seems to just kind of stop. I spent an hour trying to accomplish what would take thirty seconds. I want to bring in more poetic aspects into my work. I feel as though all my strategies arise from visual communication. To challenge myself further I am going to try and take what I have done so far and expand on it through poetry.

It took a few pages. At first I was having trouble understanding where Drucker was coming from and what she was addressing. After reading further, I became interested in learning about one of the first authors to experiment with typography. I never thought of typography's role in the shift in thinking that came with modernism movement, especially in relation to literature. I found the early forms of typography grids and guides very interesting. The concepts Mallarme used in early 1900s are the same I'm learning and reading about in graphic design. The way Mallarme spoke about those "successive, incessant, back and forth motions of our eyes" gives a better reason than any to experiment with and explore our options with typography. I would like to use the thinking that Mallarme used in manipulating the typographic from, and think of the "hierarchal figural form" the way he did.