mic's blog

The blog we looked at about the guy who found a camera in the woods presents what I call an "undefined narrative." We know neither the narrator, or even the implied and actual narratee, which fascinates me. The breadth of possibility within the discourse widens without these two aspects, as does the story. Where the pictures are unclear, the imagination can create both the plot and discourse. This was the most enjoyable aspect of looking through the pictures, both in class and on my own. The figures found in some of the pictures lend themselves to generating interest in the meaning, otherwise they would become a predictable, even boring plot for most folks. Even then, the fog, blurry shots, and camera angles are peculiar.

Several questions have been sticking in my head as to the meaning of actual narrative. Can a random collection of images, not held together by a text, become a story? What if the pictures in this camera were taken by several different people, or what if the same person took the pictures at completely different time periods? How does that form a narrative, and what are the implications for us as viewers/readers/interpreters?  read more »

I believe a leaning towards the expansionist approach to narrative necessarily leads to an acceptance of all sorts of media, even as technology advances and (could it be) more forms of communication and representation are produced. The term 'narrative' seems to be too broad to limit simply to literature, as the traditionalist presume. Narrative should rather be all-inclusive and even open-ended, realizing that stories are being told every day in many differing forms. And since narrative encompasses both the story and the way in which it is communicated, the advent of video games, hypertext, etc. should be considered narrative.

My argument is that there is always a narrator and narratee in these emerging forms of narrative, even though it is not always so obvious. Consider video games. I believe that the narrator is most often you as the player/interactor, whether you control an army from a bird's eye view (as in "Command and Conquer") or through first person ("Doom," "Halo"). The perspective may change throughout the course of the game as you gather new information, but ultimately, you maintain control, and by your actions, you dictate the story.  read more »

Photopia, for me, was "Adventure" and "Zork" on steroids, and definitely the first text-based game that I played and did not suffer through (that maze, though...ugh). First, advances in the parser technology made my grasp of commands much easier. And back to color. How is it that a simple coordination of color would make the game not only entertaining, but even suspenseful. An entertaining current novelist whose literature I enjoy reading is Chuck Palahniuk, and his style of discourse often shifts perspective with each section or chapter, similar to Photopia. Many authors employ this shift, but that is one. Often, however, it is difficult to recognize this change until the characters have been introduced (or re-introduced) into the narrative. The change in color is an alert to this technique beforehand, and makes the transition (and thus the ability to follow the story) easier. How much more difficult and confusing would this game be without color in it? There are not as many glaring statements highlighting a specific character. The color, sometimes, is the only tip-off.  read more »

I have thoroughly enjoyed Murray's ideas on immersion (and everything we have read on her in general), although this topic of 'Regulating Arousal' on pages 234-237 of the handbook seem to me a bit off.

And I quote, "The objects of the imaginary world should not be too enticing, scary or real lest the immersive trance be broken. This is true in any medium. If a horror movie is too frightening, we cover our eyes or turn away from the screen. If a romantic movie is too directly arousing, audience members may start necking instead of watching the characters."  read more »

Murray mentions T.S. Eliot and the term "objective correlative," which is "the way in which clusters of events in literary works can capture emotional experience." She continues to argue that computers (and therefore their video-game descendants) create the same sort of objective correlative - a means of relating this simulated world to our tangible life. Every video game in itself is a system, with a set of rules that govern how, when and where the correlations will be made. Somehow, through interaction on the TV or computer screen, responses are triggered and anger, fear, laughter, and pride can be produced.

According to Murray, the interactive "video game" is simply a new art form, a new style of narrative, and an addictive one at that because of it's participatory nature (this would be the main distinction from literature, a painting, etc.). This raises the question, then - are all video games inherently art? Super Mario Bros.? Halo 3? If art is intended to produce a reaction and/or make a statement, don't video games qualify as well?  read more »

Which lucky girl got HIM?!

haha

The one quote that I remember from Helvetica comes from one of the scholars early on in the film:

"Typography is about making order."

This seems to fit in both the context of modernism and the aesthetic appeal of Helvetica to the viewer. While the actual font's size and thickness may vary from text to text and place to place, it is linearly (and often symmetrically) structured, as we learned from some of its creators, who mapped out individual letters on graphing sheets. It's simplicity and ubiquitousness in a technologically evolving culture has altered life subtly, yet much more so than we might originally think...

Mainly, the lack of seraphs has made each letter and therefore each word more easily recognizable; it resembles more of a handwritten text. This increases the speed at which one can read the text, and saves time. It also makes the task of foreigners approaching it simpler. Simplicity indeed is the goal in modern photography, art, architecture, etc.  read more »

Just finished reading the historical article by Bringhurst on typography (form and content), and was impressed by the amount of detail with which he perused its intricacies. His tactics for capturing the spirit of a text is fascinating, and I want to specifically discuss 1.2.5 on page 6 of the course pack ("Shape the page and frame the textblock so that it honors and reveals every element, every relationship between elements, and every logical nuance of the text")...

First of all, this is a tall order. The factors that compose a text (especially one involving imagination and creativity - a novel, for example) are so numerous that it could literally take weeks of study, let alone the time spent assembling the proper medium to communicate it. Here are a few mentioned by Bringhurst, in addition to several that came to my mind...

-Text font/size/color/placement (these are four lengthy studies that might/most likely will change over the course of the text)
-Image choice/size/color/placement in the text (placement can be critical)
-References/footnotes (placement, amount of explanation)
-Dialogue presentation (if needed)  read more »

Ah, another existential art-video-game.

It seems that there are multiplicities of both story-space and discourse space within "game, game, game and again game." If story-space is the place within which the plot unfolds, then each level constitutes an individual story-space, resulting in thirteen different story-spaces. One might argue that all thirteen are one within the broad definition of "story-space," but my opinion is that each level is so separate from the previous, in both theme and objective and trajectory, that each levels shifts the plot into a new story-space.  read more »

Krazy Kat, in my (probably limited) view of comics, is truly unique in its form of narrative. My interest is specifically in the discourse of Krazy Kat, the way in which Herriman presents the story. The story itself is fairly straightforward, the plot revolving mainly around Krazy, Ignatz and Officer Pupp; and yet somehow Herriman manages to create entertainment, seemingly out of nowhere, in his style, his method of presentation...

For one thing, the landscape within each strip seems to constantly be shifting. Krazy and Ignatz are especially viewed from what would be considered in film, differing "camera angles." The backgrounds often seem abstract or even unnecessary, but still offer a certain amount of either interest or amusement, in their confusing shapes and shifting points-of-view. This is an achievement in securing the attention of the reader, and made my experience of the comic on black-and-white all the more enjoyable.  read more »

Amped up on graphics and high-speed gameplay as I have been in our rapidly techno-evolving world, I was refreshed to take a couple of minutes out of my day to put my Wii-mote to rest and dive into the pixilated world of Passage. I thought it would be a good, old-fashioned return to my Super Mario Bros. days.

However, I was not entertained, not impressed, not reminded of the great classics. The gameplay seemed trivial. And then I realized that Passage is art, not entertainment - a mind stimulator, rather than a mind distractor.

The game's parallels with life as we experience it are extremely simple, yet profound if given intense thought:

1) One can make a bee-line going east, collecting points by walking and avoiding as many obstacles as possible. Or,
2) one can explore each map from top to bottom, collecting treasures by walking and finding new routes around obstacles to access the golden rewards.

In either case, time performs its slow decay on the protagonist, whether with his female companion or alone, so that by the end of the journey, our hero has seen much.  read more »