kmojena's blog

So I think I should start this blog off by saying that I absolutely LOVED Cathy's Book. I had never read anything like it, and I thought the whole experience was great. Like we touched upon in glass, the attention to detail is noteworthy, and it really adds to the authenticity of the story. All of the phone numbers and the Web sites enhanced my experienced and really immersed me in Cathy's quest to get to the bottom of this mystery. By examining all of the "evidence" included in her book, I was able to follow along with story and even figure things out on my own before Cathy had any idea. I literally finished the whole thing in one sitting, which I think says a lot for its immersive quality. It really sucks you in and makes the world seem as real as possible. Since I was so actively involved in the discovery process, I become really determined to find out ALL there is to know. Unfortunately, I haven't figured everything out yet, which is killing me because one of the articles we had to read mentioned that the biggest secret of Cathy's Book isn't even contained within it's pages. Hopefully some people in class tomorrow will have some more insight as to what I've missed.  read more »

I know a lot of people expressed some rather negative opinions about Facade because of its inability to understand some user input. Some argue that this shortcoming breaks the immersive quality and leaves users frustrated, making it hard to truly experience the story Facade tries to tell. After reading Marie-Laure Ryan's take on Facade, though, I have to agree with her explanation about how this very shortcoming is explained by the characters and the story itself, perhaps then lending to Facade's immersive quality. As Ryan points out, both Grace and Trip are incredibly self-centered, so if they don't listen to your input, it doesn't exactly break character. It's also evident that the two are quite distracted, so if your user input is answered with something that doesn't make much sense, it can be attributed to the fact that they aren't really listening to you anyway because they have other things on the mind. When they start to argue and the situation escalates, it gets even harder to put a word in. At this point, not getting much of a response goes along with how this situation would play out in the real world.  read more »

So after Friday's class, I started thinking about the point Zach made about hoax photos. Hoax photos are obviously fiction in that they aren't real, but they are different than fiction because people actually want to believe them and sometimes do. Like Zach said, a fictional character like Sherlock Holmes is understood to be fake, and the reader normally has no want or need to believe in his true existence. In the case of hoax photos, however, many people seem to have an innate desire to believe in them, so much so that the desire translates to acceptance. I think the difference here lies in presentation, subject matter and medium. In a novel, for instance, characters and events are not normally presented as "real." The author uses the characters and events to tell a story but makes no effort to prove or suggest their actual existence. In the case of hoax photos, however, photographers claim to have captured something actually in existence and pass it off as such. What further strengthens belief is the medium, itself, because photography is understood to capture actual moments in time, giving photos more credibility than written accounts of something's existence.  read more »

I had never before considered amusement park rides in light of their narrative qualities, but when I read Janet Murray's chapter on immersion, it became clear to me that these intricately planned environments and machines are examples of some of the most immersive narrative structures available. Murray cites Jurassic Park in her discussion, but I'd like to head over to Disney's Magic Kingdom for my example because that's where my loyalties lie. I've been going to Magic Kingdom since before I could walk or talk, and to this day, I still find the illusion created by the park very enthralling. The whole thing is a huge, immersive show. The staff, the setting and the rides all make you feel like you're in another world outside reality. Each area of the park is designed to take you to a different place. Tomorrowland leaps into the future, while Fantasyland brings fairy tales to life. Within these immersive environments, rides serve to further immerse guests by putting them in the middle of the action. Space Mountain, for example, aims to give riders the thrill of traveling through space, which is made possible in the futuristic environment of Tomorrowland.  read more »

I agree with Janet Murray's argument that a computer can be a "compelling medium for storytelling if we can write rules for it that are recognizable as an interpretation of the world." In the case of ELIZA, which Murray uses as her example, the user gets to interact with Eliza in the context of a therapy session, where Eliza acts as the therapist and the user as the patient. The programming is designed to mimic the "neutrality of a Rogerian therapist, who reflects the patient's statements without judgment." In this way, Eliza is like an actress or a character in a story. She advances the "plot" of the story with her responses, which are "exploited for a comic effect because they echo the rigidities of certain psychotherapeutic methodologies." Eliza plays an active role in the discourse of the story because it is made up solely of dialogue. I understand that the program does not clearly define the therapist/patient relationship at the beginning of the dialogue, but with a proper preface, all the pieces fit together into a perfectly plausible story, at least until Eliza breaks down and starts talking gibberish.

The Rise of the Video Game documentary we saw in class brought up an interesting point about the connection between the military and video games. I had never considered the military's influence on technology with relation to video games, but it seems the two are inextricably linked. I find it funny that the same technological advancement fostered by the military for purposes of war and destruction gave way to the creation of something as recreational and lighthearted as a video game. The military's influence is evident not only in the technology itself, but in the content of video games as well. There are a lot of games out there that try to recreate the "war" experience as realistically as possible. Games like those of the Call of Duty series recreate armed conflict and allow gamers to experience it with the element of safety that Crawford discusses in his book. The violence presented is highly stylized so as to give gamers a feel for the casualties of warfare without putting them at actual risk.  read more »

At the end of "20th Century: Eclecticism, Technology and the Idiosyncratic Imagination," Drucker questions whether "future generations will take more pleasure from the physicality of writing than from the immaterial electronic trace." The phrasing of the sentence leads me to believe that she favors the traditional handwritten form, and I have to say that I agree with her. I don't mean to undermine the benefits and convenience of modern technology, but when it comes down to it, I think a handwritten work holds more meaning than one conceived on a word processor. I realize that it isn't plausible to expect an author to write each and every copy of his/her book by hand. That's precisely where modern technology comes in, in the mass production stage of the process. The point where it counts is in the stage of conception. When an author produces a handwritten manuscript, his/her imprint is permanently left on that work. The evolution of the words can be seen every time a note is scribbled in the margins or a sentence is crossed out. This element of growth and development makes the handwritten medium much more personal than its counterpart.  read more »

Although I was a bit confused in the beginning, I found Mitchell's arguments about the image/text relation very interesting once I got acquainted with the material. The most thought-provoking point he raised for me was the relationship between images and text when referred to as imagetext. I had never before thought of the similarities between the two because I'd always regarded them as separate mediums of expression. After reading Mitchell, however, I realized that images and text are inextricably linked. I know he doesn't explicitly state which theory is best, but of the options given (image/text, image-text, and imagetext), I think imagetext is the most appropriate. Mitchell brings up the point that both images and text feature each other intrinsically in their purest form. A novel filled with text cannot help but evoke certain images with its language and descriptions. The very point of metaphors and other figures of speech is to illustrate a point by painting a vivid picture. The pictorial elements conjured up in the minds of readers are a direct manifestation of the presence of image in text, especially when coupled with the visual elements of typography.  read more »

So i recently saw Atonement in theaters, and as I was reading over the section on order and duration in Story and Discourse, I kept thinking back to this film because it employed many of the concepts Chatman discusses, particularly with regard to anachrony. The entire film is a bit hard to follow at first if you haven't read the book because many scenes are revisited with slightly different angles at numerous points in the story. Every event is given new light each time it is revisited, and new information is learned that helps the viewer piece together the truth of the plot. Chatman refers to this as repetitive anachrony, which he defines as an anachrony that repeats what has been stated before though with a different slant on original events. In the case of Atonement, the "slant" is the particular character's point of view, which serves a mainly expository function. There are also some ellipses in the movie that jump over a significant amount of time, leaving the viewer to piece together the untold events. One such instance is when the movie quickly transitions from the scene of Robbie's arrest to his departure with the army.  read more »

I had never thought that a video game could be considered a narrative structure before this class. I'm not a huge gamer, but when I was younger, my brother owned two video games that I actually enjoyed playing. One of them was Prince of Persia, and the other was Tomb Raider. I was never sure why exactly I was drawn to these two, but now that I think about it, it probably has to do with the story element of the games. Both Tomb Raider and Prince of Persia involve a plot that is advanced every time the gamer makes a decision. After reading Story and Discourse, I also made the connection that these games are actually antistories in the way they are created. In Tomb Raider, there are several different ways that Lara Croft can complete her adventure. Not all possible avenues are discovered by every gamer, which leaves an infinite number of ways for her story to end. By choosing to enter a certain room, the gamer rules out the possibility of advancing the plot in a different way by entering a different room.  read more »