I would first like to point to the appreciation of the simplest navigation that is this game. This genre of literature for this Hypercomics, where the road goes through a narration of webcomics that solely relies on the reader’s navigation. This game took me approximately 27 minutes to finish. After 10 minutes of playing around with moving Icarus, I started to understand the navigation and goal of the game. The up, down, left, and right arrows act as the controls to move Icarus. The piece is set as a narration quest to find Icar’s love Kit. The navigation is pretty simple after playing around with it. 

Outside of the interface of navigation, I would like to go into further depth of discussing the content of the piece. Interestingly enough, while I was experiencing Icarus’ tale, I could not help thinking of The Hero’s Journey. I learned about The Hero’s Journey as an undergrad student, but I was reintroduced back to it just recently by one of the college students I tutor I work with. Since Icarus is on a journey/adventure to find his love, I thought it would be cool to break this piece down within the steps of The Hero’s Journey!

Breaking It Down

“Every story has a beginning, a middle and an end. In the beginning you set up your hero (or heroine) and his story, then you throw something at him that is a great source of conflict and takes him into a whole heap of trouble. After facing many foes and overcoming various obstacles the hero saves the day and wins the girl.

If only writing a movie was that easy…”

Below you can find the 12 steps that make up the Hero’s Journey.

The Ordinary World 

We are first introduced to Icarus as his awakening from the floor of the house is on. He wakes up and realizes that he fell asleep playing the game again. From this, we know the Ordinary World for Icarus is house, and the coach (he fell asleep on).

The Call of Adventure

From playing the game, I realize that Call of adventure seemed more apprean than The Ordinary World (since we first introduced our protagonist on the floor). But nethertheless, The Call of Adventure for Icarus is when he realizes he must find his girlfriend, Kit. 

Refusal of the Call 

I would not necessarily say Icarus refused the call to the adventure (I believe he wanted to find Kit very badly!). I would say he was more so surprised where he ended up and that he had to save Kit.

Meeting the Mentor 

Does the little narration voice guiding Icarus count as a mentor? In my perspective, the narration voice asks as a guide for Icarus (in player mood, the voice kind of gives subtle directions on what to do next.). I found the voice very useful!

Crossing the First Threshold 

Icarus is navigated through a common household, outside, under water, in a blimp … I think the threshold was crossed numerous times.

Tests, Allies, Enemies 

I think this attribution of The Hero’s Journey is what made this piece so engaging. Icarus is put against many obstacles and foes, and it’s our job as the readers to help Icarus! The special literary part of this piece is the literature is found through conversation with the: narrating voice, enemies who after Icarus, items that must be achieved, and the search to find Kit. Who said video games can’t teach reading?

Approach to the Inmost Cave 

This portion of The Hero’s Journey is displayed when we are being chased towards the cliff by the angry mob (he stole the mud ball). This where he finally finds Kit.

The Ordeal 

I would say the biggest ordeal at this point in Icarus is when he is falling out of a hot air balloon.

Reward 

Icarus’ end reward was finding Kit (even though it seems as if she is saving him in the end).

The Road Back/Resurrection 

There was not too much of these two portion of the journey that was evident in Icarus.

Return with the Elixir

Icarus finally awakes from his dream and learns… to never sleep while playing the game!

Overall Experience

I enjoyed the entire experience of this piece! I would arguably say that this is my favorite one!

The Emotions Experiencing Motions

For this week’s blog post, I am going to share my experiences of the elit piece: Motions. I will first talk about the navigation of the site:

Navigation

This elit piece was pretty easy to navigate through. I used my laptop to navigate through the piece, so I only needed your arrow keys to go back and forth through each page. The audio was a great concept in putting sound to setting. The audio was uncomfortable and kind of weird (alongside the images). The text itself was pretty easy to read and follow along, like a narrative. The way the images would appear in an order then in the next page with no order, puzzled me at first. But as I navigated through the rest of the site, I began to understand its purpose. The story is portraying the “journey” into child sex trafficing, the unknowning of where it will lead the children to.  

Emotions felt throughout the experience

Even though the multimodal were great to experience, the general message of the piece is a sad reality. Throughout the piece we are given snippets of different ways on how human trafficking circles, internatioanlly. Sadly, many people are given false hopes and dreams that by living in that lifestyle, you will be able to survive. The image below snapped for the elit piece really hit home because I truly enjoy getting my nails done. Obviously this does not apply to every person of asian descent that does nails.. But this short passage makes you take it into consideration:

Connected with Pieces of Herself

Navigation

The navigation of this site was really cool and interesting to mess around with! The drag and drop option of the pinup doll reminds me of the online game dress up I would play as a 10 year old (I can’t quite remember the name of the game)! But nonetheless, it was really fun to go through the day-to-day routine of feminism. It took me about four pass-throughs of the site to completely understand the navigation of the click and drag option (oh the fun of discovering/experiencing elit!). The navigation takes you to several day-to-day settings of the average person (but with a fminism/female perspective). 

Emotions felt throughout the experience

I was able to personally connect with this elit piece, as sharing the commonality of identifying as a female. The most interesting aspect that took to me was during the scene of the church. The music that played in the background alongside the baby fetus (that was a bit creepy). But the song that was playing is a song I would sing to my residents at the nursing home! Interestingly enough, I am just realizing this song is addressing the aspirations of a girl dreaming to be a beautiful housewife. Below is a youtube video of the song:

Overall Experience

My overall experience of this piece is that it was great to interact with this piece; audio, click and drag, multimodal. It was also interesting to experience as a female and comparing/contrasting my day-to-day life of what the interactive piece presents.

Hi fellow lit scholars! In today’s post, I will be targeting Kevin’s assigned text  “Bots”. This electronic literature is from Volume 3 in the Electronic Literature Collection and is primarily made up of a mini collection of pieces centered around setting of Twitter. With that, I decided to break down my blog in the format of a series of questions presented in Dr. Zamora’s last class blog post. Below you can see the break down of how I answered the questions:

What are some of the significant textual elements?  

Some significant textual elements from BOTS is the use of the social media handle twitter. Even though each mini collections has its own theme that makes it unique, 

How did you choose to navigate these texts?  

I choose to navigate through each piece in the mini collection by opening up the live twitter action made by each BOT. I did not go in any particular order, I just clicked and looked most interesting to venture into.

What visual, sound, interactive elements left an impression?  

Since there are 12 different parts of the mini collection, I am going to do a quick breakdown of the ones that were most intriguing to me!

@TinyCrossword: The visuals that left an impression on me was the crossword images. The main aspect of the crossword puzzles tweeted is that the answers are simple and easy to find. This is a great interactive tactic to connect people (I actually started following the account!)

@everyword: This one is particularly my favorite due to it be something like the “twitter encyclopedia”. The project is done between 2007 – 2014 and has a book that you can buy a alongside the tweets! http://www.instarbooks.com/books/everyword.html. The imagery within the site the host book is very playful and bright (two things I really like).

What overall effect do these texts create?  

Twitter in itself is such an engaging communication application, so seeing it being used in this manner is pretty easy to navigate. The tweets within each mini collection has their own theme of the text (bots being the main controller of the tweets).

What themes and symbolic language emerge in navigating the text? 

The themes I see in the emerging language is the use of bots in twitter feeds. As I said before, the navigation was pretty simple, due to twitter being one of the main mediums being used within my MA program.

What is literary about the text?

I am not sure exactly how to answer this (seems like this my theme for every #elit blog post), but isn’t that what electronic lit is all about? The literary aspect I see in this Elit is the language being used to distinigsh each account from one another. Again, I am not to confident in my answer.

For this week’s blog post, I will be giving you all access to both my presentation and review paper for the electronic literature Queerskins! Please fill free to checkout my work before my presentation in today’s class.

Overview of the readings

When reading Pressman’s article Navigating Electronic Literature, we are introduced to the breakdown of electronic literature. The main aspect that I got from this article is the way electronic literature can be interpreted and read in different ways, by different readers. As stated in the article: “Regardless of your view, however, navigating a hypertext not only promotes questions about the role of the reader and the reading practice but also about the structure and significance of literature itself.” 

From this point, this is where I tie it to the first piece of electronic literature of the semester: 

This piece of electronic literature was a very interesting introduction into the world of electronic literature. I am going to be completely honest, I was a bit intimidated by the use of hyperlinks to jump from different parts of the story (I see why we were instructed to read for 1 hour). There are so many different directions and patches you can go in the reading that the reader has the chance to see it both in a consent order/theme or in random order (or maybe this was just my experience. Nevertheless, this piece of literature uses hypertext to guide readers through the stories of each character

Deeper Reflection on Twelve Blue

When applying the knowledge from Pressman’s article to Twelve Blue, I mainly focused on how hypexted and hyperlinked embed images served as a guide through the story. After 15 minutes into the reading, I realized that this type of storytelling needed to be spoken aloud, rather than in the head. Again, I was pretty confused when trying to read Twelve Blue as an ordinary piece of literature. 

I was not necessarily confused by the content, but by the order in way the text would appear or navigate me to. Once I let go of trying to read the text as “normal”, the story began to flow. As I read this blue text, with blue background, with Blue essentially being within the title.. I decided to do a little research of what blue might represent for the reading. Calm, cool, water.. These themes surrounding blue are evident in each piece of hypertext present in this piece of literature. This idea of mother/daughter relationship, to father/daughter discussion of reproduction, the sea being compared to sperm… this reading is definitely one that needs to be read 4 or more times.

Greeting fellow ELit scholars! My name is Patricia Dennis and I am a continuing graduate student within the Writing program. This is actually my last semester and I will be done with my MA (jumps up and down like a three year old)! With that being said, I am excited to take this electronic literature journey with you all! This blog (alongside my MA Thesis blog) is a bit better sweet, being that this is my last first blog of my MA studies. 

Quite honestly, I have done so many introductions throughout my course of the MA program that I kind of run out of stuff to say (sorry). The best way I can sum up a “good introduction” is from my Welcome Page on my site, so here you go:

Hi all, and welcome to my blog! 

So a little about me… My name is Patricia Dennis and I am a native of Newark, NJ. I am an aspiring artist, student, traveler, and educator. I use this blog to share my many experiences, thoughts, works of art, and education! 

All my life, my mind and voice has been my sense of power. Being able to express myself through many different forms has gotten me to where I am today. I continue to strive for my own potential of greatness and wish to share my journey with the world, in hopes that I can inspire generations to come.

As for my educational and professional background, I received my B.A. in English with a minor in Studio Art from the College of Saint Elizabeth in Morristown, NJ. After graduating, I began to serve under AmeriCorps as a Reading Coach for 2nd Grade students where I am currently serving my second term. I am also currently pursuing my M.A. in English Writing Studies at Kean University in Union, NJ. As a graduate student at Kean, I work as a Graduate Assistant for The Kean University Writing Project directed by Dr. Maria Zamora.

Another fun fact! I am also a chess instructor for young beginning chess players!

Thank you and I hope you enjoy the journey just as much as I am!

If can not be the best, I will do my best

If I do my best, I will try my best

If I can not try my best, then the best is yet to come

Either way, the best is what I strive for!