I finished up my project by adding some hidden easter eggs alluding to poems throughout “The Wild Iris” by Louise Glück (the book my Minecraft experience is based on).
I planned to present my work by reading some key poems from the book before going through the experience in order to create context for those who haven’t read the book (although I highly recommend you read it if you like poetry!)
I’m hoping to receive feedback in class about anything I might be able to add in order to make the experience feel more fulfilling.
I found the missing piece to my project. I’ve decided to base the Minecraft experience on Louise Gluck’s “The Wild Iris”. I wrote a series of Haikus that are dispersed across the small “experience” I’ve created, attempting to mimic the vibe of the book in Minecraft.
I have a very solid rough draft created right now. It is a short loop that mimics the beginning and ending of “The Wild Iris”. It begins in a dark tunnel. As you walk through the tunnel, you are provided with simple instructions, and at the end, you are met with a door labeled “DEATH”.
You must climb up a staircase with water flooding down, then climb up a waterfall to a glass staircase that takes you to “Heaven’s landing”.
Unfortunately, I had a packed weekend, which resulted in me getting sick. I opened the coffee shop two days in a row and went to a concert in between those two shifts, which resulted in not a lot of sleep and a lot of exposure to people.
Luckily, my project for class is already well under-way. I had the idea of creating a Minecraft Poetry Nature Walk, in which as you walk through different biomes you read Haikus about them.
I’ve already begun writing some of the poems and picking a seed (a randomly generated world that fits the aesthetic purposes of my project.) All I have left to do is design my pathway and surrounding architecture, should I choose to include it.
I’ve dabbled in blackout poetry a number of times, and this project annuls the finality of merely putting a pen to paper. This may be perceived as a positive trait, as it makes blackout poetry a more accessible practice, especially for those who are hoping to experiment with poetry for the first time. Connoisseurs of poetry, or even blackout poetry specifically, may claim that the finality of pen and paper is the substance of the form.
I have my own personal strife with the form of blackout poetry, as I was once assigned to create a poem from the narrative of a former slave. I personally believe there is an ethical boundary in blacking out someone else’s words, and it must be done cautiously.
“200 Castles” I found to be inaccessible, although I believe augmented reality storytelling may be the future of entertainment. With technology such as virtual reality headsets trending in gaming, it is only a matter of time until virtual or augmented reality art forms overtake the media and entertainment industries.
In order to improve the accessibility of “200 Castles”, it very well seems it could become an iPhone app that may not require printed photos and code to run. As technology rapidly improves, so should the accessibility of the project.
“Retratos Vivos De Mamá” was ultra fun for me to consume. Firstly, I only understand basic elementary Spanish, so a lot of my “reading” was a lot of inferring. Secondly, as a dedicated scrapbooker, the art style tickled me!
Making a digital work feel as paper-like and creative as “Retratos Vivos de Mamá” made it just as much a piece of art as it was an interactive literary work. The attention to detail tells a story in itself.
Someone is baring their soul so obviously that no language barrier could stop you from recognizing the layers of intricacy required to make something both interactive and beautiful.
“Writers Are Not Strangers” feels kind of cold in contrast. The interactive portions feel disconnected, like no matter what you choose, something random will appear in front of you. Every time I reloaded the project, it began with a new story.
Electronic Literature puts a lot of emphasis on the medium in which you tell the story. Immediately upon clicking into All Your Time-Tossed Selves a jarring feeling creeps up on you. Utilizing Google Forms as a literary format makes the reader feel like they’re somewhere they shouldn’t be. In the backrooms of education, behind a barrier that students don’t cross.
The questions you’re being asked don’t feel like they are meant for you. It is unnerving having to pick an option based on little more than the sentence you are given. Things flesh-out as you move forward, but you never really get over that strange feeling that the creativity and the formatting don’t belong beside one another.
Hana Feels gave me a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. The game brought me back to a time I try not to think about so much. Being forced to select dialogue options, not knowing how what you say will effect the person. The feeling that something terrible will happen if you don’t say the right thing. Wondering, if you had just said something different could you have saved the other person?
It does a good job of mimicking the vulnerability of trying to help someone in real life.
Both of these pieces visually sadness. The Vine and The Fish describes the feeling of being out of place. I related to the poem the piece opened with, describing moving right before high school.
I sort of experienced this feeling the other way. Right before high school, I moved to China. I also felt very uprooted and out of place, but not in an unwanted and ostracized context. It was a strange feeling being able to relate to the piece in such a half-hearted way.
It made me more engaged in discovering moments I hadn’t had, moments of racism and alienation. The reality for many people. These feelings are important to encapsulate in art to allow others a glimpse into their world, demonstrating how ostracization effects people.
Ask Me for the Moon shows the dark underbelly or resorts and how outsiders take advantage of native land and people for profit. You click through a poem on a black screen as a black and white image of the resort flashes behind the words.
It is sad and ominous. The author’s diction feed into these tones, talking about the resort being held up by the muscles of the natives and living parts of the reef.
Both Yardley, PA, and Avenue S are an exploration of space, but neither in a typical sense. Yardley decorates the screen with poetry. Even selecting the same key over and over again leaves you with the line patterned across the screen.
In my version of the poem, this is the first line. But the beauty of Yardley, PA, is that you can “play” the poem many ways and choose many first lines.
“Play” has multiple meanings in this context: like a game and like an instrument.
Every key on your keyboard becomes a line in a poem and a musical note played aloud.
Avenue S is an exploration of space through clicking across screens; it is meant to overwhelm you and make you feel lost. There are click-through images, pop-ups, and things that might confuse people unfamiliar with certain digital proprieties concerning navigation.
Both of these projects explore space and navigation, yet through entirely different lenses. While Avenue S is more direct via classic click-and-explore navigation, Yardley allows you to write a poem and play an instrument at the same time, creating an intricate lace between physical space (screen space), sound, and poetry.
