By far, this has been the most game-based piece of electronic literature in class that we have read so far. Ultimately, this episode of "Inanimate Alice" is highly visual and has a lot of emphasis on using first person POV through out its video game-esque narrative. The author uses a lot of real life photographs to build up the setting that is essentially all around you, and even incorporates an element of self-exploration to navigate the end of the story. It's a choose-your-own-adventure without words, and acts as if you're exploring the world inside of a video game, which is definitely a neat element to add to the multidimensional feel that elit allows the reader.
However, the question of electronic literature truly being "literally" can truly be contested here. Since it relies so much of techniques associated with gaming, as well as visuals (pictures, ect.,) does it stay consistent with what classifies something as literature?
In my opinion, yes, I do find this piece literary, but I don't think I would have if I did not make a mistake first.
Originally, I was under the impression we were reading "Inanimate Alice" from the beginning; thus, I started with episode one, which I felt was less like a video game and more like a story. The plot was simple: Alice's dad gets lost, and she and her mom, Ming, get into their jeep to search for them... Does that sound familiar? What struck me most about "Episode 4" was that it shows its complexity as a piece of literature by introducing intertextuality. When in England, Alice's friends ask her to make stories of them, and she shows them how easy "storytelling" and making them can be. As an example, she subtly references the plot of the first episode, but the way she does it makes seem as if, maybe, it had never really happened to her...
Alice, then, becomes this unreliable narrator, and now the reader is more closely reading the text of this fluctuating storyline. We are analyzing her words and trying to make connections and critical analyses of the narrative. Additionally, her friend "Brad" follows her to the fourth episode, the imaginary one she drew back in episode one, and acts as an imaginary friend and "guardian" of sorts. It adds more depth and complexity then just being a shallowly visual experience - for me, it makes me question who Alice is, why she is "inanimate"; ultimately, the question of what is real and what isn't within the story keeps the audience on their toes, and becomes a driving motivation to read the piece of electronic literature.
Inanimate Alice was probably my favorite Elit I have read so far. I love the flow of it and how you must get through one part in order to reach the next. Compared to other Elit pieces, this one was the least confusing and had a beginning, middle and end like most literature I read. I guess I am still in my comfort zone when it comes to a piece of literatures structure, but I am hoping by the end of the semester to come out of that comfort zone.
I believe the images/clips and sounds were the most important feature to this piece. The music would increase as the climax began to form and it would become silent at moments where you could picture Alice in this small, dark and scary place. The images basically told the entire story with only a few words when necessary and that is what I enjoy reading the most. I like when you can put a “face” to the “sounds.” I was a little confused as to why the story began with this girl who was about to die when the stairs collapsed as she was walking up them, but then I realized that when she started talking about her old life and discussing her new life, it was a flashback. I have always heard that right before you die you may see your entire life in a matter of seconds and that is what I thought was going on here. Alice was appreciating her past, even the parts that were not so great. She was especially fond of the present, well not the present of her almost dying, but the present of where her life was at at the moment.
I also enjoyed the story inside of the story which discussed Alice’s game that she created. A lot of the icons were clickable and made this more interesting and interactive. After Alice got back to talking about the present situation she was in and having to go through this place in order to survive, I found myself frustrated by getting the pointed fingers wrong in order to get out. Unlike Alice, as the reader, we did have an easy way out. We could simple “ask Brad” for the directions in order to leave, but unfortunately that is not how life really works. I tried to be in the moment and do it on my own, but after a while I had to come back to reality so I gave up and let Brad basically take control of the situation.
Overall, I really enjoyed this piece and it helped me into thinking more about my own piece of Elit that I would like to put together. This gave me the idea or theme about life in general and how we really do not have control over what happens, but at the same time our decisions effect our actions and how things turn out.
So for my Elit piece I was thinking that because we do not get to choose the lives we are born into, but we get to choose the decisions we make in our lives, I would have this huge dice to start off my piece in which there are 6 different types of life you can get when clicking and rolling the dice, whatever you get is what you are stuck with throughout the piece. 6 choices because the dice is 6 sided of course. Throughout the piece sometimes you have to keep rolling the dice and others you must choose a path indicating that sometimes we do have choices and sometimes things happen by chance or by luck. There will be several ending points depending on the choices you have made throughout this piece or your “life.” One will be death, another will be higher education or maybe being homeless or even starting a family. Your choices will lead you down this path, but the key is to answer and do things honestly. Like the way you would in real life. I want to use images, text and maybe some sound, but nothing too overwhelming.
It is because of readings like this one that I have learned to love eliterature. I am loving these readings that make me feel different emotions when navigating through. It was obvious hat Alice needed help throughout this story and I felt as if I was the only one who could be that person for her to help her. Thinking back, I wonder why I didn't feel pressured like maybe if I couldn't save her she would end up dying because of me. Instead, I was motivated because she kept popping up and it would remind me why I had to get through the story so that I could save her and keep her from falling. I enjoyed the fact that I was scared. The reading stimulated my emotions but it gave me a drive to want to finish. I was very intrigued. This has been the piece where I show most interest from start to finish. Inanimate Alice contained music that was fitting to the story. It was music I had never heard of before which helped me concentrate and stay focused. It added a little mystery to the piece.
Listening to the music made me think of my final elit piece and what I want to work on and it reminded me how music will play a big part. I would also like to add a game somewhere in my story. It was fun to play a quick game while being scared for Alice's life. Depending on what I want to write about, I'll see if a game will fit. I had fun with the game during Inatimate Alice but I can also see how someone would be distracted my it and not enjoy playing. I definitely want to navigate the reader through my story and help them feel what I feel as the writer. That is when I will feel successful and be proud of my Elit piece.
Wow! I believe this piece is my favorite one thus far. As I began, I got a creepy vibe coming from the digital sounds and the dark picture the narrative was showing. Going through a story about a 14 year old girl named Alice that was stuck on a halfway broken staircase on her way to the top of a building. Scared to fall to her death, through a creative and digitally interactive lens, the author decide to show different elements of the life of Alice that lead to that exact point in her troubled survival. Clicking through, I reviewed hypertext and slow paced pictures and media. The music played fitting to the setting of the story in Moscow, Russia. It helped play a role in placement, made me fell as if I were present in that exact country.
As the author encourages you to click through the narrative, it takes you on stairs that go up , and up, and up, until you have reached a point mid-way where you can play a game that eventually leads you through dark and spooky rooms to the top of the building whee the story comes to a halt. She showed something that seemed like a tablet to me that would help navigate readers through the story. I enjoyed having a side panel part that helped keep you in track through this confusing piece of elit.
What caught me by surprise was when she was explaining how she began to love her life in Russia, to a text box popping up saying,” I’m going to die”. As she feared for her life, a game of different realms pops up to help you save her life. I felt as if her life was in my hands at that point. I felt in the rooms myself and I was kind of scared as some points which I believe was the point the author was trying to entail.
All in all, I believe this piece was successful in showing how navigating through different segments can really play a role in the inter-activeness elit has to offer. Being able to navigate ans ultimately helping save the life of Alice, the author put you in a game or a somewhat kind of setting or feeling like you were a part of the story. You were Alice, and you were in power making decisions as the where you would go next.
**For my own Elit piece!
As with most of my work, I would like for my project to be both personal and very hard to stop reading. Exploring my experiences through life can help me create a poem that can take you through every aspect of the particular part of my life or my encounter with this situation. I want to state a point in time without telling the reader what it really is. This gives the reader power in deciding what I was writing about the whole time. I’d like to create a hypertext piece that explores a point in my life where I experienced a hardship. I will have readers navigate through hypertext and put themselves in my shoes page by page until eventually the aspect of the matter of what I was speaking pf becomes evident. People can feel, hear, and know what pain I went through from a simple elit narrative. Poetry to me helps bring out a deeper emotion that flows when it comes to my own personal writing. This will help spark emotions within my paper making it a very successful one. I look forward to exploring realms that I can express and create this piece for my project.
The e-lit story High Muck a Muck: Playing Chinese is an interactive poem, created through an interdisciplinary collaboration of Canadian artists, programmers and community members. The project entails an interactive website, 8 videos and an interactive gallery that exemplifies the works of these Chinese disciplines. High Muck a Muck: Playing Chinese explores the theme of Chinese immigration to the west coast of Canada – both historical and the contemporary tensions that exist in and between these narratives. Trying to interpret a complex narrative such as High Much a Muck.
High Muck a Muck: Playing Chinese troubles the cliché of historical tales of Chinese immigration by exposing this classic narrative against one of mobility driven by the exigencies of contemporary global capitalism. Disrupting a charming world of hand-painted graphics and traditional Chinese music is the winking gleam of a highly adaptable, well molded, digital class. As we take our chances and enter the modals of blue digital ink splatter, the myth of immigration as a pathway to increased fortune and happiness disintegrates from within and around through unknown portals. The journey may take you nowhere, the winnings of the game may be less than fortunate.
Within each piece of blue ink splatters that I selected, I noticed more and more how tradition became more rich through every piece of this narrative. This piece was excellent in displaying rich culture norms of china and a great platform to tell a never ending story and digital variations of a Chinese poem.
This week, we checked out Inanimate Alice, by Kate Pullinger and Chris Joseph. This piece was different from anything that we've looked at so far for two reasons: One, it was the first piece that we've looked at this semester that is meant for children and young adults; and, two, it was more game-like than the other pieces. According to the author's note on the introduction page, we the reader must help Alice navigate through a dangerous, half-demolished factory.
Reading further, I learn that this piece is an episode in a series. It is episode number four, so I detour to Wikipedia in order to see what the series is about. According to Wikipedia, this series follows Alice, who's family emigrates from one country to another every few years. There are time jumps between the episodes, and each episode seems to take place in a different country. Episode four finds Alice and her family living in a town in the middle of England.
Upon entering the game, a reader is given two options: the episode or the teacher's version of the episode. I chose the episode, and was then met with an instruction screen. The game-like components of this piece are introduced when the authors inform the reader that "you may need to perform an action for the story to continue".
A film-like title screen follows the instruction screen; dramatic music plays to an image of a factory at dusk. Alice then introduces herself. She is fourteen years old. On the next screen, videogame-like music plays while snapshot sounds introduce pictures of a factory and metal stairs. Alice has been dared to climb the stairs of an abandoned factory by her new friends. When I click on the image of a pointing finger, Alice begins to climb the stairs.
The stairs collapse under Alice, and I am met with a black screen and four pointing finger, each indicating a different direction. I click up, and Alice hauls herself onto the remaining ledge. As she does, the words on the screen move as if pulling themselves upward. I click down, and the bottom of the stairs have completely separated from the building and have fallen. I click right: Alice's friends have screamed. I click left: her friends have run off and left her, or so she thinks. They come back.
They story then takes a detour as there is a flashback of Alice's family leaving Moscow. An interactive tablet appears with an overview of the city. There are options to click. "My House" opens to a blue print of the home that Alice's family rents. There are some rooms that can be explored. I noticed that the home has a very new looking bathroom but a very old, outdated kitchen. Alice calls it "something from another century". I also took note that Alice seemingly has very little privacy. Her parents must walk through her bedroom in order to get to the only bathroom.
From the "My Friends" and "My School" links, I learn that Alice now feels that she has finally made "actual friends my own age" and that she goes "to school now like a normal kid". It seems that in the past, she was homeschooled by her mother and had imaginary friends.
There are two more links: "The City" and "My Project", both of which also provide interesting backstory for this episode. Alice shows the reader how she creates stories on her tablet with iStories. She also explains how she thinks that she is the only person in her family that likes the new town. It is full of old ramshackle buildings and weeds; her mother seems to be unhappy about having to work outside of the home; Alice thinks little of her father's new teaching job. Her parents are arguing all of the time, so Alice goes off on her own, by bus, to meet with friends around town.
The backstory ends, and I am back with Alice of the factory ledge. The reader is again given two options: "play the game" or "read only". I chose to play the game. Alice moves into the factory and the reader must use the image of the pointing finger to make choices about which directions to send Alice in. If you get stuck, you are instructed to press [B] so that Alice's imaginary friend Brad can help you.
The factory is dark and falling apart. There is graffiti on the walls and creepy sounds of dripping and mouse squeaks. At times, the reader finds themselves at a dead end and has to turn back. Alice's internal thoughts appear on screen: "I'm afraid I'm making the wrong choice"; "A labyrinth"; "What's that sound?". She is afraid that something is behind her, following her. She fears that she will never find her way out of the factory.
I played around for awhile, going this way and that, turning back when the path became too dangerous. The author's did a very good job of using sound, text, and image to create a sense of unease. I had the sense that at any moment something could pop out or that something bad could happen.
After awhile, I wanted to test out Brad. He appears on screen, cartoonish and a bit transparent, and he points to the correct path.
When Alice finally finds her way out, she announces, "We did it!". She is standing above the city in the sunlight while triumphant music plays in the background.
All in all, I really enjoyed this piece. My only complaint would be that because I started on episode four, I needed a bit more background than I got. I had to read about the series in order to get a better understanding of what was going on.
As soon as I entered the world of high muck a muck, I was captivated by the sounds and the map of the author’s journeys being placed on the back of a body. When I went into the marker on the map named Everywhere and Nowhere, the music in the video brought me back to my time in my Cross Cultural Communication Class with Dr. Yedes. My second cultural event assignment was completed at the Rubin Museum in New York, where I was able to to explore the different cultures that make up South Asia. The music throughout High Muck a Muck took me back into the Tibetan alter/shrine where chant-like music played constantly in the background. Moving along, this piece was very interesting to me and I almost wish that I would’ve found this one to be able to present it :D. I feel that this work is so similar to how I would like my personal project to be. I love that the aspect of poetry (sometimes seemingly obscure but better understood if one clicks the book to read the full thing) is incorporated throughout as the reader travels through all of the places the authors trekked while immigrating to the West coast of Canada.
When I began trying to respond on this blog about this piece of e-lit, I started out by googling the word High Muck a Muck, and it is indeed an actual word (a noun). High Muck a Muck is basically a very authoritative and conceited person, and that was very interesting to me because I still do not know if I understand why it is titled that. I did stumble, however, across Simon Lysander’s website. Lysander contributed to the programming and design of the interactive piece. I liked how he specified the fact that he used “aleatoric processes” throughout the piece to make it feel similar to a fate/fortune, essentially because aleatory is defined as random or dependent upon chance. This concept really brings the piece full circle because that is exactly how it feels.
I became even more fascinated as I read more and more about pak ah pu (Chinese lottery game) because this entire piece, I suppose, is supposed to be like a pak ah pu game. Often spelled pakapoo as well, this game is played by the organizer marking a ticket that has rows of characters on it from the Thousand Character Classic (a poem where no two words are repeated and is used to teach Chinese characters). The player that marks their ticket closet to the way the organizer does wins. I thought that I was the problem at first as I reiterated in my head that the piece was kind of all over the place and messy. I ended up finding out that “it looks like a pakapoo ticket” is an Australian slang way of saying that the writing that is displayed is essentially messy!
I also read that, for the authors, creating this piece was as much of an immigration journey as the actual stories they tell and that is completely understandable. The design of this piece is so carefully and intricately put together. The more that I got into it, the more excited I became to find different things that I did’t see before. I really appreciate this piece for what it is. Stories like the ones these authors shared are stories that need to be told and identified with. There was so much reflection in this and even more release. I have to say that this piece might have been even more powerful to me if I was hearing all of the poetry instead of just in one of the videos in the Canada section (?). Don’t quote me on the section, but I definitely remember it. All in all, I can’t wait for Hailey’s presentation.
As soon as I entered the world of high muck a muck, I was captivated by the sounds and the map of the author’s journeys being placed on the back of a body. When I went into the marker on the map named Everywhere and Nowhere, the music in the video brought me back to my time in my Cross Cultural Communication Class with Dr. Yedes. My second cultural event assignment was completed at the Rubin Museum in New York, where I was able to to explore the different cultures that make up South Asia. The music throughout High Muck a Muck took me back into the Tibetan alter/shrine where chant-like music played constantly in the background. Moving along, this piece was very interesting to me and I almost wish that I would’ve found this one to be able to present it :D. I feel that this work is so similar to how I would like my personal project to be. I love that the aspect of poetry (sometimes seemingly obscure but better understood if one clicks the book to read the full thing) is incorporated throughout as the reader travels through all of the places the authors trekked while immigrating to the West coast of Canada.
When I began trying to respond on this blog about this piece of e-lit, I started out by googling the word High Muck a Muck, and it is indeed an actual word (a noun). High Muck a Muck is basically a very authoritative and conceited person, and that was very interesting to me because I still do not know if I understand why it is titled that. I did stumble, however, across Simon Lysander’s website. Lysander contributed to the programming and design of the interactive piece. I liked how he specified the fact that he used “aleatoric processes” throughout the piece to make it feel similar to a fate/fortune, essentially because aleatory is defined as random or dependent upon chance. This concept really brings the piece full circle because that is exactly how it feels.
I became even more fascinated as I read more and more about pak ah pu (Chinese lottery game) because this entire piece, I suppose, is supposed to be like a pak ah pu game. Often spelled pakapoo as well, this game is played by the organizer marking a ticket that has rows of characters on it from the Thousand Character Classic (a poem where no two words are repeated and is used to teach Chinese characters). The player that marks their ticket closet to the way the organizer does wins. I thought that I was the problem at first as I reiterated in my head that the piece was kind of all over the place and messy. I ended up finding out that “it looks like a pakapoo ticket” is an Australian slang way of saying that the writing that is displayed is essentially messy!
I also read that, for the authors, creating this piece was as much of an immigration journey as the actual stories they tell and that is completely understandable. The design of this piece is so carefully and intricately put together. The more that I got into it, the more excited I became to find different things that I did’t see before. I really appreciate this piece for what it is. Stories like the ones these authors shared are stories that need to be told and identified with. There was so much reflection in this and even more release. I have to say that this piece might have been even more powerful to me if I was hearing all of the poetry instead of just in one of the videos in the Canada section (?). Don’t quote me on the section, but I definitely remember it. All in all, I can’t wait for Hailey’s presentation.
"High Muck a Muck," a multimedia piece of electronic literature, uses watercolor visuals, written poetry, sound/music effects, and superbly-edited videos to capture the experience of Chinese immigrants to Canada. Although I can see the artistry in each aspect of the piece, I feel as if the videos carry the most power, so much so that every other part of "High Muck a Muck" actually feels extraneous to me. The same power and viewer empathy could have been achieved by the videos alone, and thus the e-lit medium was perhaps not the most appropriate for this amazing piece.
The piece begins with a watercolor ink blot on a Chinese lottery card. This ink motif continues throughout the piece, and it seems to be the thread holding it all together. When the viewer clicks on the ink blot, they are taken to a map painted in watercolor on a man's back. More ink blots are used to mark towns and regions of Canada, as well as "Everywhere and Nowhere." When clicked, most of these ink blots take the viewer to a watercolor scene of the town that includes images of Chinese immigrants, regional landmarks, and some more abstract symbols/images. Everywhere and Nowhere takes the viewer to a yin-yang symbol that opens a video. In the town scenes, there is always a man with a camcorder, who when clicked brings the viewer to a short video. The other people bring up short snippets of poetry. In my opinion, these town images are unnecessary, especially once the viewer realizes that the same poetry is included in a much more vivid way in the videos: a voice-over read by a man with a Chinese accent. That's a big deal for me to say because I don't usually like to take in literature audially; nine times out of ten, I would rather read than hear a story or poem. "High Muck a Muck" is that rare 1/10 where I get more out of hearing the poetry read to me. Perhaps it has to do with the reader's accent and cadence, or perhaps it has to do with the images in the video that complement the poetry being read; I'm not sure. I just find the written poetry in the town scenes a lot emptier and flatter than the same poetry in the videos.
Two recurring elements in this piece really stuck out to me: the calligraphy and the strange puppet. I think they are actually meant to stand in opposition to each other to represent the conflicting identities of Chinese immigrants. The calligraphy, watercolor ink, and paintbrush imagery is fluid, beautiful, and organic; it evokes images of ancient Chinese culture and the pride associated with such. In one video, there is even a performance by a man suspended by his ankles pantomiming the movements of the head of a paintbrush. Although this image is quite jarring at first, I think it shows the deep connection Chinese immigrants have to the calligraphy brush. They are their writing utensils; their words push and pull them. Even the most romantically-minded American writer would have a hard time admitting or convincingly expressing such a vulnerability and intimacy with their pens or word processors. In contrast, the puppet, which has no arms (perhaps representing feelings of powerlessness?) and wears the wide conical hat associated with old Chinese stereotypes, is stiff and awkward in its movements, and it looks out of place whenever it is shown. I'm not sure if this awkwardness is meant to express the feelings of isolation/alienation provoked by living in a land so separated from their history, or if it is supposed to show how poorly and painfully Chinese immigrants actually fit into Western stereotypes. Either way, the strange little puppet does a great job of grabbing the viewer's attention.
