I have been playing around with an idea for my final project that I think I could have a lot of fun with. I want something light-hearted and fun/silly. The idea follows four roommates one of which received brownies from his grandma. He makes it very clear to his roommates that they are not permitted by any means in any circumstances to touch the brownies. Lo and behold the brownies are eaten and the piece will follow the roommates stories on what they did that evening to have the reader figure out who dunnit. My goal is to having something fun for readers to experience.
I also had been playing around with ideas of a he said/she said story story told in two different perspectives. I want one story to be told with traditional black text on a white screen and the other to be told an inverse of white text on a black screen. I am not the most technologically savvy person so my biggest concern is not the creative piece but the execution of it. I hope to workshop ideas on how I could execute my ideas in a semi easy way while maybe learning a new skill or two.
I’ve had the idea for my final project for a little bit now. This semester, I’ve been living in a new space, so a lot of the last four months has been dedicated to not only researching and writing for the requirements of this program, but also for learning about the environment around me. Because of this, I have been writing a lot about the birds I’ve been seeing. Writing this out, I find it quite odd. Though, It’s something that I have been really enjoying. With each passing day, the number of birds I see are less and less, and that makes me sad. It makes me feel a bit like Tony Soprano, when he becomes depressed after the ducks leave his pool.
So, I have quite a bit of poetry about these birds. Specifically, haikus. So, what I’m thinking is doing some sort of hyper-text poetry with my haikus, and maybe throw in some tankas. Overall, I want all the poetry to have some kind of syllabic format. So, I’m thinking the haikus will see these birds throughout the seasons. Four sections, maybe three to four haikus per season, with a tanka to indicate the changing of seasons. Thus, it will be narrative driven, as it follows a sort of environmental sequencing, and it will also follow the same kinds of birds.
I have not started building the website yet, but I am gathering all of my bird-related haikus. I know I will have to compose some tankas about the seasons themselves, but I’m not worried about that. Overall, I’m just thinking of what the website will actually look like and how the hyperlinking will work. I really enjoyed the simplicity of Twelve Blue with its quiet background. I think I will replicate that in a way that complements my work. I want the work to speak for itself and not let random effects override the meaning of the haikus. Also, I am not that great at detailing digital spaces, so I will see how far I can push myself.
I don’t enjoy the bot helping me create the poem. It doesn’t match the theme that I’m trying to run with when I make my choices. I do like the concept of a digitalized blackout poem software because it makes the art accessible to those who might’ve never known about it from anywhere else and people who struggle with fine motor skills (handwriting). I’d like this much more if the bot was removed and the original pieces were longer or from contemporary works. I don’t particularly feel inspired by Nick Carroway discussing West Egg.
I reserve my judgements about 200 Castles because I couldn’t find the app that would showcase the story, and I wasn’t willing to print out the pictures. The concept is interesting, and there was bound to be accessibility issues in the execution. The website can definitely be improved upon by adding a section dedicated to troubleshooting. Otherwise, this is a creative means that artists in the future may also begin to adopt more.
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.
200 Pieces, Felt a bit like rummaging through a junk drawer. The work is scattered, fragmented, a little messy, I was a bit disappointed and frustrated because I really believed that I was getting the hang of this “electronic literature “. 200 pieces did not feel like literature.
One moment that really stuck with me happened about halfway through my wandering. I clicked into a small block of text that looked almost like a glitch It turned out to be just a few lines shoved off to the corner. It read like an unfinished memory: someone describing a bus ride, the way the window fogged up, and the blur of lights outside. It was only a few sentences, but I got the idea that we all have the small memories that may not tie into something else. It reminded me of those flashes of life you remember for no reason at all, scenes that don’t belong to any larger story, but stay with you anyway.
That’s what the whole experience felt like: bumping into moments that didn’t need to justify themselves. No plot arcs. No explanations. Just a collage of hints, confessions, images, and oddities. And the more I clicked, the more I realized the joy was in the wandering, not the understanding.
Tried out the Blackout Poetry Tool the other day, and wow, it turns out to be quite a trip. I grabbed a random piece of text and just started circling words that jumped out at me. There’s something so satisfying about turning a whole page into a little pocket of meaning.
I wasn’t able to get the ‘definition’ of what black out poetry is, but I was able to figure this one out quickly.
At one point, I pulled this line: “Everything fades but the spark remains.” I didn’t even plan it, it just poppedup. I guess that’s the beauty of blackout poetry: the words are already there, you just have to notice them. At first nothing made any sense, but as I worked with the bot version, I started to see how you could create small patterns. It’s kind of like finding your own secret message in someone else’s story.
You start seeing patterns, connections, little nuggets that you’d never notice just skimming a page. It felt more like a game.
There used to be these magnets for your fridge that were words and you could move them around and leave messages for your family or little poems or haiku’s, this reminded me of those magnets.
It’s creative, a little meditative, and honestly not a bad and playful way to spend some time. But I’m not sure how it is literature, other than the poetry that might arise from the words.
This week we covered two pretty cool works of E-lit. To start I want to talk about 200 Castle. This work again goes with the idea of accessibility within the context of E-lit. Augmented Reality works are really cool to experience in person. Much, if not all of their value is based on the interaction between the user and their device’s camera. Since I could only see this work through a video from author Caitlin Fisher, I feel like I am missing the point. It’s the same feeling of hearing a movie that people love to talk about and learning it’s hard to find online. From what I saw through the video, I can say that I am super interested in the work regardless. The work using a real book to flip through is a brilliant way of including a physical aspect into the work. The act of flipping through a book brings another level of immersion rather than scrolling on a webpage for example. The fact that the reader could read it out of order also added a level of control as the reader only interacted with images that they were interested in. The only issue I could consider having with this work is the fact that holding a phone or tablet while trying to see the book could be challenging, though I guess we will never know.
The other work that was covered this week was the Black Out Poetry Tool by Jazer Chand. I have to admit that I initially judged this work too harshly when I first looked at it. I am a poetry hater through and through (honestly, I just do not “get it”). Looking at this, I was kind of put off. The first setting of “Thesis” was pretty straight forward. I took my time to create a work from the first couple lines of Mary Shelley’s masterwork. The “anithesis” setting was off putting in a way. Since I took some time to pick my words, it was kind of a moment of whiplash to see the bot spit out a work almost instantly. It reminded me of my feelings of AI within the realm of writing (that’s a can of worms I do not want to even touch). It was with the “synthesis” setting was great. Working with the bot to create a work was way more enjoyable than I imagined. Rather than spitting out piece, the bot works with the user, vamping off of our selection. I liked how the bot chose words that would naturally fit with the words that the user chose. It creates the illusion of collaboration (only an illusion since the bot is not a real person, just a program). This new back and forth created a pretty interesting experience. Finally, the last setting worth talking about was “symbiosis”. While the user has total control of their word choice, the bot gives a number of suggestions to use. This felt like when word gives grammar suggestions on a paper. It ignores what the writer intends and only spits out what it “thinks” is right. Sometimes I ignored their selections, while other times it chose a word that fit into what wanted to do. This was another interesting option to use. This whole work seemingly looked to explore creatives use of tech. Some people create on their own, some use tech to think for them. But for many of use, tech is used as a tool to help our process. Creators negotiate with this dynamic today now more than ever. Super cool to see it play out through this work. The visual option was nice if you are into that kind of thing.
I’ve read that if you use your iPhone or tablet that you can see 3D images, and Virtual Reality images, as well as hidden stories within the photographs.
This piece is really cool. I really like how there are different methods of selection.
My favorite method of navigation is synthesis where you select and the bot selects. What a fascinating way to work together with AI! This is a really unique way to be creative.
This tool seems like a great way to find inspiration by taking something that already exists and blacking out parts to create something new. I like how there are an infinite number of combinations of poems that the reader can make simply by selecting different words and phrases each time.
Using AI to help with the blackout poems feel like a great way to use AI to be creative while letting the reader work together with the AI rather than having the AI do all the work.
I love the simple interface of this piece and how the possibilities for new poems from the existing texts seems endless.
200 Castles
The concept of this piece is very interesting. It seems like the piece only fully works if you experience it in person. It seems like it’s a digital version of a museum tour guide / historian. On top of getting a story about each photograph, the video also showed how the pictures pop out on and change on the Ipad.
I have experienced augmented reality before with video games and it really is awesome. I think more places in society should have augmented reality components. Maybe this is a little dystopian, but how cool would it be to point your phone at different pieces in a museum and have them come to life and tell you a story?
I think this piece would have been really cool to experience in person and the effects would probably pretty mind blowing.
This piece does make think about the conversation around preserving electronic literature. Especially with a piece like this that was meant to be experienced in person to understand it’s full potential. What is the best way to capture and preserve a piece like this? And maybe a better question is, is it possible to preserve all forms of electronic literature or will some pieces be unable to be fully experienced in their original form as time goes on?
Even though I did not have an iPad device to interact with the PDF Augmented Reality book, I found other ways to engage and experience with Caitlin Fishers augmented reality elit watching some of her videos as she shows the amazing changes and interacts with her own imaginative story out of her mind when the iPad is placed over each image related to 200 Castles content. Being able to decide in the confines of the framing device and image of each action taking place, movement over the images creates a story or release from some of the intense feelings put into each that will only be seen when the iPad is placed over them. Before that they are just images without a voice or story but come alive as we become the creators of their worlds and ours in the story. Interacting is an important factor with this elit work. The images would be stale, stagnant if not for the Augmented reality that comes from the iPad bringing the images to life and not needing any sound or text to create a story. Each reaction from the viewer will have a different affect to them The theme and significance of each image towards 200 castles and its inhabitants continues as you proceed through the images. Each has a life, relationship and purpose of their own but also as a whole to the entirety of the work. The audio and actual changes I was not exposed to as much as I would like due to the technological requirements needed. This remains significant for meaning and interaction through a timeline of images. Some scenic landscape, Architecture and portraits all adding to the aspects that would make up a castle and human inhabitants.
Once again there is the theme of dichotomy that both elit works provided this week having a factor in our digital tech devices having its role only with our mindful interaction of use giving it a purpose while interacting with images bringing them new meaning as we act as human creators. The contradiction would be using the iPad technology as a prescription lens to look into a past time and creating effects to each image that are recognizable task, trends to our own interaction with capabilities of the collaboration of our technology and digital media. They both though do have a dependency on each other device and flat image to make a new meaning, use and experience together. Then adding our own story to the text as a visual reading not written; to each image of what we depict the image relates to the story and feelings that went with each.
The concept of a “binary” system of how we as humans interact with computers and technology when reading text was realized after reading the introduction and these terms amongst others of being an active participator related to interacting with the blackout poetry. There was a bond of trust, curiosity and vulnerability to the bot’s choices since it is common as humans we want the last say or sometimes dont like the results of a collaboration that reflects back to you almost like a group project. We go in front of our screens, which already causes these dichotomies of separation, or binary world. Especially when there is a goo reason to interact and have commands of using the interfaces, technologies and traditional ways of understanding our won interactions or when the computer/digital technology makes content or does certain task for us. The human element of thought, actions reflection, response all become in a way predictive of how we are supposed to read text, express and how we interpret these form others works and also share our own. I think the term “dichotomies ” adequately applies to this Elit work and expectations of what its intentions are in our lives. Sometimes the story and its content creation is not forseen or out of our hands.
Frankenstein text was a good choice with all the various words related to one of my favorite movies, and seeing how thought and action of selecting particular words to decipher, decode within the Poems creation modes infused creating an attempt with my own selections and the bot’s choices to make sensible meaning. I was excited to interact with the text and make my choices down the page. My selections intermeshing with the bots started to make sense for a few lines, then it was just to much to think of how I could make selections that the bot would be able to build upon and make sense based on grammar, structure before knowing that the coding actually was already designed for this. After a few times I just let be and had fun with the interaction of me and the bot. So, I focused on my word selection choices and became curious to the bots afterward. The recurring piano sound did for me become too distracting. It would have been pleasant to hear a variety of piano tunes playing as the mood changed depending on what words were selected and the type of lines formed. It was interesting to learn how the bot was selecting its poetry lines, based from my selections and the corresponding grammar sequence or rule related to it in an attempt to form a line of poetry that seemed to make sense of the words selected, possibly wanting to make it so that I didn’t even realize the bot was contributing, interaction blurred between me and the bot with the more times I performed and the modes/ tasks of Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis, Symbiosis, Visual. These seemed to be in an order where the code would best be suitable and produce the results needed bringing attention to dichotomies of man and machine interactions together and if we can make sense of each other’s choices.
The official class site for Dr. Mia Zamora's Fall 2025 Electronic Literature course.
