I really enjoyed our discussion this week. The “walkthrough” presentations by both Ava and Emily had us thinking together in new ways, and I think the pairing of Ava’s presentation on Ask Me about the Moon, and Emily’s presentation on The Vine & the Fish also yielded a dynamic and thoughtful discussion. As we continue to proceed through our class together, I have noticed the way in which each week’s selections either match-up or mash-up in ways that draw out deeper understanding of electronic literature. In other words, the randomness of “the presentation roster” has somehow yielded new meaning for me, as we take in each new text in unforseen pairings.

Ask Me about the Moon

Thank you for a wonderful presentation Ava on a piece that has always been a personal favorite. Perhaps it is the special blend of beautiful lyric, stark image, ethics, scholarship, and cultural critique, all blended with certain subtlety, that have always spoken to me regarding this elit piece by John David Zuern. Ask me about the Moon evokes the hidden labour and infrastructural underside of tourism in Hawai‘i, and like the timeless tides of the ocean, it brings us in and out of the problematic layering of tourism, labour, and invisibility. Here, Hawaii is not just a scenic fantasy backdrop, but conceptual frame. Tropical leisure is juxtaposed against service industry labour, and we as readers are invited to reflect on the hidden damage of tourism economies, infrastructural degradation, and the poetics of place. I appreciated how Ava had us pause to consider the rhythm and effect of Zuern’s lyric form. Her analysis of how incorporated sounds, the actual rhyme scheme, and the lyric tone itself, mirrors the ebb and flow of repetition (and even exhaustion). We are forced to reconsider our “tourist gaze” and think about what we choose to see as opposed to the reality of an imbalance (rooted in unseen work and ecological pressures). It is a powerful and complex piece of art, and Ava helped us all see that effectively.

The Vine and the Fish

Emily’s presentation was a perfect “Part 2” of our class with her walkthrough of The Vine and the Fish. This work also draws on ecological metaphors (invasive vines, imported fish) while connecting these ideas to the protagonist’s embodied experiences of othering. Sentences are often spare, at times fragmentary. The color palette is a subtle and soothing celadon green. The piece itself could even be called gentle. This simple yet profound web comic is a reflection on migration, belonging, and how language and classification can render people (especially Asian diasporic subjects) as visible or invisible. The vine’s creeping growth and the carp’s invasive reputation function as “double-speak”. On the one hand they are ecological descriptions (kudzu, silverfin, etc.), and on the other hand they are racially inflected metaphors about immigration. The Vine and the Fish foregrounds acts of seeing and being seen. And it makes us all see that the language of classification also does ethical work. Emily’s presentation was especially effective when she juxtaposed her “live” walkthrough of the interactive piece with a rendering of the “pdf” version (the static panels of the web comic). This helped us understand the affordances that come with interactive elements in elit (even if quite simple ones like in this piece). We agreed that the elit version of this story feels more like a journey through time and space, embedding both personal and political reflections as they leap off of the screen.

Visibility & Invisibility

Both of the elit reading this week engage with what is made visible and what is kept invisible. Through web animation, scrolling, layered text or imagery they make apparent the problems of hidden labour, hidden identity, and ultimately, hidden power. These two narratives have both used digital interactivity to emphasize what is visible while concealing and/or revealing something deeper. That mix of surface appearance vs. underlying reality is what impacted me as we looked at these two pieces together.

For next week:

I look forward to the presentation by Tyler on All Your Time Tossed Selves  and the presentation by Cindy on Hannah Feels.

Please read both pieces for next week, and blog about your reading experience.

Happy Halloween!

See you in our our CAS classroom next time (11/3)!