Homework assignment Wikipedia Link

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tam_cuc

presentation

http://www.wordcircuits.com/clues/

Digital poetry artist Robert Kendall explore the gray area of technology and poetry in which he quote in his opening statement “We all know that poetry and technology don't mix . . . until we remember that writing itself is a technology. The technology of writing is changing in an age of electronic media, and literature is changing with it. This home page is part of my effort to help poetry and fiction make the transition from ink to pixels” This brings up the issue of is digital poetry could be consider a form of poetry? To some people, poetry means that open up a book with artistic cover and read verses which carries hidden emotion. Feeling the texture of the paper between the figures and have the smell of paper faintly in the air making the experience of reading the poem goes through all you five senses. Reading digital poetry takes away this physical sensation form the readers. Digital poetry usual being display on a screen with not just text but a hybrid of texts, sounds, images, and animations. Sometimes these poetries could become overload with information as Manovich described in “Avant-Garde As Software” “the information becomes noisy.”
However with the new technology and the invention of digital technology, some could argue that, with new mediums available and with new techniques that can be use, this had enhanced the way the poetry being written. New mediums allow the artist express their thoughts and emotion when they right the poem better then just simple text. Also the sounds, images, and animations also carry the message that the artist tries to transmit better to the readers and improve the readers’ experience.
Robert Kendall’s “Clues” is a leading example of digital poetry. With this piece he included sounds, image and text typography to carries the reader through his work and experience the poem in unique way with each entry.
“Clues” is a poem with detective theme. As the reader entering the page, the readers are show to a mysteries design with the sense of 1950s detective films, with the “technique-color” display and ambiance lighting. As the reader entering “Clues” readers are being welcome in with a mysterious music that boosts senses and provokes reader curiosity to explore more of this world. As reading through the first page the reader in introduces to three doors in which when the reader chose the door they would enter a different place.
With it own narrations that tie to the images. As reading deeper in to poem the readers will encounter with segments of the poem called clues that provide the reader with more information that carries the readers the readers to experience the poems in different ways. The clues also follow the detective theme of the poem, with clues that the readers come across show in red to suggest to the readers to unlock that path and moving on reading the poem. The style that artist shows to the readers carries the hidden meaning of the poems in with the artist want the readers to read through and ultimately discover the meaning and the message that the artist express in the work.
The typography the artist chooses to display his poetry is clean nothing too fancy that could disturb the reading process of the readers. The text also carries the design of the early 1900s with dark text against a neutral color background, which makes the text seem transparent, and acts as a narration to the images which standout. The writing has a sensuous sense, with evocative messages that have many meaning and with the images and sound available, it able to captivate readers and bring the readers into their own world of thoughts. “Clues” is a good example of digital poetry because it carries one of the more unique characteristics of digital poetry... the interactive between the readers and the artwork. Each page of “Clues” can be access in a non-specific order. The flow and contains of the piece are reading differently depend on the order that the reader choose to access. Each door opens to a different reading and within each door there are sub links that all can be read in different order making the message being transfer is different depend on which order the poetry is read. This is a unique element of the digital poetry that regular poetry do not have. The crafting of this style of poetry gives the reader different experiences when reading, instead of a specific and static form of regular poetry this style gives the readers their freedom to be interactive and choose what to read next.
“Clues” is a good example of digital poetry. However it also has some of the common flaws of this style. The artist try to create interactivity between the work and the readers by create small sub pages, connected to the main page by links, however these link sometimes quite hard to locate to give the readers access to the next page, and in some pages the reader could get stuck within the page with no way to get out. This digital poetry is quite special creation of the technology age, the poem by the artist is contemporary, and the way it being present is new, matching up with the advance of today society. However, the techniques being use is still in a processing method that have room for further improve.

As this modern age, the advancing power of communication and material sharing had made real object become more and more hyper-real. In example, the picture to the left show the famous art work by Leonardo Da Vinci the Mona Lisa, could be said that Leonardo Da Vinci is going digital. As you can see the picture is of Da Vinci famous masterpiece but is it? Nowadays everyone see this picture will say it is the Mona Lisa, But it just simply not, This object to your left if nothing but a binary sequence of computer language that been stringed together so that to through the right program you could see what appears to be the Mona Lisa. Replicas of this art work had pops up at every nook and corner of the earth, everyone see this will recognize this infamous artwork. However what we all see is a copy of copies through many generations of copies or
simply put it, it is nothing ore then a simulacra an object in which Jean Baudrillard states “The simulacrum is never that which conceals the truth - it is the truth which conceals that there is none.” As to put in question, how many of us have seen the Mona Lisa in person? Yes some of us might say that they have seen it in Le Louvre but how could anyone guaranty that what they seen is the original work that painted by Leonardo Da Vinci himself instead of yet just another copy in-display for the sake of protecting the original? This work is just one of many example of the simulacrum world that we living in, where the original, the real had been taken over by simulacra and hyper-real due to the advancing of technology or in plain words the Internet.

Cyberporn

For those who have discovered the pleasure of mangas and animations, some must have heard of doushinji and familiar with this genre, but for those who not having a clue what is this the doushinji could be consider to be fan-fiction or a little more a spin-off of popular manga but carries a different theme of the reader’s opinions and view of the work. Doushinji are usually love stories of characters in the original manga where they could be rivals or comrades or just friends. One of the most popular forms of doushinji is shonenai (boy-love) or a stronger theme of yaoi with characters has full intercourse. Based on this and going back to Uebel’s point on Cyberporn “As the Web becomes increasingly constructed as the imaginary reference point of the public, we begin to recognize our own desires as they are re-presented to us in the media senssuround.” So doushinji is just away for crazy-fan to have a little adventure and broaden their imagination to satisfy their own personal fantasy. So is this genre, could it be consider to be porn? Also, doushinji have a larger female fan-base with works ranging from vanilla love to bloody “battle” but is this a way that what Uebel called “It originates in cultural fantasies of hostility and defiance, rage and boredom, fantasies which change their tack in response to social anxiety, guilt, and identification with the victim.” Is this boy-boy relationship of doushinji characters and doushinji fandom creating a breeding ground for queer in the cyber-culture? Shonenai doushinji are mainly read by female fans, so female fantasizes about boy-on-boy situations than what do will make of this? Or it like Wakeford said “In reviewing the vast array of resources available, it is evident that the larger-scale socio-economic questions of the demographics of produc­tion and consumption of cyberqueer spaces remain largely unanswered.”

Cyber Community

http://2008.weblogawards.org/polls/best-online-community/

This website is an award for most popular online community of the years 2008. As you could see that these online communities are all classify under “interest” categories. The members of these online chatting forums had come together and establish communities that separate them from others. As Bell said “Community’. It’s a word we all use, in many different ways, to talk about . . . what? About belonging and exclusion, about ‘us’ and ‘them’. It’s a common-sense thing, used in daily discussions, in countless associations, from ‘care in the community’ to the Community Hall; from ‘community spirit’ to the ‘business community.” Same goes for the member of this community they consider themselves as members to a specific group, build a surrounding in which they associated and befriended with only the people who share their interests, and standing on common ground. Anyone of us considers ourselves to be a part of a community in which we contribute and share. As for the argument against the online communities brought up the reason that online community take us away from real life and real life situation. However, as Edensor states “These kinds of communities, moreover, only exist because their members believe in them, and maintain them through shared cultural practices.” Sometimes in real life a person could feel uncomfortable, and not knowing where they belong to but when online they could find their community (only one click away,) it will become the heaven where no awkwardness or physical embarrassments could happened, and shy and introvert individuals could express their characteristics and be constructive, than why not let it happened. As Bell mentioned “Detraditionalization frees us from old obligations, and lets us give community a postmodern make-over – and again the Internet offers possibilities to substantially re-imagine the very notion of community.”

Avatar

This is avatar of a member of a entertainment forum, with this picture that the person pick to represent themselves, it easy to identify the member gender, compare it with my icon if see in one could not really put a correct reading on my gender. In the avatar of this member the feminine show through. Beside that, the women in the picture hides her face behind large pair of sunglasses this choice of an avatar to represent an individual reminds us of the concept that Lacan states “the psychotopography of the cyberspace age is marked by hysteria and panic of bodily horrors -- the primary status of the subject's body is treated as ‘that thing which may be invaded.’ In ‘real life’ there is always a gap between the real of the body and reality of the body, between the biological flesh and our orientation to its existence.” The member try to use a picture that have the face mostly hidden make it seem like that the person don’t want to show their true self. This could be that the person afraid of might be recognize by someone on the website in real life. This person choose to hid their real body by using a picture with they protagonist too hid their identity in the picture. As to mine avatar, it a picture that seems like a silhouette, to this picture personality and physical apparent is being completely hidden. As Kunkle states “There is here no discernable border between self and other, no definite boundary prohibiting death from existing within life; the "souls" of Schreber were multipliable, fragmented, and divisible. Schreber's paranoia of the end of the world, envisioned these multiple beings being ‘assimilated bit by bit into the grand divine unity, not without having gradually lost their individual characters’ (Psychoses, 97).” So in this case both this member and myself tried to lose our own personal characteristic and take on to a different body of representation. This creates a pseudo characteristic that is multiple, fragmented and divisible form the real. Also we both to generate a picture that basically have nothing common with how we are, or what we look like in reality like Kunkle quote Lacan "It is in this erotic relation, in which the human individual fixes upon himself an image that alienates him from himself, that are to be found the energy and the form on which this organization of the passions that he will call his ego is based"