Two Futures

My first narrative was done as a Twine, and can be viewed here.

tl;dr: I focused on world-building; in the aftermath of multiple Pandemics, humanity became increasingly dependent on digital technology and the Web as a way to connect during Physical Distancing. People work and learn from home. However, schools still hold an important role as gathering places, where students can access mentors and collaborate with one another in person.

The second narrative is a recorded discussion between me and my partner.

tl;dl: Max and I discuss efficiency, augmented reality, telepathic devices, and the trend towards aggregate news sources.

Shownotes (in case you want to listen, but also want to skip ahead!)

• • • • 1:15     more efficient writing and reading
      • 4:15     augmented reality
      • 7:00     hologram ads
      • 10:45   more augmented reality
      • 12:30   advancing the pen and keyboard
      • 16:25   speech-to-text and writing stories
      • 19:00   mind-movies (e.g. “NeuroVision (TM)”)
      • 23:20   editing writing
      • 24:15   telepathic mind-movie collaboration
      • 25:45   reflecting on changes in past 20 years
      • 27:14   aggregate news and social media — the push to be more than a content consumer

Continue reading →

“Get in over your head as often and as joyfully as possible.” –Alexander Isley

When I saw that we were returning to our first task, I wanted to see if I could take what I had previously constructed further. Ernesto had commented that how I approached the first bag task said more about me than its actual contents. I wanted to push myself to make something I hadn’t before. It only seemed logical, still thrilling as I was from my remixed Twine-game, to attempt to make my animation interactive through code.

In a way, this task is a response from my inner-teen, who was submerged in the Internet when many of our readings were being published. It is a reply to the academic examination of the cyberculture I was part of. There was a charm to those early days of Web 2.0… something gritty and experimental, celebrating personal expression without standardized filters. Seeing a profile page with coloured text, animated backgrounds, and auto-playing music demonstrated not only the maker’s interests but also their digital prowess. I miss the bizarre Flash games, the personalized MySpaces, and the wacky CD-ROM games where you clicked things to see what would happen. In that spirit, and with the New London Group’s advocacy for multiliteracies fresh in my mind, I approached this project.

Please experience it before reading about my process.

If there is no audio, try switching to a different browser, such as Edge; Chrome can have auto-audio-playing issues. Or, make an itch.io account and, in your Account Settings, turn on “Require a click to run HTML5 game embeds”. I also tested it on my phone, and it works (sort of, it has some trouble with scaling).

Continue reading →