Author: dinouye

OK. So I have been inspired by coursework that has prompted reflections on space and place, movement and pause. And identity. I created this visual short video/slide show with the help of a friend using Premiere editing program from Adobe CS. (You know me — eager, enthusiastic, creative… and in need of a little digital support!)

The ideas that were set in motion by this media project come to dock in the personal blog post I created, combining my reflections with images —

The video is embedded in the blog post.

www.picklesandpopsiclesticks.blogspot.com

cheers!

 

 

I decided to get creative and splatter some paint to correspond with the little poem I wrote:

Web

 

tangled

with

possibilities

perils

friends

fictions

inter

connections

inter

net

 

I am also working on a digital (multi-media) project…. coming soon!

So — I watched my first piece of E lit. And I was a little surprised to discover how much I enjoyed it! In addition to its engaging multiple modalities, its interactive function is fascinating. “Inanimate Alice, Episode 1: China” tells the story of a young girl’s journey, along with her mother, to find her father who has disappeared on the army base in which they live. The 8 year old girl-focalizer is a child of her (this) generation: her smartphone is an extension of her hand. Throughout the search for her father, her phone accompanies her. What is infinitely interesting to me is the way that we, the reader/viewer, are enabled to enter the skin of this girl as we are invited to interact with her phone; when she takes photos of wildflowers, we are clicking on the images, and when she emails the images to her father, we are clicking on the email icon. There is something about this (inter-)active participation that cultivates a certain sense of identification with the character. I have never been a video gamer, but it occurred to me that these forms of E lit have much in common with video games, in which players/readers are actively participating in a story. I spent 8 enjoyable minutes viewing “Inanimate Alice.” It was an affective and engaging little story. But it was “little”, in terms of length/duration. I find myself wondering how I would feel about viewing a lengthy extended piece of E lit. I think about Sarah’s question about whether the high degree of sensory engagement in E literatures might amount to sensory overload. Maybe. Sometimes. Certainly, there is a part of me that is “old-school” and that revels in a print book in hand and a host of words that trigger an inner imagination. Ultimately, I think there is ample room for both. The wonderful thing about mulitliteracies is that literacies are just that: ‘multi’ — multiple and varied. I think E literatures, like other forms of literature that we have spoken about throughout the term, would be a great way to hook students into a given theme or idea and can be a wonderful supplement to other forms of literacy. Certainly, they can be very useful for engaging diverse learners. The synthesis of image and word is affective. But with E literature, there is something more that I’d like to come back to: there is the possibility (at least in some cases) of the reader as participator — physically, (inter)actively. I am thinking particularly of the smartphone reader interaction episode in “Inanimate Alice”. This dynamic notwithstanding, an enduring question nags me:  Is there something more or less active in turning a page versus clicking a mouse?

 

http://collection.eliterature.org/1/works/pullinger_babel__inanimate_alice_episode_1_china.html

Well. This is timely.

Newsweek is ending their print version this year.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/18/newsweek-ending-print-digital_n_1978265.html

Discuss!

The main idea that I got from the readings on web 2.0 is that of the Internet’s generation of a “participatory culture”. Certainly, I see the tremendous value in such a space of connectivity and collaboration, hyperlinking, and multimodality.

But then I think of other factors such as enacting identity and assuming agency. And things get a little murky, and questionable. The web is a tangled entity indeed.

I cannot shake off the events of Amanda Todd’s life and death. I am afraid to even get on some of the online forums for fear of seeing plentiful instances of trolling.

I had never even heard of this term until this week.

Certainly, the web, like the people that create and use it, can be a force for good and evil. I see our role as educators, beyond that of promoting literacy, as one that cultivates ethical and social responsibility.

I hope to learn ways of promoting empathy both on the web and outside of it.

http://www.hitfix.com/news/johnny-depp-to-modernize-shakespeare-with-new-tv-series

Take note of the comments ranging from YES! to HELL NO!

I say YES YES YES!

Disclosure: I am a RENT-head. And I love to cry.

On a bright and very early morning in the spring of 1997, I stood with a friend, in a long and winding line, outside the Nederlander Theatre on Broadway and 41^st. We were waiting to get student rush tickets to the preview production of RENT. We felt as if we were taking part in something larger than ourselves; we were a part of a community, a culture. We got front row seats. And my life was subsequently transformed.

This rock musical had a profound effect on me. I felt as if it related to me. I was a student, I was a bohemian, I was urban, I was young, I was drawn to “counter-culture” and social justice, I knew people who were living with and dying of AIDS, and I was a romantic who yearned to be in love.

It didn’t matter (did it?) that I was unaware that this musical was an adaptation of Puccini’s opera La Boheme?

A few years later, I saw the opera La Boheme. The themes and characters of course were familiar: bohemian life, poverty, romantic interest, disease, death (near-death in RENT). The romanticization and the marginalization of bohemian life, the love triangles: these proverbial themes, bolstered by the connections I was able to make between the two musical forms, were a source of engagement. Even the similarities between the names (Roger-Roggiero, Mimi etc) were a source of interest and delight for me.

Seeing La Boheme, in the context of RENT, made me appreciate it and enjoy it on a deeper level.

The question then arises: How is viewing the “original” or predecessor affected/framed by the adaptation? Does it matter which is seen first and which second?

It seems to me, it doesn’t much matter what the “source” is, what is seen first or second. Each has life of its own that both reflects particular socio-cultural circumstances, and resonates with universal themes. This is the crux I think – the cultural relevance and milieu: the “narrative phenotype” in the words of Bortolotti and Hutcheon. In other words: the combination of the narrative story (thematic elements) plus the cultural relevance/milieu –“allowing the story to fit a particular culture or environment.”

The interesting thing here is how narratives change over time, and why and how certain ideas can be adapted to new audiences: why we choose to retell certain themes that can be traced back (“lineage of descent”) and how these choices function within culture. This to me rings of the enduring particular-universal paradox: the magic of locating universal threads within particular settings.

To me, success is premised on whether the story, in whichever form, made me cry! As long as the conditions for the cathartic “moments” are there, it has served its purpose.

High, low, original, and derivative are moot terms. An adaptation stands on its-own; it breathes its own life. Fidelity to the original is irrelevant to an evaluation of success. An adaptation is successful in “propagating the narrative for which it is a vehicle” (Bortolotti and Hutcheon). It is successful in that it makes us re-engage with this narrative, in novel ways.

Having said all this, I remember being very anxious and ambivalent about seeing the movie RENT when it came out. I didn’t want it to interfere with my “sacred” experience of RENT Live. The temporal and spatial and conceptual distance from Puccini to Jonathan Larson was a space I was comfortable with. But from RENT the Broadway musical to RENT the movie?  Here were expectations of fidelity. Why? Does temporal and spatial proximity have to do with such expectations?

Perhaps it’s a generational thing: “These kids don’t even know the original!” But now I ask myself: Does it matter? Why? The important thing is that people find it meaningful in some way. And hopefully, it will prompt them to explore other forms, variations, and adaptations, and to proliferate this very conversation.

Post script: Following a reading of Messaris’s article on visual imagery, I am adapting the term paraproxemics in relation to the original RENT poster, arguing for the function of the closeness of the camera-subject relationship (the close-up faces) as affecting viewers’ emotions and attitudes as it reflects interpersonal distance as a regulator of intimacy. There is something about the “in-your-face-ness” of it that is bold, striking, youthful, and arguably, a little oppositionary, all of which go along with the energy and underlying message of the bohemian cast of characters.

 

Works cited:

Bortolotti, G. and Hutcheon, L. (2007). On the Origin of Adaptations: Rethinking Fidelity Discourse and “Success” — Biologically. New Literary History, 38(3), pp. 443-458.

Messaris, P. (1998). Visual Aspects of Media Literacy. Journal of Communication, 48(1), 70-80.

here is my wordle based on my notes on the subject of persuasive visual media. sex sex sex. what’s the opposite of subliminal, super-liminal?!

 

This is the first graphic novel I’ve ever read and I couldn’t put it down. It is in fact a novel I have heard much about and had intended to read over the years. I am glad to have had the opportunity to do so now.

Interesting how Spiegelman uses the traditionally “low” form of the comic book to treat a very very serious and grave subject matter. Subversive!

I found the “visual rhetoric” striking and powerful. Spiegelman’s specific animal representations are potent. First off, the choice to portray the Jews as mice of course brings up the Nazi representation/metaphors of Jews as rats. The cats (Nazis) and the pigs (Poles) elicit associations of cunning and greed/plenty; also of cat as aggressor/oppressor and mouse as victim/oppressed. There is something reductive and stereotypical about the visual representations, which reflects the horrific reductive nature of Nazism and anti-Semitism.

The visual/graphic format itself also recalls the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” – Nazi anti-Semitic propaganda.

Interesting how many different types of texts lie within the text: diagrams, photographs, detailed plans, and maps… There are narratives within narratives, and a fluid interplay between image, narrative, and dialogue.

In my own reading, I noticed that I am far more text centered than image centered. My eyes followed the words and I actually found myself forcing myself to slow down and pay attention to the illustrations at times. The image that won’t leave me is that of Anja, mouth agape. Throughout most of the book, the mouths of the characters  (mice) are closed. When they’re open they are portraying cries and screams, lending a humanity and vulnerability that is heart wrenching.