On the subject of literature and literary....
I'm not so sure what I think about this subject. It does seem like new media works are essentially literary, but can they be categorized with literature under one umbrella term?
We don't term a painting that creates dual metaphors using a new medium as literary, but it is essentially the same, sometimes.
Because there are so many new avenues available in hypermediated literature, I think that there should be some new term. I think that these new media works should get a new name all their own. This medium could be called something like multiliterature or litermedia. I don't have a doctorate degree in anything so my opinion is bound to come off somewhat ignorant.
New media has opened up doors and windows to the literate mind in ways that have never been available before. What the future holds for it is uncertain, but it is going to develop. The great thinkers of our time will make sure of that. I believe that hypermediated literature will eventually remediate to the point that it is only slightly related to what we consider literature. Because of this, we should not hinder ourselves by so closely relating it to literature. We should encourage and develop this as an entirely new opportunity for the mind.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Multimedia Writing Post 4
The video that we watched in class the other day really has me thinking. I'm referring to the video that uses children to talk about the necessity of modern communications technology in the class.
It seems to me that the American perception of education has become overly relaxed. I am speaking primarily about high school education. Children learn from media and their peers that high school is to be the golden years of their youth. Teenagers are encouraged to excel in school, but only as long as it doesn't interfere with proper socialization. They are led to believe that while they are in high school, social networking and development are most important, and education is secondary. These youths are encouraged by their parents to be social and have fun while they can, because after high school there comes the real world.
Education needs to be culturally reinforced as the primary objective for school. This should be inculcated into modern media. If I turn on the television right now, I could probably find four or five shows about high school students (no doubt played by twenty-something year olds) but somehow the important role of education in the lives of these characters is somehow left out completely. I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with proper socialization of enjoying one's youth. I do believe that recreation and socialization are important to the development of our youth; however, it is of the utmost importance that students and parents realize the serious necessity of education to the future of the individual and the country. Education is the key to success and further development in our culture pedagogy is most important.
I think that there maybe some skepticism about using new communication technologies in the classroom, but I really believe that this is because people are afraid that the quality of education received by the modern youth will depreciate. The fact of the matter is that the medium does not change the message. The modern youth’s perception of the world has been metamorphosized by technology, therefore, the technology which so influenced the development of this generation should become the voice of learning.
It seems to me that the American perception of education has become overly relaxed. I am speaking primarily about high school education. Children learn from media and their peers that high school is to be the golden years of their youth. Teenagers are encouraged to excel in school, but only as long as it doesn't interfere with proper socialization. They are led to believe that while they are in high school, social networking and development are most important, and education is secondary. These youths are encouraged by their parents to be social and have fun while they can, because after high school there comes the real world.
Education needs to be culturally reinforced as the primary objective for school. This should be inculcated into modern media. If I turn on the television right now, I could probably find four or five shows about high school students (no doubt played by twenty-something year olds) but somehow the important role of education in the lives of these characters is somehow left out completely. I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with proper socialization of enjoying one's youth. I do believe that recreation and socialization are important to the development of our youth; however, it is of the utmost importance that students and parents realize the serious necessity of education to the future of the individual and the country. Education is the key to success and further development in our culture pedagogy is most important.
I think that there maybe some skepticism about using new communication technologies in the classroom, but I really believe that this is because people are afraid that the quality of education received by the modern youth will depreciate. The fact of the matter is that the medium does not change the message. The modern youth’s perception of the world has been metamorphosized by technology, therefore, the technology which so influenced the development of this generation should become the voice of learning.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Multimedia Writing Post 3
In examining Aarseth's introduction to ergodic literature I suddenly had a realization, an understanding, an epiphany. I don't know exactly what the proper term is but I had it.
It seems that after reading and 'knowing' the information that I've studied about the mind as a writing space I had really only gained a vague idea of what that meant. As Dr. Bradley would say, I knew what it was about, but had no clue what it meant. There is a paragraph in Aarseth's introduction which elucidates a central point in hypermediated literature theory (as far as I understand it) in such a way that it unravels a tangled mesh that I had thus far failed to recognize as my own mind. Up to that point in time, I had only managed to connect the mind as a writing space in relation to the hypermediated reading I personally encounter daily (news, myspace, facebook, blogs, wikis etc.). My failure was that I did not recognize the overlap of narrative literature and cyborg theory.
In reading a hypermediated 'narrative', I would not depend upon the original author to calculate my response, or my understanding of the work. Unlike the traditional, linear narrative form I would be a participant the work itself. In this way hypermedia is like the almanac. It may be distributed uniformly, but the piece becomes unique unto its reader. When I read a hypermediated narrative, my personal narration is unbound from the chains of the traditional static page and given navigational freedom. In fact, the reading of that piece would depend on my navigation in such a way that I must meld my mind with the machine in order to create a working narrative.
The substance of the narrative is like liquid mercury. Alone, it will not guide itself into a shape, but when my thoughts interplay with the narrative they work as a mold which illuminates the narrative as a specific, unique work. Alone, neither will produce a final narrative, but together, the mind and the machine will construct a work that is specific to me. I have become the author in this sense because the original author has allowed, neigh, forced me to inculcate my own thought process into the development of this narrative. We share a work which serves genuine purpose for me, the reader, but it's purpose is not uniform since I, being a thoughtful human being, can remediate this narrative thereby creating a new purpose and still preserve the 'original' in my hard drive, a place also known as the mind.
It seems that after reading and 'knowing' the information that I've studied about the mind as a writing space I had really only gained a vague idea of what that meant. As Dr. Bradley would say, I knew what it was about, but had no clue what it meant. There is a paragraph in Aarseth's introduction which elucidates a central point in hypermediated literature theory (as far as I understand it) in such a way that it unravels a tangled mesh that I had thus far failed to recognize as my own mind. Up to that point in time, I had only managed to connect the mind as a writing space in relation to the hypermediated reading I personally encounter daily (news, myspace, facebook, blogs, wikis etc.). My failure was that I did not recognize the overlap of narrative literature and cyborg theory.
The study of cybertexts reveals the misprision of the spaciodynamic metaphors of narrative theory, because ergodic literature incarnates these models in a way linear text narratives do not. This may e hard to understand for the traditional literary critic who cannot perceive the difference between metaphorical structure and logical structure, but it is essential. The cybertext reader is a player, a gambler; the cybertext is a game-world or world-game; it is possible to explore, get lost, and discover secret paths in these texts, not metaphorically, but through the topographical structures of the textual machinery. This is not a difference between games and literature but rather between games and narratives. To claim that there is no difference between games and narratives is to ignore essential qualities of both categories. And yet, as this study tires to show, the difference is not clear cut, and there is significant overlap between the two.
In reading a hypermediated 'narrative', I would not depend upon the original author to calculate my response, or my understanding of the work. Unlike the traditional, linear narrative form I would be a participant the work itself. In this way hypermedia is like the almanac. It may be distributed uniformly, but the piece becomes unique unto its reader. When I read a hypermediated narrative, my personal narration is unbound from the chains of the traditional static page and given navigational freedom. In fact, the reading of that piece would depend on my navigation in such a way that I must meld my mind with the machine in order to create a working narrative.
The substance of the narrative is like liquid mercury. Alone, it will not guide itself into a shape, but when my thoughts interplay with the narrative they work as a mold which illuminates the narrative as a specific, unique work. Alone, neither will produce a final narrative, but together, the mind and the machine will construct a work that is specific to me. I have become the author in this sense because the original author has allowed, neigh, forced me to inculcate my own thought process into the development of this narrative. We share a work which serves genuine purpose for me, the reader, but it's purpose is not uniform since I, being a thoughtful human being, can remediate this narrative thereby creating a new purpose and still preserve the 'original' in my hard drive, a place also known as the mind.
