Final FICTION project

Okay, this is a side note....I mentioned this in class and wanted it to be online as well, that this project is purely fictional. Just a story I decided to write. Characters and storyline are fictitious and are not meant to resemble any real people or events. Also, I failed to mention this in class, but I kind of like the idea of making a more epistolary story....now I don't know if it counts when it is more of a journal entry sort of thing, but I felt like it was a tangent and so yeah....that's it!

final project....progress

So I have obviousy finished my project....I am happy with it, as a whole...altho I think looking back, I may or may not have done a couple of things differently....for example, I liked that the pictures didn't go in order....but I wonder if it will be confusing to the reader.....I guess we will just have to wait and see! I also wish that I could have made more of a collage with the pix, but the more I tried, the more frustrated I got, so I went with it this way...we'll see!

Final Project Ideas

Okay, so I have been thinking about what I want to do for my final project. I am leaning towards either an interactive piece of fiction, which I have some ideas for....or else an online portfolio from more than one genre of my work. However, I am still thinking about which one I would like to do more and which would be more beneficial to me in the future. I'll let you guys know when I figure it out!

Group Presentation Response

Okay, so I thought that EVERYBODY'S group projects were great and very creative...but I have to say that the one that I thought were very very interesting--that was the group who did the "My Space" pages. I thought it was incredibly imaginative and something that I don't think many people would have thought of. And it wasn't only interesting, but also very thorough. I loved that they put up pictures, became friends, wrote on each other's walls, and created great profiles. It was like a whole story that went in many different directions and I loved it. However, I also really liked the music site. I thought it was really cool that they compiled all of that information and put it on one site. I thought if they added some other genres of music it would make it more user friendly to a larger group of people. But I thought everybody did a great job!

Group Members and Project

Okay, so our group is me, Kerri, Lita, and I think Adeela.....we are doing a sort of "choose your own adventure" story....based on one character's choices and life...I think its going to be really cool...and it is a lot of fun! :)

Group Project

Okay, so honestlyI do not know what to do for my group project. I am pretty open to working on anything and working with anybody. My concentration is creative writing, so obviously I like to write...but I also do enjoy playing around with websites and such--but it is not my strongest area......Any ideas, let me know. See you all in class tonight. :)

What is Narrative?

A narrative is a story that is progressing through a path of decisions on the part of the author. However, when the story is interactive and more decisions are left to the readers, it is no longer a narrative...it is more of a community piece, at that point. Some of the multimedia stories that we have looked at could be considered narratives as there are very few choices, as in a written text. If you can only click on one thing, the author really isn't giving you any choices, although it may seem that way. So when you are following the progression of the story through clicks of the mouse, you are really walking down the path of the author. Thus this can be considered a narrative. However, when the author leaves allows for more choices then it is not so much a narrative. You are not going from one beginning to a middle to one end....you now have options and it is no longer that writer's story, but one that is more individualized. I think one thing that is amazing about most true narratives is the concept that you can get lost in it, and at times forget that you are actually reading a book. However, with some of the stories we have looked at from ELC, it is very interactive. Some of the creators only gave one choice, or maybe a couple....but some, such as "Blue" by Michael Joyce, you can't help but realize that you are no longer on the path of the creator, but on your own path, where you can get lost and very mixed up. While these stories are very interesting, I don't think it works as well as, lets say, a book. You are constantly jumping around and many times you have to try to piece the story together the best you can, even when it doesn't seem to fit!

Oops...Side Note...

Oops! Sorry guys, I just realized that I never posted the URL to my website....I know you can get it through the class website, but here it is, just in case:

http://geocities.com/ecounter08

Reponse to Remix Projects

Wow, so in class while watching the remix presentations, I had NO idea whose project I wanted to comment on, as they were all so good and for different reasons. I decided I wanted to comment on a couple of them. I thought our class did an amazing job and I have to admit that I was somewhat surprised at what some people were able to do....(I'm not that good at this kind of stuff.)
First I wanted to comment on Daniel Cinalli's project. He did an amazing remix of the poem, "The Hours" by Robert Frost. When I was watching, I was so surprised to find out that he had taken individual voice recordings and put them together to make it one work...it was a very creative and interesting way to look at the poem. He did a great job and had a great concept.
Another project that I was amazed at was Owen Ito's project. He took clips from the 1935 version of Scrooge and in the first edit he did, he changed the voices to an animated computer voice. In the second one, which was sooo funny, he took out the old dialogue and put in somebody speaking in Chinese. However, he put subtitles and he didn't translate it to what it actually meant, but instead put in his own dialogue. It was so funny and a completely different way to watch the movie! I thought it was amazing that he was able to do this.
There was one more as well, but I don't remember who's it was and I can't seem to find it on the student sites. However it was the one about Aesop's Fables. He translated the fables from English to french to Spanish and then back to English again. And of course this made the text all jumbled up and completely hilarious to read. I thought that this was great because it was so creative, I would have never thought to do that.
I thought everybody did a great job with their projects and I am blown away by all of the ways we can present information to others. :)

Idea for My Remix Project

Okay, so for my remix project, I decided to make a photo montage with a song that I found on creative commons. While I had many ideas for what topic I wanted to go with, and it took me a while to make a decision, I finally decided to go with Juvenile Arthritis. I have Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis and I think that this is an important issue that I want to address and this is a great opportunity to do that.

Hey there, little "Red Riding Hood" 2/4

The ELC is a very interesting place to visit and view very creative works. I chose to write about "RedRidingHood" by Donna Leishman. I have mixed feelings about this piece--some good and some not so good. I guess the overall concept of the story of red riding hood was called into question, from the beginning, which is probably a good thing. The thing that I found so different from reading an actual book was that I didn't read and I had the chance to participate in the outcome. It was also a more modern rendition of the classic children's story. Red looks kind of bad-ass and she and her mother live in this tall apartment building. You click on the blinking light in order to take Red out and lead her to her grandmother's house.
Along the way, Red meets a boy on a scooter. Obviously he looks like a bad seed. Red keeps walking and sees some flowers. The flowers are all "X"s which to me, would mean, don't touch them. But Red does and they are apparently drugged, as she falls asleep almost immediately. The "reader" is then given the option of letting her dream, or waking her up. If you let her dream, she begins to dream about sperm and eggs, and you keep clicking and eventually it becomes a fetus, then a baby, then grows into a child about Red's age. However, if you wake her up, you see the boy/wolf going to grandmother's house. When Red gets there, she looks as if she knows something isn't right. But then it skips and it shows Red in the bed, but unlike the traditional story, she is not in danger of being eaten by the wolf, but she is pregnant. I believe that this did show another way the story could be interpreted--young girl, doesn't listen to her mother, talks to a "bad boy," one thing leads to another and she ends up pregnant.
Some things that I absolutely did not like in this piece was the dark way in which the story was set. It was no longer the cute little kids story. However, I understand why it is that way. I didn't like that you had to click on something every other minute in order for the story to go on. I give the writer props for keeping the audience engaged and also giving them something to think about, with a little more meaning. Personally, I love to actually open a book and read and I worry that with all of this electronic literature, reading for children will become not as necessary of a skill. That worries me a little bit. But I did find it an interesting version of the story and as an adult, I found that it had a very good moral. I guess I just expected electronic literature to be different-perhaps with a bit more actual reading...but then again, I also didn't really know quite WHAT to expect. I would put this piece in the genre of fiction/children's literature.