multimodal @ matx

Justification of modes (pdf)

In progress:

Dissertation Project: “Between Floors”, a theoretical look at immersive media and technology, including a narrative in three mediums, “Love and Other Blood Related Diseases, Hematology between Floors”: print, hypertext, and installation.

MATX program work:

Creative

The domain “She was all like…” was created as part of a larger domain, “This has never happened before”, created and collaboratively compiled in the summer MATX 690 hypermedia course, taught by Pete Baldes. For this website there is a “Tarot of the Day” Flash piece created for the entry page, and two hypertext fictions, “Three Card Spread”, and “Celtic Cross (knight’s) Spread”, both composed using Photoshop and Dreamweaver. The entire project was an exploration of visual-based writing, where I began with randomly chosen tarot cards and wrote the text to correspond with their layout and images. I was inspired by Italo Calvino’s The Castle of Crossed Destinies, also based on a deck of tarot cards, and also electronic works that use randomly generated, yet meaningful, text and images.

For the production lab taught by Will Sims, Intentional Fallacy, a short stop-action film collaboration with Jenn Figg, Jennifer Smith, Sean Stewart, Kristine Trever, and soundtrack by Patrick S. Vickers. Intentional Fallacy is a film that questions the notions of authorial intent. Created with more than 2,500 still images and hand-drawn animation, the film follows a young man experiencing an existential crisis. Mistakenly assuming his sketch pad is a reliable guide, the young man loops through time to find his true reality.

Intentional Fallacy was selected for the 2008 Narrative Shorts Film + Video Festival at California State University, as well as the Digital Fringe: Melbourne Film Festival in Melbourne, Australia.

“Could (k)not”, a photography and prose collaboration with Jennifer Smith, also done for the production lab. This project was created by manipulating a simple Photoshop album, but with text captions that were narrative rather than informative. We were interested in how a simple software feature could create a work of electronic literature. In doing so we realized both the possibilities and restrictions of the software we were working with. It also took more time than we initially thought just to batch the photos and upload everything with the appropriate text. We did learn how to balance collaborative work and the positive possibilities and effects of a collaborative project.

Multimedia Research and Analysis

“The Medium is the Metaphor” was originally composed for MATX 601, taught by Marcel Cornis-Pope, later revised and presented as a conference paper at the Electronic Literature Organization’s (ELO) Digital Landscapes Conference in Vancouver, WA (2008). It explores works of both print and electronic literature that use medium and structure to create metaphors and convey their message. The paper discussed theorists from McLuhan and his idea of medium as message to Virilio and his idea that speed is becoming more significant than either medium or message. Both of these scholars will play a significant role in my dissertation work. As an introduction to the website, I composed a short flash piece that summarizes the theory that influenced the hypertext; this piece was also shown during my presentation at the ELO conference.

“No Direction Home: Bohemianism and the Beats” was also composed for MATX 601 for a paper on bohemianism. I chose to illustrate the bohemian nature found in the Beats, specifically looking at Allen Ginsberg, Bob Dylan, and City Lights Books.

Remediation of “The Masque of the Red Death” in three forms, for MATX 690, Poe and the New Media, taught by Les Harrison.

Papers

I have written several print papers during my time in the MATX program, in my core MATX courses as well as Methodolgy in English Studies and Form and Theory of Fiction, but decided to include only a sample of these texts, mainly final seminar papers, in the e-portfolio.

“Collage Elements in Dada Art and Postmodern Literature” was written for MATX 603, taught by Drs. Latane and Garberson in spring of 2008. It was an attempt to locate similarities in the Dada period of art and Postmodern print texts. Collage, fragmentation, structure and materiality were the main topics addressed. This paper represents my continuing interest in precursors to hypertext and new media literature, primarily postmodern print literature. The paper provided insight into a historical period proceeding postmodernism, more in-depth research and analysis of art, and strengthened the tie for me between visual art and literature.

“Creative Sampling: New Rules for New Media” was written as a final paper for MATX 602, taught by Richard Fine in fall 2007. It deals with the ideas of sampling and originality in art, music, and literary culture, and ends with a focus on new media works. The paper also takes a critical look at copyright law and the fair use act with new media and electronic publications in mind.

For English 530 with Terry Oggel in fall 2007, one of our papers was a case study. I wrote on an article titled “Beyond the Orality/Literacy Dichotomy: James Joyce and the Pre-history of Cyberspace” by Donald F.Theall. For this course I also did a textual study, creating a Critical Edition of The Bright Spot by Robert Sydney. I chose to add the case study to my portfolio to illustrate research and textual studies methods learned in this course. It is also related to my interest in orality over that semester and my continuing interest in postmodern literature, where I plan to start my review of literature with Joyce.

Seminar paper "Turning the Corner" on Bruce Nauman’s, “Going around the Corner Piece”, for Deconstruction and the Arts, taught by Todd Cronan.

Presentations

For a group presentation, with Jennifer Smith and Kristine Trever, we looked at the theorist Walter Ong, his background, his theories of aural/oral culture and their influence on writing, technology, and new media.

As an individual presentation, I discussed D.F. McKenzie, a textual studies scholar and theorist who saw “texts” as something more than traditional print culture’s limited idea of them and still influences ideas and theory of print culture and the materiality of text.

For MATX 601, I presented on the theorist Paul Virilio, best known for his writing on technology and its relation to speed and power. Much of his work challenges that of Baudrillard and McLuhan and warns against culture moving too fast towards a never-ending horizon. His book Negative Horizons, which I read for the presentation, influenced my ideas on technology, and has influenced my choice of the elevator as an example of immersive technology and a metaphor in my dissertation work.

(see modes)