Primer

I thought that primer was very interesting. I was particularly interested in the way time travel worked in the movie. There was a set of rules. They could only go back in time and had to stay in the box and away from their doubles. When Aaron eventually broke the rules paradoxes were created in time. Doubles of the charters were brought into existence and they could not get rid of them unless they used their failsafe box to go back to the very beginning of their time traveling.
All of these rules shifts in time, and paradoxes remind me of the hypertexts we have read. In most of them there is a set of rules that the reader has to operate within to get the story. There are shifts in where links will take you and almost like time travel certain links will take you back and forth within the story.
I did think that the movie was kind of hard to follow as a plot. I had to look up some extra information after watching it. Parts were missing or not explained fully. I did not really understand why they wanted to stop the gunman from not shooting anybody at the party. Rachel’s father who used the box somehow. I also felt that they left out the creation of the failsafe and how the doubles were created but maybe I just missed that.
The way that the plot went was also reminiscent of a hypertext though. The gaps in the plot only made me more interested in what was going on and how the story was being told in particular. Were there reasons that they left out these important scenes? It added to the confusion that the characters may have been going through. Not knowing what would happen to them as they time traveled. What the consequences of their actions may have been.
While researching to try and figure the movie out I found this timeline for the events. http://www.freeweb.hu/neuwanstein/primer_timeline.html I thought it was interesting because it looks like the contents of patchwork girl withal the different places that the story goes. Very similar to hypertext as I have already said.


The way that they explored the time travel reminded me of the way that Navidson and his friends explored the house. At first they just went for a couple hours testing the travel and how it works. Then they went further attempting to use it for their own personal gain. Eventually they went to far like Holloway and got trapped within the paradoxes that they created with no way to go back and change what they had done.

Primer

I thought that primer was very interesting. I was particularly interested in the way time travel worked in the movie. There was a set of rules. They could only go back in time and had to stay in the box and away from their doubles. When Aaron eventually broke the rules paradoxes were created in time. Doubles of the charters were brought into existence and they could not get rid of them unless they used their failsafe box to go back to the very beginning of their time traveling.
All of these rules shifts in time, and paradoxes remind me of the hypertexts we have read. In most of them there is a set of rules that the reader has to operate within to get the story. There are shifts in where links will take you and almost like time travel certain links will take you back and forth within the story.
I did think that the movie was kind of hard to follow as a plot. I had to look up some extra information after watching it. Parts were missing or not explained fully. I did not really understand why they wanted to stop the gunman from not shooting anybody at the party. Rachel’s father who used the box somehow. I also felt that they left out the creation of the failsafe and how the doubles were created but maybe I just missed that.
The way that the plot went was also reminiscent of a hypertext though. The gaps in the plot only made me more interested in what was going on and how the story was being told in particular. Were there reasons that they left out these important scenes? It added to the confusion that the characters may have been going through. Not knowing what would happen to them as they time traveled. What the consequences of their actions may have been.
While researching to try and figure the movie out I found this timeline for the events. http://www.freeweb.hu/neuwanstein/primer_timeline.html I thought it was interesting because it looks like the contents of patchwork girl withal the different places that the story goes. Very similar to hypertext as I have already said.


The way that they explored the time travel reminded me of the way that Navidson and his friends explored the house. At first they just went for a couple hours testing the travel and how it works. Then they went further attempting to use it for their own personal gain. Eventually they went to far like Holloway and got trapped within the paradoxes that they created with no way to go back and change what they had done.

blog 11

The interactive fiction violet was a interesting way of telling a story. I got stuck at the BREAK THE STOOL. Part which was frustrating because I wanted to finish the interaction but could not figure out how to do it. I did not really identify with the character who was very easily distracted. I don’t think anybody gets that distracted where they need to lock there Ethernet cable in a cabinet and then hide the key and make sure you cant get to it. It all got a little old after a while.
Most of the things I typed in didn’t do anything. Some of the keywords didn’t have to be spelled correctly. A lot of the things you had to do were things that the reader didn’t know such as when you were tired you had to find something to get yourself up. But I would have never know to look in the drawer for the key to get in the cabinet and drink the bottle to wake myself up. Most of the things you had to type were like that and kind of frustrating.
Outside of the window there are zombies, pirates, and aliens. I don’t really know what this had to do with anything except that it was another distraction from writing. It was interesting that you had to write all the actions you wanted to do as your character was supposed to be writing. I enjoyed the interaction part and really wish I could have figured out how to break the stool. The interactive fiction is very similar to a game. You have a set of rules that you must operate within and try to reach a goal ( in this case writing a paper so that you Australian girlfriend wont move away) this game atmosphere is fun and makes the reader want to get to the end of the story to solve the puzzle to reach the goal and keep your girlfriend.
Compared to other hypertexts this was very similar. Broken story, offshoots that have nothing to do with the actual story. it was different in the fact that you had to do certain things to get to the end and usually you could only do one thing to advance.

blog 10

I read the Jews daughter as well as carving in possibilities, star wars one letter at a time, red riding hood, and self-portraits as others. All these hypertexts chosen by the ELO as important hypertexts used similar styles as joyce’s an afternoon. You could click or in most cases just move your cursor over a certain area on the screen to access new information. I found this style a little confusing. I would be reading and then accidently go over one of these spots and be taken to a different screen or given access to new text.
The Jews daughter used this technique best by highlighting the words that would change the text. I also liked how this text used the system. When going over the word only part of the text would change on the page leaving parts of the old text and doing what hypertext does best, creating new meaning with the same text.
Some of the other texts on the ELO site I felt were more like videos than actual hypertexts. Red Riding Hood was one of these. The hypertext was a flash video that allowed you to click on certain parts of the screen, usually only one spot would advance you in the video. Riding Hood also incorporated a choose your own adventure style. At one screen you could allow riding hood to sleep or wake up. This was pretty much the only choice you came across for the entire video though
My favorite hypertext form the ELO page was Carving in Possibilities. This hypertext presented you with a rough rock image of micalangelos David. When you moved your cursor around the screen you unlocked text as well as slowly carving out the face of David from the rock. The hypertext used many different font styles, sizes and type colors to create different segments within the text. I thought that was interesting as well as using text, which offered more insight into the psychology of the carving, and its subject, which was then used to unlock portions of David’s face.
Star wars one letter at a time was just a video the star wars screenplay flashing by one letter at a time. The title explains it all not much mystery there.
I think that a lot of the hypertext I have read thus far were able to interest me and show me new ways to think about literature and these new ones were no exception. They used a variety of styles some of them not even using text but rather sticking primarily to video. I don’t know if I would classify those as hypertexts but the were interesting non-the less. The use of flash in the hypertexts was a new trick that I think worked very well with the hypertext style. More randomized changes in text. The user does not always know where moving the mouse will take him next.

Blog 9

House of leaves was a very interesting book. Form the content to the layout everything carried some sort of meaning and moved not only the story along but the reading. From the very first page I was sucked into Truant’s struggle with the ominous book that he had stumbled across. I was curious to find out what it the book Zampano had written but I was also very cautious and a little frightened by Johnny’s tail of getting lost in the book.
The layout of the pages was very interesting to me. On page 425 the writing on the page begins to take on the form of the endless hallways of Navidon’s house. The boxes of text get smaller and smaller mirroring Navidon’s journey through a tight passage. When he reaches a large room Danielewski uses just one word on a page to illustrate Navidon’s smallness in the immense maze that he is caught up in. this use of text as illustration appeals to me because I see thing in a more visual way.
Similarly on pages 468-483 small bursts of text appear almost randomly on the page. This shows Navidon’s aloneness as well as the darkness that he has encountered.
The illustration, broken text, footnotes, and the scattered appendices are all-similar to styles used in hypertexts on story space and others. This added reading to the normal book all goes to make a more emissive experience when reading. I also found myself looking things up online. Mostly the references to see if some were real. And to try and make some sense out of why they were used. Most of them weren’t real. Although in some books this would create something unreal but the way that Danielewski used them constantly referencing back and in between made up author created a reality all its own.
Truant’s story followed Navidon’s very well and although he was in the real world he was just as lost and obsessed as Navision in his search for answers revolving around Zampano’s book. Both of these main characters were haunted by their obsession with the house/text. And in the end they could not escape from their obsession.

blog 7

From the current reading it is very apparent that materiality is something that is very important to Hayles. She discusses the importance of materiality in pretty much every chapter of her book Writing Machines. All this talk of how important this concept is culminates in chapters five through seven where Hayles discusses Artist Books. Artist books use the medium of the book and in most cases the materiality of the book.
I was very interested in these chapters I have had several opportunities to explore and even create artist books in a few classes that I have taken. I have also seen many artist books at the artist book collection on the fourth floor of the library. This was a topic that I found I could relate to and understand much more than previous chapters of the book. Artist books rely heavily on the materiality of the book. From the examples that Hayles wrote about and the books that I have seen many of them can be sculptural in there making and rely on the way the book is made and put together. from the covers to the pages and layout of the letters everything has meaning and creates a message. Using this idea with hypertext makes the reader think about not only what he is reading but how what he is reading was made and why. Also you have to think about what you are reading from whether you are reading on a laptop or a desktop or a projected screen all these can change the way a hypertext is read and interacted with.
I think that materiality is very important for reading or interacting with any literature. All the different ways a book can be put together using different fonts and different sentence structures can all be very important to the themes and meaning of the literature. If the book is old and worn it can carry meaning to a certain person who may have fond memories about the book. The old sayings don’t judge a book by its cover comes to mind. Maybe it is time to judge a book or any literature by its cover rather than just the words inside it.

reading

In if on a winters night a traveler Calvino was giving the reader so many different tangled experiences and in each chapter was very explicit explaining in detail what the reader was supposed to be experiencing while reading each different chapter or page or sentence. Calvino attempted to play with the reader’s emotions and see if he could guess or maybe control the reader’s thoughts. While he did this he also allowed the reader to make his/her own choices and come to their own conclusions regarding how they approached the novel.

In the last chapter Calvino talks about all the different ways of reading. He writes about this in other chapters as well, ludmillas style of innocent/childlike reading, lotorias analyzed reading, the editors controlled reading etc… I the last chapter Calvino writes mainly about reading that takes you away from the book as an object bring your mind away from the words written on the page to discover what is behind the words or in between them to bring your own experience to the book and then take that further somehow. Reading a few lines and then breaking off on a tangent to think about not only what those lines mean in the story you are reading but also in the larger context of the readers life and beliefs. I feel that when I have read at different times and with different books I have used everyone of the reading styles that calvino writes about in “if on a winters night a traveler” when reading Calvino’s book I approached it in the way that lotoria would have analyzing each sentence and attempting to desern some sort of meaning from the words that Calvino had written. On other occasions I have approached reading in ludmillas innocent child just waiting and watching the story unfold as I read it not taking time to think to much into the work. I have read like the editor when proofreading my own papers checking the grammar and spelling and making sure it all makes sense. I have also read in the focused distracted way that is talked about in chapter eleven. Taking all my experiences and injecting them into the story rather than just taking what the author has written by itself.

On separate occasions I have read in these separate ways. Most of the time I read though I use a mixture of these which is the way that I believe Calvino was trying to get his readers to read his novel.

If on a Winters Night a Treaveler

Italo Calvinos novel “If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler” is written very mysteriously almost like a labyrinth within a book. I found my thoughts of frustration over the constant shifts in the story mirrored in the numbered chapters. In these chapters the reader who I am to believe is me is constantly trying to get past the first chapters of several books. Each time he gets into a story there is a problem. The story is misprinted, or un-translated, or incomplete. I think the point of this is to mirror your frustration at not being able to go beyond the first chapter of these stories as well.

To make sense of what I was reading I attempted to draw similarities between each chapter. I will focus on identifying and maybe explaining these similarities.
In each chapter we are expecting to read a certain story. The first story we expect is “If on a Winters Night a Traveler” instead we get a misprint that is instead the story “Outside the Town of Malbrock” we then try to read further into this story but in the next chapter the reader ends up purchasing some unknown Cimmerian novel. This continues for the rest of the chapters. I think that this ads a mysterious to the book; the reader has no idea what he/she is reading and is constantly being lied to by the author.

Another similarity is the female characters in each chapter. Madame Marne, Ludmilla, Zwilda in 2 chapters. Each of these women is shrouded in mystery and each of them is the object of desire for the main character.

Ludmilla is the readers desire we chase after her trying to set up situations where we can meet her. To some extent we aren’t interested in finishing the story but rather in learning more about her.

Zwida Ozkart is interesting to me because from what I can tell of the story that she is in she is in love with Ponko Kauderer. They are from two different rival families much like Romeo and Juliet.

There are many similarities between each chapter and I said I would try to explain these but I have only become more confused after writing some of them down. I feel that the beginning of the book was very inviting lulling me into a state of relaxation. This was all a lie I wasn’t even reading the book I thought I was “If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler” I was really reading “Outside the Town of Malbrock” this trickery went further with the interchanging of perspectives that interchange with each chapter and also in the chapters themselves. Even with all of this I am still very interested in not only the story but also the way it is told.

In the chapters Calvino writes what a reader might be thinking about the story almost making up our minds for us as we read “ You, reader, believed that there, on the platform, my gaze was glued to the hands of the round clock of an old station…But who can say that the clock’s numbers aren’t peeping from behind rectangular windows” (13) in this segment he is basically telling the reader not to assume anything about his story. I thought that this was very interesting because this is what we naturally do when given a story that has so many wholes we try to make connections and assumptions and attempt to fill in the wholes that are left blank, but maybe we are not supposed to make connections but just be carried along and put our trust in Calvino? Another line that made me think of something similar was on page 19 when he is describing Madame Marne “a weight of memories that keep me from seeing her as a person seen for the first time, other people’s memories suspended like the smoke under the lamps.” We are obviously not supposed to expect this novel to be like any other that we have read which so far is true.

The Greatest Inovation?

Hypertext is seen by many of its champions as the greatest thing that has happened to literature…ever. In Coover’s essay “The End of Books” Hypertext is shown as a daring innovation that changes the world of books forever and even has the ability to make classic writing obsolete. One addition to the ever-changing definition of hypertext that Coover presents is that unlike classic texts, such as novels, hypertext is based on structure more than prose. This distinction frees hypertext and makes this medium much more versatile than was previously possible with classic writing. This change is what really sets hypertext out from other styles of writing. Using a complex labyrinth of links a hypertext can take on new and different forms with each separate reading or experience.
Novels can do something similar to this with each different reading of a novel the reader might have different reactions to the text the reader could notice something different that they may have missed or have a different emotion when reading. This is similar to the different reactions a reader could have to a hypertext but not the same at all. With hypertext a reader could actually skip whole sections of the story they may not even know that they missed it but must continue with the story without what might be crucial information. This creates completely different reactions for each reader. This is what makes hypertext so interesting.
This innovation of hypertext is explained in Sven Birkerts “Hypertext: Of Mouse and Man” When Sven and his friend explore the hypertext Victory Garden, by Stuart Mouulthrop they begin the story at a interactive table of contents which maps out the interactive space that is Victory Garden. This interactive table of contents is used in many hypertext stories, such as Shelly Jacksons “Patch Work Girl.” The interaction that the reader has with a hypertext makes them feel more of a connection to the work, even if the hypertext does not make sense to the readers they can only continue to try and find a way trough the labyrinth that a hypertext can create. The choices that the reader makes create the experience that they will have.
As stated earlier the champions of hypertext believe that it is the greatest thing to happen to literature and that it will soon make classic writing styles obsolete. I believe that hypertext is an interesting and innovative style of writing but it cannot replace classic writing. The two styles of writing work equally well in different ways to convey meaning and an experience to its readers. The pros and structure of each of these styles have the ability to cause distinct and profound emotions, ideas and experiences for their readers. There will someday be another innovation to writing that will change this experience for future readers but it will always need the advances that have come before it and will never replace old styles, such as the novel or someday hypertext.

Choose ur own Adventure!!

I read the Choose Your Own Adventure book Prisoner of the Ant People, by R. A. Montgomery. The basic plot is that you are an earthling who is part of a team of researches composed of different groups. Your group consists of a Martin from Mars and a robotic alien who is from the planet F32. The groups mission is to combat the Evil Power Master who is trying to destroy the universe. The story starts out with you going to a room where there is a machine called the miniaturizer. This machine can transform you into the size of an ant, which it does because it is accidentally set to automatic.
The rest of the story is based on your decisions throughout the book. The decisions are basically logic vs. intuition. The robot represents the logic while the plans you or the martin think up usually involve an action reaction process. I followed both paths until their ends. Most of them lead to your group getting captured by ant people and ending up working as slaves or stuck in a cell waiting your inevitable fate. None of your decisions lead to the defeat of the Evil Power Master.
The most interesting ending was when I attempted to help a group of ants whos job it is to watch the energy levels of the universe. By watching the energy levels they are able to track the Evil Power Master because he disrupts the natural flow of the enrgy. The ants then attempt to warn planets that will be targeted but their attempts are useless because no one listens to ants. This storyline ends with you attempting to warn planet F32 to no avail the Evil Power Master destroys the planet and the story ends. This is how most of the story is you and your group are basically powerless to stop the Evil Power Masters various evil plots.
I thought the idea of a Choose Your Own Adventure story was very interesting. There are so many different ways that your story could play out, so many different endings and paths to those endings. I think it would be much more interesting if it was better written but I guess it was made for young readers. It was kind of frustrating though because each ending was usually worse than the last. I did not read the whole book or try every different path so maybe one of the few that I did not try made it to the end and the defeat of the Evil Power Master since I am sure that was the point of the whole story.
It was interesting to have the enemy for most of the story being ants. There were 3 different groups of ants in the story, the watchers who I talked about previously, the Queens Tribe, they were mostly neutral and just out for themselves. Whenever you came across them you usually ended up as a slave. The third faction was allied with the Evil Power Master. In one of the ending they destroyed the universe and all you got to do was watch.

reading response 1

Hypertext is not a very easy word to define. Kirshenbaum’s essay “hypertext” defines it as a “non sequential system of links and destinations.” from the four readings we had I have come to the conclusion that hypertext cannot be understood with such a simple definition. In 1965 Vannevar Bush proposed the idea for hypertext. He based his plan for the “Memex” on the human brain and associative thinking. Although the “Memex” was never created Bush’s plan was to have an interactive desk that would be able to link the user to any information he/she may have needed.

Bush’s “Memex” may not have come to be but we now have something very similar. The World Wide Web can connect users to an almost infinite amount of information. Through hyperlinks we can surf the Internet, which works very much like the human brain using associative thinking.

The definition to hypertext, “ non sequential system of links and destinations,” can also be used to describe the fictional works of Jorge Luis Borges. Especially “The Garden of Forking Paths,” witch tells about Ts’ui pen’s labyrinth. The labyrinth is a non sequential story written by Ts’ui Pen. This brings up the fact that hypertext is not only available through advanced technologies such as the Internet but can also be brought to life on the pages of a book. This style of writing became know as the “choose your own adventure” book. People can read a story non-linearly by choosing what the characters in the book will do next thus creating different story lines with each reading.

Katherine Hayles’ essay “Electronic Literature: What is it?” Talks about Shelly Jackson’s piece Patchwork Girl which takes elements of hyperlink, video, sound, and a kind of choose your own adventure style to create an interactive story. This is interesting to me because Jackson uses what, had once been a style only available to printed books and combines this with the actual physical linking of the separate parts of the “story” of the girl. The use of video and sound make this work even more interesting by offering us different and new ways to interact with a narrative.

All these stories and essays talk about hypertext as a way to interact with the stories or information both physically and mentally. Hypertext allows you to manipulate the Internet and to traverse the plot of a book in interesting and new ways. In “The Garden of Forking Paths” Ts’ui Pen believes that time is infinite with infinite possibilities and with each decision that we make in some other dimension the opposite decision is being made. I think that this philosophy sums up what hypertext does for us very nicely. We are given the option through hypertext to infinite decisions and each link we click in another place someone has chosen a different link to create a different story; access different information

Hypertexts & interactive fiction

My name is Kiefer Waterman and this is my blog for English 247. I took this class because it was one of the few available that fit with my schedule. The course subtitle "Hypertexts & interactive fiction" means very little to me at this point, but I hope this course will teach me all about it! i think that hypertext is digitally related literature so it has something to do with the way we look at and talk about literature in the digital age. interactive fiction to me is a story that you can interact with. that could mean many things... a choose your own adventure, digital manipulation of texts.