Here's Where the Story Ends (?)

In case you haven’t gotten to this page yet, or if you don’t mind jumping ahead (or jumping back) in the text, here is an excerpt worth reading from a page entitled “work in progress.”

Closure is, as in any fiction, a suspect quality, although here it is made manifest. When the story no longer progresses, or when it cycles, or when you tire of paths, the experience of reading ends. …
There is no simple way to say this.

Try clicking on a word, an empty space, or simply the Enter button, and you are back to the “begin” page.

The narrator (perhaps Joyce himself) in this page goes on to say that the possibilities for interpretation are endless and that “sometimes what seems like a loop, like memory, heads off again in another direction.” So maybe there is an end, but it is the reader who must establish it. We've been warned: "There is no simple way...."

Work Cited: Joyce, Michael. afternoon, a story. Watertown: Eastgate Systems, 1987.

This Will Take All afternoon

Where does this text end?

Approach No.5 to reading afternoon, a story:

Started at [begin]. Immediately clicked on the word "fragments." Pressed Enter...continued to press Enter. Now the story is even more fragmented than before (!!!). Each page contains one word; if you click on to the "History" button, you can read the page headers. You can make out a sentence or two, but that doesn't necessarily mean you can make any sense of it.

Again, losing track of time becomes an issue. Does anyone find all this clicking a little addictive?

Questions! Answers!

Is it fair to judge hypertext fiction the same way we would print-based texts? Both deal with the same themes (love, death etc.), but the mechanics of each style is different. Would/Should one kind of text have a "handicap" or be "graded" on a different scale?

I guess that print based texts would have somewhat of a handicap since they're story is in a set form.Contrastingly, hypertext fiction can have multiple events and outcomes.So, i don't think we can judge them in the same manner, because hypertext is more for someone who wants to have various outcomes and scenarios avaliable to them, and print based text is more traditional and for people who are more content with one set of events that correspond to one outcome,well that's my opinion of it anyway, i've been known to be wrong. (PS)

RY: I don't think it makes sense to judge the formats in the same way. They have different strenghts, weaknesses, and intentions. A hypertext, more than a traditional narrative, is trying to get the reader to make choices in the story. A traditional tale is laid out by the author and the reader just gets to follow along.

Because the role of the author has changed in interactive fiction (some may even claim the author is dead), will a definite schism be apparent between female authors and male authors (as it often times is with printed texts)? Does interactive fiction effectively mask a person's background (their gender, race, really any "label" for that matter)? If so, is it right to hide it easily?

I don't think that there will be a schism between male and female authors for the reason that most people really can't tell the difference to begin with, i think the people that are really critical may be able to tell the difference and make a point of it, but i believe a piece of fiction is subjective and if you like it you like it, and if somebody makes a point of trying to make a distinction between gender in writing style then they're just looking for a way to stir the pot. I hope my answers make some kind of sense. (PS)

(Perhaps a question more for Michelle) Has there been much feminist criticism regarding interactive fiction in recent years?

Response to Last Week's Questions...in Four Semi-Bite-Sized Pieces!!

Stay Faithful, Stay Home
Regardless if the party involved was of virtual reality (VR) or from real life (RL), faithfulness would depend on a person’s definition of infidelity. People’s limits for cheating vary; some believe even “thinking about it” merits a lonely night on the couch as punishment. If interactive fiction allowed people to experience all the physical sensations of RL, I imagine that some would certainly find Janeway unfaithful. Because computers and rising technology are becoming more relevant in our daily lives, I think it is (or will be) possible for people to experience emotional and physical attachment for a virtual representation. If we believe it to be true, if we wish for that hologram to be “real,” the human mind has great capacity to suspend disbelief indefinitely. But I don’t believe VR will ever totally replace an authentic human touch…fingers crossed. True, we’ve already begun “slavishly wiring ourselves into the stimulation machine” (Janet Murray 21). Take television, for example; dinners and collapsible furniture has been made specifically for this medium. Many people (consciously or otherwise) plan their lives in accordance to television programming (rushing home for a season premiere; devoting a day to catch up on TiVo recordings; going out on Saturday evenings because network scheduling provides no quality shows for that day). Folks love the Great Indoors, and the “stimulation machines” (TVs and computers and video games, oh my!) are a part of that realm.

Growing Pains
I do believe that interactive narratives are still in their infancy. Technology seems to be growing at a faster rate than what we, mere mortals, can accommodate. Once we truly get a handle for the resources that are out there, and they are made easily accessible to the general public, it would then be plausible for interactive narratives to consider themselves adults. Not to take away from the projects that are around today (they are unique, ambitious and demonstrate vast potential), but until the aforementioned occurs, I think today’s interactive narratives are still waiting for puberty to hit and their voices to change.

Cameo, Cameo! Where art thou Cameo?
Looking at different forms of entertainment, many people wish to be part of an “active audience.” Crowds mouth the lyrics with the singer(s) when musicians play a familiar song in concert. Movies on opening night or at midnight showings will require or inspire people to play dress-up even when it’s not Halloween (go to the Rocky Horror Picture Show Experience or any science fiction/fantasy film at its premiere). Television is no stranger to this phenomenon, as “fan culture has grown…through conventions, underground magazines, and the trading of home videos” (Murray 41). Additionally, the Internet has spawned its own active culture, filled with newsgroups, fan fiction etc. all related to a particular movie/show/character(s). In recent years, television audiences have taken things even further. With an abundance of reality TV shows on every major network, it has become very possible for devout watchers to now star in their favorite shows. TV once imitated life; somehow now the roles have reversed. People want to "keep it real," and they want 15 minutes to play themselves on TV. We indulge in this fantasy of reality TV because it’s like a car crash…and rubbernecking is an American pastime.

Comments on The Laugh
“The Laugh of the Modem” brought up some notable points regarding hypertext and feminist literary theory of the 1970s and 1980s. I found it interesting to see a parallel between ecriture feminine and phallocentric literature with hypertext theory and print culture. When hypertext first came onto the literary scene, it promised a fresh and innovative approach writing/reading. However, this idea (nonlinear, associative writing) was nothing new; advocates of ecriture feminine conceptualized this method years earlier (!!).
Once dominated by “the common enemy” (male/white/Western/elite), print culture is now seen as “primarily passive and feminized” (Michelle Kendrick, par. 18). Print-based texts are slowly being abandoned for an arguably less restrictive method of writing, this being hypertext. The article brings up an intriguing thought; that is, if hypertext is seen opposite of print culture (or masculine thought versus “feminized” writing), is there “space in a new media for a feminist form and feminist content” (Kendrick, par. 21)? Would this duality be too much of a hindrance to hypertext, or would it add to the very fabric of what interactive technology is all about?

Works Cited

• Kendrick, Michelle. “The Laugh of the Modem: Interactive Technologies & l’ecriture feminine.” rhizomes.net: Cultural Studies in Emerging Knowledge. Issue 4 (2002): 21 pars. 20 Sept. 2004
• Murray, Janet H. Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2000.

Bang bang...I shot you down

The Richard Corey Interactive Adventure is an adventure, alright...but a short-lived one at that. Reading the poem before starting the game, the player is already informed that Richard Corey will complete suicide. When you enter the playing field, is the objective of game to try to keep Corey alive? After a few clicks and a "hole-in-one" later, one realizes that the final outcome will be the same, no matter how many times Corey decides to go Downtown. The table will always be at home, you/Corey will feel the need to examine it and see a gun. And the next thing you know, our doomed character is depressed...Bang Bang! He's dead, and can remain dead...or you can go back to town to do it all again.

I lost interest fairly quickly, as the possibilities were quickly diminshed. There was only so many times that Corey and I could walk to town and shoot ourselves in the head.

Ah, that fateful question: Do we play the game, or does the game play us?

An Instrument...of Chaos?

Pax: An Instrument is a story that details the thoughts and ideas (both consciously and subconsciously) of various individuals facing incidents of terror and revelation. Characters shared detailed events (e.g. being gassed and searching for assistance) or chose to repeat axioms that could easily be found in a cynic’s fortune cookie stash. Along with that written text, the other portion of the page hosted visual images of naked people and a display of words that constantly changed. Characters paraded the screen on a semi-consistent level; those that were clicked on appeared more often than those who were not engaged, or “played.”

The text and images of the project had both its pro and cons. One could view the text, but the images were integral in the reading experience because that was how the viewer obtained more content to read. I think the image of naked bodies was a visual technique for the author to further emphasize a theme of “stripping down to the barest essentials.” The story no longer is about the characters’ personal events, but is about the concepts that lace all of them together: horror, truth and fundamentally space and time. Your mind is constantly processing information (analyzing who one person is, what s/he has to say, if and when they’ll come back, why one word morphs into another); this can either be seen as a way to keep things interesting, or can ultimately frustrate a viewer. If one’s “tolerance for chaos” were low, Pax would perhaps not be enjoyable to read/view. There would be no way of skipping to the end of this piece, as the end seems infinite. I myself enjoyed the work more for the experience rather than the actual content. It mirrored a give-and-take relationship; to get a little, you have to indulge the project a bit. That kind of participation, I believe, is unique to hypertext fiction.

Pax: An Instrument is like any other instrument in that it one can “play” it, or use it to a varying degree to suit their liking. It certainly reflects Stuart Moulthrop’s ideas about hypertext, gaming and life. Hypertext, unlike literary print, has a very nonlinear approach to storytelling. It is improvisational and relies on a reader’s interaction with the text, just in the way a player would interact with a game. Hypertext fiction and gaming parallel each other; both cannot reach its full potential without the viewer/player engaging in it.

Mr. Martin and Memento, Part 2

I think the ideas expressed in the papers written were articulate and brought out some points worthy of discussion. It was interesting to read how everyone came about interpreting the movie. Explanations differed, but we all generally agreed on a few key points (the sequence of events were told in reverse/flashbacks; many, if not all, characters were deceitful and corrupt).

One paper cited specific literary terms to describe the actions of the film; it clearly broke down the film into "exposition/rising action/climax/resolution." I appreciated the breakdown of the plot, as my memory (like the film's protagonist) isn't always so reliable.

Another paper commented on Memento's unconventional way of storytelling. I myself can not think of any other movies (aside from Tarantino films) that follow a "don't start at the beginning" structure. However, I do see Nolan's movie taking some of his cues from classic film noir genre (bleak and sometimes corrupt protagonist who is alienated from society, femme fatales, avant-garde cinematography...the works).

Another paper questioned whether tiny aspects within the film were a deeper reflection of the (often negative) times the world finds itself in today. The Polaroid snapshots, the tattoos…these features obviously date the film as “modern,” but do they also comment on the impulsiveness of society?

Interesting reads indeed!