Final Project: The Ways We Comfort Ourselves

For my final project, I wanted to examine the way our memories of events are altered by our present feelings.  To do this, I have created two separate animations, both of which feature the same set of eight scenes presented as they actually happened.  However, by clicking on the italicized words, the reader is able to see how the narrator remembers the events years later, as shaped by her current view of the world.

In one scene, the events are portrayed in a more positive light than they were when they happened, while in the other, the memories portray the scene in a much more negative light.  The point to remember is that either ending could have occured -- in fact, the way it is remembered is affected by how life turned out, rather than vice-versa.  These false recollections, then, are constructed as more of a defense mechanism, a way of comforting ourselves.  If a relationship turns out badly, we decide it was bad all along -- good riddance.  If it turns out well, we tell ourselves it has always been perfect -- that we were meant to be.

Reality gets lost along the way.  We remember what we want to remember.  But that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Thinking About the Final Project

0.  "What do you want to remember from the conversations you just had?"
The one thing I want to remember (not that it'll be used in my next animation) is how the bone tool works!  I didn't know until today, and it was a very exciting revelation.  In terms of my animation, I guess the only feedback I really got so far was that it sounded like a good idea, though probably a little challenging to make.  I want to try to hold on to the former as encouragement and not let the latter discourage me.

1.  "How will your final piece be:  profound, moving, important, seriously life-changing, or life-engagingly funny?"
My final piece will hopefully be profound.  I intend to write about the way memory is distorted over time, which I think everyone can relate to, to some extent.  Not only do I want to explore how memories can get more fuzzy, I also want to explore how memories can be affected by our emotional responses to them.  For instance, if we hate someone now, our memory of our first encounter with them will probably be more negative than it actually was.  I think this is important because everyone has these sort of emotions and should recognize the power they have over the way we view the world, past and present, and how they can distort the truth.

2.  "How will your writing not be the illustration of your words?  How is your piece really going to engage with the possibilities of writing within Flash?"
I am not artistic, so for me, having my writing be an illustration of my words was never really a possibility.  I love the power words have, and so I want to have my animation be primarily text-based (actually, entirely text-based, now that I think about it).  The animation aspect of my piece will come in the interactivity I hope to embed in it.  I want readers to be able to click on select words and have them change.  This is something that can only be achieved through animation, so it is utilizing the unique possibilities of animated text fully. 

3.  "What sorts of help/support/feedback do you see yourself needing in order to make this piece of writing the one you're most proud of in your whole life?"
I will probably need a lot of help doing the buttons!  I know you already gave me a code (hopefully it works, I haven't gotten a chance to test it out yet), but I will also need help figuring out how to stick all my scenes together.  I will be able to animate my individual shape tweens (words changing into other words) on my own, I'm sure, but the new technical stuff I am almost certain I will need some help in.  I will probably drop by during office hours in the next few weeks, after I've gotten all the pieces completed and have only to put them all together.  Thanks in advance!

Short Project Reflection

From looking at other people's projects, I learned a lot about the potentials of including art with one's animated text (either photographs or drawings).  I didn't do that in my own work, and I don't intend to in my final project, either, because I prefer to focus exclusively on the power of (animated) words, but I did like some of the effects, some of which I didn't previously imagine.
As far as my own project goes, I think I learned something about controlling text speed to convey an idea.  We saw an example of text being flashed on the screen one word at a time with "Dakota," but I think that text speed didn't change too much throughout.  I wanted mine to be fast at some parts and slow at others.  I liked what I learned about how this effect can look, but most of all I had to consider what I would do if people said the last half of my animation was too fast.  Part of me wanted to slow it down as a result, but another part of me thought that would go against the entire purpose of the animation.  I ultimately decided that even not being able to read every single word of fast-paced text doesn't prevent readers from getting the general idea, which is all I wanted to convey.  I think I learned how to convey, through animated text, the way someonespeakinginahugerushoffrustratedwordscansoundlike.

If I had more time, I'd either add more of the sort of thing I had at the beginning where the words moved like they sounded (e.g. "crawled" crawled and "telescope" telescoped), or I'd cut it out entirely.  I was a little unhappy with how I was somewhat inconsistent with the usage of this technique.

If I started over, I'm honestly not sure what I would change.  I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.  I think my piece conveys what I want it to convey (although, feedback pending, that may change).  It doesn't look very flashy or pretty, but that wasn't the point.  I guess it ultimately did what I wanted it to do, and that's all I can ask.

In a sense, I get to "start over" when I do my final project, and for that I will do something different, albeit still very text-heavy and reliant more on the words and they way they change on screen than on pretty picture-animations that could accompany them.

Short Project

Here's my short project. 

Note:  The text is meant to be fast at the end.  It is not a technical issue.

Autopoeisis

1.  "Seeking to disturb the manner in which we see things..."

This essay argues that art's purpose is to raise questions and doubts about our usual ways of seeing the world.  In doing this, it draws attention to what our usual ways of seeing the world are, as they are often taken for granted.  It then questions these ways, but, according to the essay, does not "author a new a new theoretical position, [or] illustrate an established argument."

I think this is a very interesting proposal.  I would very much like to view art in this way, and I think some works of art do achieve this purpose.  However, I think that many other works of art exist that try to not only destabilize the way readers view the world, but substitute a new world view for them.

I feel that art that makes you, the reader, think is probably the most effective art out there.  It leaves a much more lasting impression with the reader and has a greater chance of actually influencing the way he or she thinks about life.

I also think this is a very difficult goal to achieve, however.  It is much easier to say, "This way of looking at the world is wrong, because this one is right," than it is to simply say, "We should reconsider the ways we view the world."  The former inherently has a stronger argument in it, as there can be more evidence to back up something new than there will be to back up something different that remains unspecified.

I am not quite sure if all art has to destabilize "the basic belief in self," but I suppose it could do that as well.  I think it is a little short-sighted to say that's all it can destablilize, though.  I think it is probably easier for people to look at the world in a different way than for them to look at themselves in a different way.  I think we know ourselves better than we know anyone else, and this makes our sense of self fairly solidified and hard to change.  We don't like learning that we don't know ourselves as well as we thought we did.

2. "How communication and creativity function..."

This paragraph was incredibly dense, but I think the main point concerned how we differentiate ourselves based on viewing ourselves against an "other."  Here, through semiosis, we use signs to distinguish ourselves from the other.  In order for this differentiation to exist, there must be novelty, which the essay points out.  This idea of novelty relates to how we value creativity; if something is not new to us, we don't deem it creative or original.  If we have already thought of something before, it is not novel to us; it is our thought, we consider it a part of "us," not the "other's."  If something is new and creative to us, we deem it as belonging to the "other," as it is something we hadn't thought of before.  We therefore value novelty for the way it makes us think and reconsider our own view of the world.

Independent Research Project Draft 1

    In "Digital Literature and the Three Levels of the Digital," Serge Bouchardon remarks how "the Digital offers a range of technical possibilities, notably in terms of manipulation" (1).  This idea of manipulation is something that has greatly influenced Bouchardon, an Associate Professor in Communication Sciences at the University of Technology of Compiegne in France.  Not only did he write his dissertation on interactive literary narrative, but he has also created several Flash pieces designed specifically to be manipulated by viewers.  However, it seems likely that his work has been similarly influenced by his previous work in the educational software industry.  Bouchardon's animations seem designed to teach viewers something, whether it is a more technical aspect of how to use their computers, or, more often, a theme or idea he wishes to convey.  The animations achieve this end not merely by presenting viewers with an informative block of text, but rather by giving them a chance to interact with the text, better allowing them to not only see what Bouchardon wants to convey but, by acting it out themselves, to feel it, too.
    An example of how Bouchardon strives to teach his viewers is no more evident than in his animation "The Twelve Labors of the Internet User:  An Online Artistic Game."  Created with Aymeric Brisse, this game presents players with a task they are no doubt familiar with:  navigating the Internet.  "The Twelve Labors" takes some of the more frustrating struggles Internet users face and likens them to the Twelve Labors of Hercules.  Closing pop-ups, for instance, is compared to slaying the Hydra, with its many regrowing heads.  Each level challenges viewers with a new obstacle that, when beaten, will have given them real-world practice in solving some of the more simple computer problems on their own.  From reminding viewers to make sure their Internet cable is plugged in ("The Nemean Lion") to teaching them how to delete cookies ("The Mares of Diomedes") to giving them practice finding relevant links within large blocks of text ("The Erymanthean Boar"), the game manages to impart useful lessons about Internet troubleshooting while at the same time being engaging.  However, the game expects a certain degree of technological commitment from players, who are required to have a webcam and microphone to play several of the games.  At other points, the game is vague in its instructions, as if expecting viewers to figure it all out on their own.  Although this may be intended as a parallel for the Internet, in which users have to figure out nearly everything by themselves, it somewhat negates the game's point of teaching, leaving players frustrated and not even knowing where to begin.  In this way, the animation's interactivity successfully allow viewers to experience some of the frustrations inherent in using the Internet, but perhaps more so than Bouchardon would have liked or intended in a game that was primarily meant to instruct on the technical aspects.
    A considerably more successful attempt to allow readers to experience a theme for themselves can be found in Bouchardon's latest animation, "Loss of Grasp."  From the very beginning, it informs readers what it is all about, saying:

Loss of grasp is a digital creation about the notions of grasp and control.  Under which circumstances do we feel we have a grip on our life or not?  Six scenes feature a character who is losing grasp.  At the same time, this play on grasp and loss mirrors the reader's experience of an interactive digital work.

What is interesting about this introduction is that, although it clearly introduces the theme of losing grasp, as experienced by the narrator, thus far, the reader feels no such loss.  If anything, being so well-informed from the start about what to expect might make the reader feel more in control than he or she would if he or she stumbled blindly into the first scene of the animation.  Although this may seem counter-intuitive at first, Bouchardon is quick to point out in the first scene that one can only experience a loss of grasp if one had a grasp in the first place.
    The first scene, initiated by the reader pressing any key as instructed, begins with the words, "My entire life, I believed I had infinite prospects before me."  These words linger until the reader roll the cursor over the words, causing them to scramble and rearrange themselves to form the new phrase, "'The whole universe belongs to me,' I thought."  At this point, the narrator's words may begin to feel somewhat ironic, as each touch of the cursor forces the words to rearrange themselves once more at the reader's bidding.  The narrator's confidence in his own agency belies the fact that it is the reader who is in control of this narrative.  With enough touches of the cursor, though, the text begins to take on the somewhat more pessimistic tone the reader expects as the narrator confesses, "But for a while I had doubts," then asks, "How can I have a grasp on what happens to me?"  At this point, the reader is almost in complete control of what happens on the screen.  The text is now set against a backdrop of colored stripes, and the movement of the reader's cursor dictate in which direction he or she will move through the stripes.  Rolling the cursor up or down, left or right, creates different patterns that serve as the background for several more sentences of text before the screen goes green.  The reader remains in control of when the sentences change, and when the narrator finally says, "I feel I've lost control," then once again the movement of the reader's cursor controls what happens to the scene, with colored dots originating from the spot where the reader's cursor touched.  By the time this introductory scene ends with a countdown and the command to press any key, the reader feels completely in control where the narrator is not.
    For the most part, the reader's perceived feeling of control continues throughout the next few scenes of the animation.  Of course, the key word here is "perceived."  As Bouchardon points out in "Digital Literature and the Three Levels of the Digital":  "We understand that all the sequences are based on the notion of loop, yet offer an itinerary.  Every sequence is a short story that will only reach its end with the reader's manipulations" (5).  For the time being, the reader remains in control because Bouchardon wishes it. 
    This feeling of control on the reader's part is ironic in some ways.  It exists in stark contrast to Bouchardon's narrator's loss of control.  In this way, it does not allow the reader to get immediately or fully into the narrator's perspective, since even if the reader has had prior experiences of losing control to draw on, the power to manipulate the text granted to the reader makes it difficult for the reader to draw on these experiences. 

(These last two paragraphs were written kind of on accident.  I really like where I was going with them, but I might finish describing the entire "Loss of Grasp" animation and what it achieves in each individual scene first.  We'll see how it ends up working best.)

Feedback on Short Project Draft

Mostly the feedback I got said it was a thoughtful, relatable, reflective, nostalgic, carefree piece, given the way it reminisces back on what time was like when I was young.  People also said that this nostalgia and reflectiveness was the theme that I seemed to be conveying.

For the most part this is true.  I wanted to have this feeling exist throughout the first part of my project (poem?) because it is meant to be reflective and slow. 

However, the next segment is meant to be reflecting on the present-day, in which I feel time moves too quickly, so hopefully these feelings do not carry over into that segment.

For my final draft, I will add in the fast section that will probably feel a lot less reflective and a lot more overwhelming.  I hope to have readers feel my frustration.

The only recommendations I really got so far were to slow down the part where the world blows up.  I will do that a little bit, because I don't want it to be impossible to read, but I do want that part to be faster than the rest because it is meant to show my panicked state of mind (breaking away from the calm that emphasizes the first half of the piece). 

I think it will be important for me to strike a balance between panicked-frenzied-fast text and text-that-is-simply-too-fast-to-read.  I kind of want it to be frustratingly fast, so then the reader will feel my frustration with time moving too quickly, but I don't want the reader to be so frustrated that they'll simply dismiss my piece.  It's a hard balance to strike.  Part of me almost wants it to be something the reader has to watch two or three times to catch it all, but I'm not sure if that's a bad idea.