what a shock to my system.

It was almost sad how much Separation made me work. Aching and tense from various activity throughout the week, I sorely needed to stretch more than I imagined. At first glance of the piece, I thought my computer had failed to load the text. I clicked more to activate sequences and was surprisingly stopped by the code. Forcing me to slow down, I criticized my own need receive information as quick as I could. The actual literature seemed to be a forceful and tense relationship between humans and computers. To think how helpful and essential computers have become in the workplace and our everyday lives, and to critique how hampering they have become to human development. Social skills, desperate technological dependencies, and physical aches and weaknesses all seem to be caused by our need to be connected to computers and technology.

This work especially connected with the reading for this week “Death of the Author.” There is a lack of identity in the narrative and it makes it relatable. Everyone who comes upon the page has access to who wrote the program, wrote the text, and what the information is coming from (the inspiration for the work). But as the page opens up separately, it acts as on its own. Only the user’s interaction help further the text, prompt the exercises, and connect the these with the user’s own feelings. My realizations of my impatient-ness and soreness came from reading every word slowly, going through the exercises, and examining the piece as a whole once I finished. I didn’t have a connect with the author and felt I was my own author once I realized no specifics were being established within the narrative. “You” and “me” are such commonplace words that it is difficult to not tie them to personal experiences and conversations. The author’s identity, background, and purpose were lost on me because I became the author and gave reason to the textual exercise. Only after finishing and reading the description did I think about why the author’s decisions were important, why the specifics words were chosen, and how and why the exercises were displayed.

Separation – http://collection.eliterature.org/2/works/abrahams_separation/separation/index.htm

Alexander Brahmstedt