Author Archives: rander12

Analyzing Strings

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Creative Response to Strings

One of the things that I think makes Strings such an effective set of flash pieces is that it describes a series of human emotions with a playful disposition that makes them seem natural to the viewer. For example, in the first piece called argument the words “yes” and “no” are pulled back and forth from left to right on a single string almost as if someone was going back and forth in their mind thinking “yes” and then “no,” over and over again. This rhythm and pace back and forth are what gives the piece the feel of an actual argument, which would be impossible to generate in a traditional format like a book. The third piece called haha also starts out with a single string that forms the word “ha” and each time it shifts from one side to the other it consecutively adds another “ha” to the chain. The gradual addition of each “ha” gives it an increased amount of playfulness. Besides the fact that there is laughing, the way in which it is presented makes the piece itself kind of funny. I think the strings also make the emotions seem more alive and active. In a way the strings remind me of musical strings as the words are being played according to a certain rhythm and you don’t physically hear anything but you can hear the laughing in your head as it takes form on the screen.

The font style actually looks like manuscript handwriting, which adds a human-like quality that people can relate to and identify with instead of a more computerized-looking font style. The emotions can thus be seen as being more characteristic of real people who that aren’t perfect robots. It also gives the words more of a playful persona and sense of character in their representation of the different emotions portrayed. There is a certain level of comfort through associating different emotions with the fact that all people experience them; it’s human nature and that’s what the manuscript handwriting does for the piece. It creates a sense of realness, unity, and association.

Impact of Digital Earth

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Critical Response to Satellite and Cyber Visualities: Analyzing Digital Earth

Digital Earth is unlike anything I have ever seen before. It sounds like a great way for people to learn about different parts of the world. It allows you to view a variety of information about any and every country and it’s all in one place instead of having to research the information separately. Digital Earth makes it easy to study and compare countries side-by-side. With a traditional globe there would be no way to encompass all the information that the digital representation allows. A globe physically shows you the location of different places in the world and the routes to get places, but that is the extent of it. Digital Earth would make an excellent study tool for children since the information and location of each country are available to them with the ease of a click.

On page 280 the author presents her argument that instead of the Digital Earth being looked at by the user as “having the world at his/her fingertips,” as it is now, she thinks that it should be “refashioned as an interdisciplinary ‘contact zone’ that will not only extend public access to satellite and computer technologies, but help to erode the science/culture divide” (Parks, 280). I completely agree with that argument; I think that Digital Earth should be viewed as a tool with multiple uses that can act as a crucial aid for research and the learning process for example: it may be a helpful political tool, aid in response to natural disasters, means of educating people, and much more. It could serve as a method to solve problems worldwide by helping to find viable solutions. Regarding it as a tool for a single use, access to satellite information, severely limits its potential as a valuable source that could be used for so much more.

Implication of Faith

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Creative Response to Faith

Robert Kendall’s dynamic poem Faith starts out grappling with the idea of logic, which I find very interesting. In Christianity believers are taught a lot about relying on faith in God instead of our own human logic. The poem shows the word “logic” descending down onto the word “faith,” bouncing off of it and then disappearing. It begins with one, then another, and all of a sudden it dumps a whole bunch of the words “logic” and they all bounce off and disappear. It seems to me that Kendall is trying to make a point that faith defies logic, no matter how much logic is involved. The word “faith” is decorated in a fancy Old English-style font that highlights its importance and emphasizes it more then the other text that is in a normal font style. The style of the letter “f” in “faith” also reminds me of how the monks that handwrote the first copies of the Bible italicized the first letters of the first words in a passage.

As the words from the previous slide fold into the next, the previous words are in a different color as the new words or phrases, which allow you to differentiate between them and see how they all came to fit together. On the next two slides each time a word or phrase appears there is a sound like a “ding” or “dong.” This makes it easier for you to avoid missing something or get lost when you are reading the poem; the sound sort of calls your attention to the new text arriving on the scene. The poem has a fun, playful-like feel through the disposition of the words. For example, the phrase “off the rocker (yippee!)” is slanted downward, one word grows so big that it fills up the entire screen, and at the end the majority of the text falls down into a large pile at the bottom of the screen.

Using the Cut-Up Method

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Critical Response to The Cut-Up Method

The concept of the Cut-Up Method in creating poetry is interesting. When a poem is derived out of an existing document some of the terms in the document might relate to each other and others might not. However the point is that this new work has the potential to be an exceptionally good poem. It is interesting as to how the words will end up being arranged in the new work and ultimately have meaning as a poem. Also, since they are not completely random words thrown together that don’t correlate with each other on the whole, rather a mixture of words in which some correlate and others don’t, the poetic work has the potential to make more sense than not. I think it would be really interesting to see an initially poor document turn into something phenomenal.

Burroughs’s claim that all writing is made up of cut-ups is neat to think about; everything originated from fragments of things we have heard or seen before. You only write what you know; you don’t write things you don’t know, it all comes from somewhere. And after you cut up an existing document and rearrange the phrases you get a completely different take on what each work is suggesting in its context. The new work might get the point across better than the initial document or it might not.

I appreciate this method of creating poetry, but I don’t think it works every time; it might take multiple attempts to produce something that is worth reading. Therefore, as a poet I don’t think it is the most efficient method to use every time. That being said there is always that chance of ending up with something brilliant. After all, some of the best works are created by experimentation or accident. As Burroughs puts it, you just have to “cut the words and see how they fall.” For me, I feel it is the luck of the draw or the luck of the cut for that matter.

Experiencing Tao

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Creative Response to Tao

Tao has religious ties to Buddhism and Daoism that are both concerned with finding the path to enlightenment. Going through the whole experience and working with Tao I was instantly able to see how it aimed to achieve that and I recognized several elements of those two religions. The whole process was meditative with the soft sounds of the flute playing in the background, yet you also encountered a definite sense of spirituality as it runs through the different images of landmasses with lots of trees and water. There is heavy emphasis on nature and meditation, practiced by Buddhists.

The word “Tao” itself means a physical way or path. What I find utterly enchanting is that Tao provides a completely new and unique experience for each person that uses it. The flash player allows you to flip the images in different directions as frequently as you want over the course of the experience and then at the end you can start over if you want by pressing the red triangle button. What is wonderful about that is in the end everyone ends up at the same place, yet each takes a slightly different path to get there. If you don’t flip the images at all and just let the videos run their course both windows start out being the same and then slowly transition and differ from each other slightly as times goes on. Whether you chose to alter it or not, it eventually does it on it’s own. There is also a feeling of danger through viewing the vastness of the earth, which actually increased my interest as a viewer. It is ironic to experience something that evokes peace and at the same time has a sense of danger.

To me, Tao symbolizes the way in which each person choses their life path. We all make different life decisions and have different experiences just as we can chose how to flip the images in the videos, but in the end we all end up at the same spot. We have a common entity uniting us, the freedom to manipulate and live our lives the way we want.

 

Response to The Technology and the Society

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Langdon Winner makes some valid points about the role of technology in our everyday lives. When TV was first invented you never thought that it would become so heavily relied upon by people for entertainment and social discussion; I wasn’t surprised to hear that most Americans spend about one-third of their entire lives watching it, however that number is truly shocking. It seems to me that people deserve a better quality of life than just sitting on their behinds staring at a television set. It is no wonder that TV has been speculated as a major contributor to obesity since it is so easy to loose track of time sitting in front of the TV opposed to doing other things. In my opinion, about half of the things aired on TV today don’t benefit or teach anything and ultimately becomes a waste of time. In this case technology has really become a detriment to people’s quality of life in a major way. However, from a different perspective the evolution of TV can also be viewed as a positive. In Winner’s words it is “the universal babysitter” which when watched in moderation can be a wonderful source of entertainment as long as it’s advantages outweigh it’s disadvantages.

This reminds me of another technology that has impacted our world immensely in recent years and can easily be switched with television as well as a few others in each of William’s versions of cause and effect in technology and society. Since the invention of Facebook and Twitter many people have gained as much of an addiction to those as they have to TV and it has certainly altered our world. I have a Facebook account in which I am “Facebook friends” with four hundred eighty-two people and I would say that at least a third of them if not more, must sit on Facebook all day and post statuses about their life, hour by hour of the day. For some it has become an addiction which has some unfortunate consequences, but looking at it from a different perspective it has a lot advantages too for example, being able to stay in touch with people you know who you may not have otherwise. Therefore, I think it is partly up to you how much direct exposure you get to these technologies, but as Williams mentions you will never be fully free of exposure to them because they have become embedded in and central to the content of our everyday life. Hence, people don’t really have control over their exposure to these new technologies. For example, it has not only become the topic of social discussions but also the method through which teachers teach and businesses run. Even as I sit here now I am using a brand new Apple computer to type up my homework and submit it online.