Post-Print Fiction

Just as the name suggests, Braid is a labyrinth of twists and turns that are held together by the protagonist, Tim. Similar to Laura and Laurens’ experiences, I was also reminded of other role-playing games. Specifically in accordance with Zelda, the player has to explore a landscape dotted with puzzles, questing, and of course, a monster. I would definitely argue that Braid is a reflection of a Green World, as the game centers on Tim’s quest to save the princess. The interruptions caused by these obstacles become a theme in video games as they increase a propensity for vigilance and further, invoke new perspectives. I do not want to upset Sam’s earlier blogged distaste for these, but I do believe that Braid is another example of love story. The relationship between Tim and the princess is the motivation and, thus, the point of Tim’s quest. This similarity between Braid and other games made me see the popularity in these role-playing tropes. They provide an escape from a reality, a utopia that has continuity over the time and space of moral dimensions. I equated this game a lot with the interactive/electronic fiction we have read/played in class, as Braid’s premise reflects a readerly idealism. While Tim has a sense of agency, the meaning of his actions are manufactured by the game’s designer. I would agree with Lauren’s point that Braid is trying to tell a story. Like an ergodic text, Tim is a character in search of an author. Yes, the game designers created this “world,” however, the player is in charge of how it is executed. The player is allowed to discover and explore the game’s boundaries through the chaos of puzzles, colors, shadows, etc. The designer cannot select the moral decisions for us, as it would only presume a familiarity. The game’s authorship becomes a product of the player’s decisions.

Prior to playing the game, I read Braid’s Wikipedia article to find that Jonathan Blow was criticized for his minimal text in the game. I found that interesting as it reminded me of our class discussion on story vs. plot. Braid is not a novel. Braid is game. It is a database, not a narrative. Therefore, the minimal text seems accurate as it reinforces that a game is a story and does not have a lined sequence of events. I think Blow did a phenomenal job at conflating text with action.

I have to also applaud Blow’s conceptualizing of the six different worlds and his ability to link the fragmentation of the worlds into the unity of the game’s story. This dedication to the preserving or surpassing of time was an evocative foundation. At times, I was reminded of Dante’s Inferno with the various rings and rounds that Tim had to associate with (as well as the heavy themes of hesitance, mystery, decision, etc.). I’m sure this is a leap, but isn’t it ironic that the protagonist’s name is one letter away from spelling out time? Just as we discussed earlier in the semester also, a name is truly a living host of its own.

Feeling utterly helpless and hopeless in the face of yet another gaming assignment, I pressed on and tried not to be thoroughly discouraged by my own obvious and painful ineptitude to play video games. I simply lack the hand-eye coordination to move very easily through these kinds of exercises. But enough whining…I did spend enough time inside the couple of worlds I managed to visit to make some observations (although likely poorer for not having a rich experience).

I was fascinated by the gorgeous backdrops and colors. I spent alot of time contemplating the suns and clouds and trees. They were certainly a consolation when I had failed my 15th attempt to bounce across the clouds and get the puzzle piece. I liked the format, and as another classmate already noted, it did remind me of Mario Bros. (My younger brothers played it when we were all a lot younger.) I liked being able to move along and alter the scenery. Even though I knew I was trapped, it was still nice to be able to change up the wallpaper in the prison cell.

I liked the interesting context of the storyline, and was only disappointed that I could not make it to more worlds so I could read more about it all. I was certainly grateful for the “forgiveness” of the shift button, and felt that the game reflected the complicatedness and not so black and white reality of real-world relationships and our own navigation through them. Lots of lessons to learn and the ability to undo mistakes was a nice alternative to the pass/fail doggy-dog reality of some real-life situations.

The little that I did gather about the couple beginning in the garden (before the fall) was a definite shout out to the Garden of Eden from Genesis. I find it interesting that the game, and perhaps our own experiences, is affected by our own desires to return to Eden. Return to some place that existed untouched and unsullied by the mistakes and messiness of life. I never got far enough in the game to know how it turned out and I will be interested to hear in class what unfolds from world to world.

Finally, as strong as the “Garden of Eden” story lives in the subconscious of our lives and experiences, definitely the Fairy-Tale Princess rescue is also embedded there. The quest to save the Princess and save the relationship is one that is not limited to the Prince. I know many many women who strive to rescue their relationships and make incredible sacrifices to do so. I wonder why we identify with the Prince saves Princess storyline?

          I found Braid to be a lot different than I imagined (not that I’m a big gamer and had much prior knowledge to go off of). I thought the introductory sections, the little reading stones, were really interesting. It reminded me of Mario: the mission to save the princess; however, this explanation went into more detail, introducing the relationship between Tim and the princess. A relationship full of lies and hurt (mistakes) is portrayed from the tablets. I think the theme of “mistakes” and trying to correct them, or learn from them played a huge role in the make-up of the game.

          The first time that I “died” during the game, I freaked out. I thought that I was going to have to go all the way back to the beginning of the world, and start over. Then, when it told me to press the “shift” button, I came to see that I essentially brought myself back from the dead. At first, I pressed the shift button only long enough to get out of the fire pit, and encounter the hedgehog that had killed me the first time; so I died again. And again. Finally, I realized that I was able to place myself wherever I preferred to make a change in my previous path; I was going back in time, and able to correct my errors, just as Tim was trying to correct his mistakes. After I came to this realization, I was able to manipulate the game, knowing where I had to go before I died, so that I could get back there. The game became one of manipulation, but also proved that if you see where your mistakes lay, it is much easier to reverse the path in order to avoid them again; as long as you learn something, take something away from your errors, things will turn out alright.

Playing Braid made me think back to the discussion we had about Jason Nelson’s works, and the way that storytelling and gaming can intersect. Like Jason Nelson’s “games,” Braid is frustrating in its simplicity: almost everything “gamey” about Braid is modeled after the classic platformer game Super Mario Bros., one of the most straightforward and “playable” video games (outside of casual games), requiring little-to-no experience with videogaming for a user to successfully play. And like Mario, Braid also attempts to tell a story; in fact, Blow makes little attempt to hide his homage to the seminal platformer–he even has a level in Braid called “Jumpman,” Mario’s original name when he first appeared in Donkey Kong. The level is modeled after the iconic level in Donkey Kong where gameplayers met Jumpman for the very first time. If we acknowledge the ways that Blow incorporates elements from the most classic of classic videogames, this emphasizes the ways in which Braid vastly differs from gaming tradition–and the ways that it slips into storytelling mode.

While Braid attempts to straddle between storytelling and gaming, I believe that it actually demonstrates how difficult it is to merge the two modes. Many gamers will talk about Braid with a tone of frustration–they appreciate the artistry, but believe that Blow fails to create a successful “game” because of his heavy reliance on storytelling via blocks of text. While gamers delighted in the puzzles and experimentation with controlling new elements of the game such as time, many of them wished that Blow had found better ways of incorporating the textual storytelling into the gameplay itself. However, for the purpose of exploring post-print fiction, should we instead view the text as the main focus of Braid, and the gaming as simply a way to reveal the text in a new and interesting way? Further, it seems to me that the gameplay aspects of Braid allow us to think even deeper about the thematic elements that the text wishes to emphasize. Mainly, while the text itself refers constantly to the limitations and constraints of time, the gameplay allows us to interact with these ideas firsthand, instead of simply thinking about them abstractly.

There are plenty of texts which play with time and its constraints–Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Slaughterhouse Five, and even Back to the Future are a few that come to mind. However, these texts all exist in comfortable little worlds where the reader themselves is free from the burden of having to manipulate time–instead, the author creates his or her own rules for controlling time and invents characters who can use this control to their advantage, or sometimes disadvantage. What the readers are left with is an impression that the ability to manipulate time can be easy or straightforward, and useful if it is done properly. While the textual elements of Braid are reminiscent of this, the gameplay immerses the “reader” into an entirely new position where he or she is forced to take on the role of manipulating time. Further, Blow succeeds in showing us how cumbersome altering the mechanics of time can be, leaving the reader longing for a more straight-forward exploration like in Mario or Donkey Kong, which represents the way chronological way that we experience time in real life. Blow couldn’t make this argument without incorporating the gaming elements into his story–otherwise, we’d just be “taking his word for it” that manipulating time can be frustrating, ineffective, and hardly worth the effort it takes to make things work out advantageously. Because Blow uses the gameplay to further emphasize the point he is trying to make in the story, it works effectively as a complementary, immersive layer to the text. However, if Blow was simply using a basic platformer where the player beats repetitive bosses or solves puzzles to unveil a text, Braid would pitfall into the frustrating realm of “too much text for a game” or “too much game for a text.”

I loved all the different interactions that Braid uses to engage players.  You’re trying to get through each level without getting killed, there’s text to read, and puzzle pieces to find and put together.  It keeps you busy and for the most part not doing something right away does not hinder you from exploring the game further; even if you can’t get all the puzzle pieces in World 1, you can still push ahead and play in the second world.  Of course, there came the point where I had to go back and finish what I had left off doing.  The text is also vague (like not knowing Tim’s mistake) but I like how this allows the players to come to their own conclusion.

Not only is the text vague, but it is far from linear.  The text switches between Tim’s experience after the princess is gone and when he is still with the princess.  It also switches from the third to second person point of view which makes me wonder who is narrating the story.  In the actually worlds, time isn’t linear either and is affected by what Tim does in the past and present time.  Being able to reverse Tim’s actions is not only helpful to you as a player when Tim gets killed, but it becomes a key element to obtaining the puzzle pieces.  Moving left can reverse time while moving right time progresses. Sometimes after going back in time, Tim’s “shadow” can repeat Tim’s actions.  Later in the game you can also slow down time.  Some things are not affected by changes in time at all, like objects that glow green.  The text gives you a clues on how time will be affected in each level as well.  In level 5, the text says that Tim’s ring causes people to be “slow to approach.”  In that level, that sentence is translated literally and time slows down if Tim uses the ring.  The music also incorporates the different places in time.  Sometimes the music will stop if time is stopped or will speed up if time speeds up as well.  Being able to manipulate time, I think, shows how much Tim is affected by the past and how he wishes to reverse the mistakes he has made.

 

WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS ABOUT THE END OF THE GAME

After a couple hours of playing Braid I said to myself, “I hate this game. There’s too many ways to fail.” And while I do think this is true for inexperienced gamers, like myself, I forced myself to consider this idea from an experienced gamer’s perspective, and in that sense the game is incredibly rewarding because there’s so many ways to win. That having been said, a lot of the puzzles in this game are extremely difficult and require you to manipulate time in such a precise way that the kinds of people that are able to achieve these rewards are such experienced gamers that the reward of solving a puzzle has lost its novice (and therefore, excitement). I think Blow is trying to reach these kinds of gamers in particular, the ones who solve puzzles just to get to the end of the game. I think further evidence for this can be seen in how many references Blow makes to popular games like Mario Brothers and Donkey Kong. Blow is trying to discourage the analytical process that many gamers go through in order to reach a predictable, vaguely-satisfying end.

I, being an inexperienced gamer and incredibly impatient (possibly the reason I’m so bad at video games), was forced to go online and look at several video walkthroughs (which Blow adamantly discourages) and the Wikipedia synopsis of the plot to get a better understanding of the game as a whole. Several walkthroughs revealed the narration-suggestive puzzle-portraits and the ambiguous end (or endings) of Tim’s search for the Princess. I found the puzzle portraits particularly interesting, as they all included some kind of beverage -implicitly alcoholic- and Tim’s emotional state within several different worlds (which seem to get progressively worse as they become less magical and more urban). Its somewhat ambiguous as to whether his surroundings or the beverages are connected to his emotional state, but I do think the consumption of alcohol is supposed to represent Tim’s development in age, and we can conclude from this that he was happier when he was younger. There are several other aspects of the game that suggest this idea, such as one of the alternate endings of the text at the epilogue in which the princess is somewhat of a maternal figure to Tim and she encourages him to remain a child by consistently walking by a candy store. I think, here, Blow is suggesting that video games are more fun for younger audiences because the experience of the game is rewarding and entertaining enough. Kids often don’t make it to the end of a video game, because its not their initial goal. As adults with more experience with the idea of video games, we can expect that a game has an ending that will give us more satisfaction than the experience of the game itself, and thus we are completely distracted by this goal.

There have been many reactions to Braid by experienced, adult gamers who are frustrated by the text-heavy yet morally ambiguous ending of the game. Their argument is best displayed in Braid: Why it Fails. I’m actually not sure if this reaction is intentionally ironic, because so many people (especially gamers) are adamantly opposed to text in general. Blow calls attention to this in the fact that he places so much dependence (creating incredibly difficult puzzles as the only way to reach the end) upon the text at the end. He almost sets up the audience to be disappointed by their expectations of extravagant graphics and a tangible purpose of the game.

After spending a few hours playing Braid, I have to admit that while it frustrated me a few times, I did enjoy it mainly because of the graphics, music, and users’ interactivity. On another note, I noticed that throughout the game there is an overwhelming presence of manipulation from Tim, himself, to the pink rabbits in the third world. From the very beginning of the game Blow manipulates users to believe that Tim is an innocent and apologetic man in search of his lost princess who is being held captive by a “horrible evil monster”, yet at the end of the game we discover that Tim is actually the monster whom the princess has escaped from. (I did not reach the end of the game – I looked it up on Wikipedia)

The books in the cloud worlds help manipulate users further into believing Tim’s innocence because, to a certain extent, they portray him as a lovable and concerned partner – for example, the books read the following about Tim: “For a long time, he thought they had been cultivating the perfect relationship, and “He had been fiercely protective, reversing all his mistakes so they would not touch her.” (Braid, World 3) Users are manipulated into trusting Tim and helping him in his mission to rescue the princess, after reading these quotes, because as we had discussed in class we sympathize with characters that are the underdogs, and have a heroic mission ahead of them. Knowing this, Blow created a perfect plot and character to manipulate users. Blow, however, does provide users with hints of Tim’s true persona in the same books –some of the books read: “The princess’s eyes grew narrower. She became more distant”, “Now his journey to find her again, to show he knows how sad it was, but also to tell her how it was good.” (Braid, World 3) In yet another book Tim claims to regret his decision to leave the princess “to a degree” – this fact alone suggests that Tim and the princess had troubles even before he left her and vice versa.

Judging from Tim’s outfit and appearance, it is also hard to depict him as a monster when he does not have any of the conventional physical traits that a monster would have such as a disfigured face and body, or even quite possibly being part human and part animal. Considering that the game is based on traditional tales of a lost princess and her savior, I expected a literal monster not a metaphorical one – I can say that Blow, in this regard, deceived me. Aside from Tim, I found it interesting that while playing the game users have the capability to manipulate time and go back into the past. Before I caught on to this ability, I was at a point where I was growing increasing aggravated with the game because I could not get myself out of certain situations without pressing the “shift” key, and going back to my past movements. I appreciate that Blow made this ability an important feature of the game because, whereas with the last games that we played for class I could not connect them to an overarching theme, with Braid, I could see the connection that Blow draws between this ability and the fact that Tim wants to go back into time to erase his mistakes.

Along with the idea of manipulation of time comes the reality that time cannot be reversed, and if this were to be an option it would by no means be effortless – which is highlighted in the game. As the game progresses each level becomes more and more difficult, and along with that it becomes harder to manipulate time in order to obtain either a key or puzzle piece. When I first started to play the game, I thought that it was not very difficult but then it suddenly changed and I had to reverse time. Similarly, it is hard for Tim go back in time and erase all of the mistakes he made with the princess. I am not sure if Blow structured the game this way to manipulate users into believing that the game is not as hard as it could seem, or if he was simply following standard game protocols of constructing games from easy to hard.

I also found it interesting that Blow would make pink rabbits the enemies when traditionally they are associated with happiness and sweetness. I think that Blow purposely did this to manipulate users and perhaps even Tim because no one would expect for pink rabbits to be the enemies. There is an element of surprise and manipulation on the rabbit’s part when users discover that they are not friendly and sweet, but evil. This is the same type of feeling that users get when they discover that Tim is the monster that the princess is running away from.

After playing The Bomar Gene, I noticed similarities between the game and We Feel Fine. I tried to find a linear sequence in which I could attempt to beat the game, but I was only able to capture mini stories about random people. For instance, one of the clicks led me to the story of Joanna Howard, who could apparently make people younger just by touching them. I guess I found some joy in playing the picture matching game. The pictures reminded me of my parents’ old photographs from the seventies and eighties. The story behind the photos seemed a little more intriguing than the actual game, how Rosario Buena found photographs from different time periods and settings that looked exactly the same. This made me ask, what is the author trying to accomplish in his fiction?

Perhaps the Nelson is trying to force the players to abandon their habitual need to find a starting point, and find a linear sequence in which to finish the game. Maybe he simply wants us to be evoked by odd stories while holding on to our attention using interactive graphics. Should we, the readers appreciate the stories being told, or do we appreciate Jason Nelson’s ability to present it?

In addition to The Bomar Gene, I also focused on I Made This. You Play This. We Are Enemies. I beat this twice because I wanted to see if my score really was “42 and has always been.” During the first time I played this game, which looks like a rip off of Nintendo’s Paper Mario, but in a good way, I detected a very sarcastic tone in the author that seem to say, “you are playing the easiest 2D game ever created, so don’t flatter yourself.” So I felt like it would be worth a shot to go through the game again and try to find more significance behind the game.

Even during my first play of the game, I tried to read the text closely. But again, my nature to play games has always been primarily to beat the game. Yet at the introduction of Nelson’s game he says, “’figuring out’ is for controlled centered hedonists with bees for hair.” So that made me think although the game appears to be time driven or tries to pressure you into completing a level as fast as possible, I think the real challenge is to force myself to slowdown and just take a look at the text on the 2D screens.

I think the first thing that Nelson wants us to do is too simply appreciate his video game art. But he also wants us to break through the habit of trying to find a sequential path toward completing an objective, like we seem to do in more traditional games, and lastly find some significance behind all the chaos of images, sounds, and text within the game. I guess that last part may prove to be the ultimate challenge.

This post will be straightforward and humorless.  Nelson’s work makes me angry.  But I liked it.  Or I like that I don’t like it.  I didn’t like it because it is art that hates art.  As with Dada, and Warhol.  But it is art all the same.  It makes me think and I find it very funny in places.  It follows the school of Stylistic Suck – intentional or not, it doesn’t matter.  Feel free to argue otherwise.

I liked the marriage of game elements with “poetics.”  The presentation is interestingly disassociated.  Complexities abound.  Physical second-person playing in fields of disconnected prose; cut-up method applied to text, pictures, audio, and gameplay; jokes, observations, and “plots” that are ambiguous by nature of their presentation.

The player, a “you,” navigates through a game world that conflates game elements and text elements.  The player must combine rules of reading with rules of gameplay.  Text becomes enemy, text becomes goal, text becomes game environment.

Combining game and text elements makes for a fractured experience.  You just bought the (a?) farm.  Come on and meet your maker.  The levels shift randomly.  Music is discordant.  Pictures flood the screen.  It’s a stream of consciousness.  It’s fun.  Nelson is having a good time.

The work doesn’t invite interpretation.  It is ambiguous.  At some points less so than at others.  It makes digs at game design with its arbitrary elements, explosions, and expository phrases.  Spoonfed!  Jump here!  You were harmed by a game that harms you.  And as it critiques games it simultaneously challenges culture and literature.  Or pretends to.  Or encourages players to think that it does. Or does nothing at all.  Don’t try to get it.  It’s just good old fashioned fun.

The mixture of gameplay elements and reading elements could be accomplished in print, with cards, board games, print mazes and labyrinths, and so on.  Although the experience would of course be different from the electronic format.  The work is post-print in that it purposely avoids or confronts convention, although its presentation follows an artistic philosophy (Dada) that existed before both the modernist and post-modern movements.

In relation to established genres, the work doesn’t fall into easily defined categories.  But while these categories are not easily defined, they do exist and they are not new – absurdity has and always will exist, although it is often suppressed and derided, and usually very funny.

I found that electronic writing that combine gaming lose narrative power—as we understand it— while those that don’t involve so much gaming have a stronger narrative. For example: the Taroko Gorge and the Bomar Gene have a storyline that is easier to follow than those with more games. The important factor in the creation of these works is the emphasis on incorporating graphic arts and design for the web while delivering a story which not necessarily has to follow a sequence. I think the incorporation of digital technology into the narrative can be compared with prose poetry where freestyle poems lose the rigidity of the genre but still conserve its beauty and sensitivity. In this case the meshing of art, literature, and games presents a context for the developer and programmer that transforms into a challenge for the reader-gamer-explorer. While the artist/author Nelson, tells us not to try to make sense of it, he also tells us to explore, explore, explore. And I wonder is it possible to explore without trying to make sense or arriving to it regardless?

By not trying to make sense, we simply put on hold our preconceived ideas of making sense of things in the way we usually do. And exploring with an open mind we will get to an understanding of the work if not different from what we would arrive to otherwise, at least we would get there in a different way. Is that what this digital or electronic literature is all about, developing a new approach to the genres?

I think that the difference between a regular game and these games is that in a regular game the objective is more focused on beating the opponent or even the creator of the game, to conquer. In these games the stops along the way delivering pieces of literary stimuli create a journey within the game that allows the player construct a storyline parallel to the game which will modify the game experience but will also be modified by it.

Because we are so trained to make sense of things, we will either way arrive to a conclusion after the exploration. These works can’t be figured out completely after a few engagements but a familiarity with them will eventually create a concept and all the confusion that now overwhelms us will go away and we will be able to appreciate the paths that connect graphics, lines, text, and colors, or where they are not supposed to connect.

Viewing the works assigned for this week’s class leaves me wishing for more.  Not more of the same thing; rather, I would like to see a work of electronic literature that provides more impact to the reader/viewer.

I visited each of the links listed in the assignment, but I found little that I would feel confident classifying as literature.  I found some of the works by Jason Nelson to be artistic, particularly the Weather Visualizer.  I found nothing, however, that moved me emotionally or intellectually, nor that changed the way I think about myself or others.  I do believe that electronic literature has the potential to rise to that level and accomplish such things, but the authors need to reach higher.

The subject matter is not the problem; Nelson has chosen for his works some weighty issues, including the meaning of life and death.  The Bomar Gene begins with the claim, “Inside our codes are unfinished thoughts, ideas half formed, lives existing as brief and unsolvable equations.”  This certainly touches on rich territory for literature, but my scientific mind bristles at the attempt to create a pseudo-link to genetics.  Moving beyond this quibble, I eagerly click on the seemingly endless links, but eventually figure out that there are only nine distinct subpages.  Some of these pages have the potential for creating moving short stories, such as the tale of Gabriel whose voice is understood only by trees, but too much of the reader’s focus is directed to the array of distractions that Nelson packs into his Flash application, and not enough on developing a coherent narrative.

With all of the text and sounds and images in Jason Nelson’s work, the viewer initially imagines a level of complexity that withers away upon closer inspection.  For example, “sydney’s siberia: a digital poem” purports to be “infinite click and read,” and leads the viewer to suppose that all of the images expand into infinite other images as one clicks and zooms in.  It is quite a clever concept.  Alas, the number of unique images is rather small, and the site relies on a trick: clicking on an area does not really zoom in on that part of the image, but instead leads to a new image that takes you back to some of the tiles you’ve seen before.  This is easily demonstrated by clicking repeatedly on the same spot, such as one corner – doing so usually eventually puts you in a loop cycling the same 4 images (although I found one special spot comprising an 8-image cycle).  Although the movement of the image after clicking implies that you are zooming in on it, you can occasionally notice a color change or pattern shift as an entirely new image comes into view.  Again, ignoring my quibble, I seek meaning, and find only lines of poetry presented in random order.

The best use of randomness I have seen in this class so far may be Nelson’s “this is how you will die.”  Not only are the resulting death narratives mostly coherent, but the connection of life and death to the spin of a wheel is a time-honored concept sure to resonate with the viewer.  It is certainly more readable than the poetry on “Taroko Gorge,” as it takes into account coherence, and includes user interaction.

Overall, I think these works are too limited in scope to have much meaningful impact upon the audience. They are like bonbons – small, tasty, but quickly forgotten.  The authors may be confusing complexity with depth, because there is certainly a lot happening on some of these sites, but in the end it means little.  I challenge authors of digital literature to expand their vision, and to boldly strive to produce work with more lasting impact.

Having said that, I do appreciate this assignment for exposing me to an unfamiliar genre, and inspiring me to try to meet the challenge I identified above.

When I first started playing the electronic literary games by Jason Nelson I was somewhat at a loss for the purpose in them. A lot of the text that was written on the screen and the random pop-ups didn’t seem to have a lot of relevance to the game itself and I found myself frustrated at playing a game just to get from point a to point b.

I think part of my frustration grew from the fact that the rules of notice that I had learned from reading the same kind of fiction for so long didn’t seem to apply to these games.When I tried to fit the rules of notice into the game, I wouldn’t get very far by stopping to try and read every single word on the screen and making sense of it. However, when I stopped applying the traditional rules of notice to the game and formulated my own based on repeated trials and errors, I would get much farther in the game. I think in this way, Nelson might be encouraging his audience to make up their own rules of notice as a way of reaching their own interpretation and meaning from all works of literature, not just electronic.

And although I don’t think Nelson wants us to try and make sense out of all of the stimuli that overwhelms us in his games-in I made this. You play this. We are enemies. he actually says “don’t try and ‘get’ it”- I do think he wants us to take notice of what is on the screen as opposed to just trying to get from point a to point b. I think he wants us to give us as much information as possible in order for us to make the most out of getting from start to finish. In fact, I think many of the games won’t allow you to finish, and so if you didn’t experience anything interesting along the way, you are left feeling cheated. In Evidence of Everything Exploding there is a level that doesn’t have any restricted pathways, nor starting and ending points. At this point, the game is testing the player to see if they are invested in the game in an exploratory sense or if they are merely concerned with “winning.” I think Nelson is encouraging his players to be exploratory and open to the experience as opposed to being singularly focused on a teleological goal.

One thing that appeals to me about the format of Toroko Gorge is its capacity to offer consistent, partially original lines based only on a selection of vocabulary on the part of the author. I’m reminded of Barthes’ article The Death of the Author. In the case of these text’s, the author provides a loose framework, while the actual poem is composed independently by an algorithm. Our experience as readers is only indirectly shaped by the author, and in this case shifts with each reading. In fact, this text may represent the most literal manifestation of what Barthes described as “multiple writings”. While in his essay he was referring to the use of subtext and double meanings, in the case of Toroko Gorge the text is rewritten with each reading. Of course, these varied writings are all confined by the framework provided by the author; the text cannot expand beyond the input of the author and is limited to different combinations of words and syntax.

But it is possible nonetheless for the occurrence of certain combinations in a given order to provide differing interpretation, including ones diverged from the author’s intent. When looking at the source code of these text we can see dozens of words and phrases are used to seed the algorithm used to form these poems. While these can certainly be limited to the themes and motifs the author has in mind, it would be impossible to predict all the combinations that an algorithm might produce.  For example in “Gorge”, a variation by J.R. Carpenter, one line generated was “Mandibles char the bowls.” I wasn’t aware mandibles could char anything, let alone bowls. I can’t say that Mr. Carpenter didn’t predict this permutation but of all those this particular poem generated it seems one of the more likely ones to have evolved independently of the author’s intent.

This particular example, and I would hazard any example taken from one of these poems, can still make a degree of sense in the broader context of a given poem. This reflects the limitations imposed on by the author, who with regard to these texts can be said to be imposing order on chaos. To me this suggests that no work can entirely shake the author. But when I read these poems I think to myself, “I wonder what this thing will come up with next?” The author conversely is far from my thoughts. As Barthes writes the author’s only power is to “mix writings”, at least in this context.

I’m beginning to believe that post-print fiction is inherently grounded in a total disruption of conventional ideas of genre. I’ve been tempted to look at my concentration in poetry and my boyfriend’s film major and think “wow, what a total waste of time.” If I’ve spent the last few years of studies learning what poetry is and how to read it, Jason Nelson and other post-print authors have begged me to throw all of it out. They’ve shown me that it only inhibits my ability to read.

What most of the texts from our class have in common is their inability to conform to a genre convention. Is interactive fiction textual literature, or is it a game? Is The Whale Hunt photography, a database, or a story? Even House of Leaves made us teeter between looking at poetry, film, academic writing, music, and photography. Jason Nelson tries to posit some of his art as “games,” but it’s really just an art exhibit explored through a generic platformer rather than through your own feet. If I try to read it as a game, I don’t understand. If I try to read it as poetry, I don’t understand. If I try to view it as graphic art, I feel like I’m missing out on half of what is there. Is it possible to read multiple genres at one time within one text, keeping the assumptions of Rabinowitz’s Rules for Reading? The rules–assumptions–that we keep in mind as we explore a text are inseparable from genre convention. Genre convention, in other words, sets the rules. What we notice depends on what we’ve been told to notice based on our experience with the genre before, and what genre we categorize the text to be.

I think what it boils down to is that the internet and computers makes it so remarkably easy to mash genres together. All it takes is a little programming. It’s impossible to expect artists not to experiment with this exciting new ability, and it reminds me of one of the most recent genres to develop it’s own conventions–film. For a long time, viewers, academics, and filmmakers alike struggled with positing film outside of the worlds of photography and theater. These were the genre conventions that people knew, but seeing film as one or the other limited the full capabilities of the technology’s impact on art. There’s been an equally remarkable transition with the genre of video games; while critical engagements with video games often rely heavily on knowledge of film studies, “video game studies” itself is trying to break away from this. While I explore Jason Nelson’s art, I can look at it with all of my knowledge of genre conventions from poetry, film, and games. But I feel like this is limiting my experience with the text–and undermining Nelson’s project as an artist.

However, instead of inventing a “new genre” for works like Nelson’s with it’s own rules for reading, I wonder if it’s possible for human understanding of texts to ever move post-genre. This maneuver seems so counter-intuitive to our abilities to “read” art, but I feel like the genres themselves are also perpetually limiting. As Nelson writes in The Bomar Gene, “Humans cannot stop creating.” We can’t stop breaking the conventions. Can we stop relying on them as a crutch when we read, or will we always need them, and simultaneously be eluded because of them when we approach texts like the ones we’ve seen in this class?

In the technocratically constructed, written, and functionalized space in which the consumers move about, their trajectories form unforeseeable sentences, partly unreadable paths across a space. Although they are composed with the vocabularies of established languages (those of television, newspapers, supermarkets, or museum sequences) and although they remain subordinated to the prescribed syntactical forms (temporal modes of schedules, paradigmatic orders of spaces, etc.), the trajectories trace out the ruses of other interests and desires that are neither determined nor captured by the systems in which they develop. (Michel de Certeau, “The Practice of Everyday Life”, http://www.ubu.com/papers/de_certeau.html)

Navigating the complicated worlds of the Nelson interactive fictions/poems/art pieces, it reminded me of de Certeau’s piece on “The Practice of Everyday Life” and how humans trace their own trajectories, as de Certeau put it, through the visual spaces that they encounter; and although they are restricted by the “prescribed” forms that the artist has created, still we are able to decide (to an extent) how we engage the material and therefore, how we experience it. This much is given to us by the artists themselves. Therefore, the individual’s desires remain separate from the intentions of the artist. I find it interesting to read the reactions that my classmates have to the pieces and the frustrations they encounter. It seems that although the artist has a desire to express something visually and through the combined medium of text and art, nonetheless, the experience of the user/viewer is controlled somewhat by the viewer alone. Granted we all bring our life experiences to any piece of art or literature we interact with, yet it appears that part of the art itself is the reaction. Like art “happenings” there is something created during the encounter which the artist is invoking or provoking or asking the viewer to participate in –  as opposed to just trying to interpret or understand what the artist necessarily had in mind. This initiates an experience which is dynamic or live. There is not a scripted process to the experience.

It is also a bit like theater, a bit like a concert, and a bit like eating dinner out. Everytime there is a newness and an oldness which is simultaneous. Traditional art (gallery viewings) and literature readings, are somewhat static and internal, with an emphasis on receiving. The theater, and live music, as well as dining, has an interactive element which contributes to the overall experience (I wish I could come up with a better word than just “experience” over and over again!) In this way, especially according to de Certeau, humans form “unreadable paths” across the spaces and consequently further the boundaries of the art by their footprints. For this reason, I believe the internet pieces are a new and important development for artists and consumers.