FINAL PROJECT

Well, just so everyone knows this class is literally the last real class of my college career. I'll be graduating May 15 (10 days away!) and all I have after this is four finals in all elective courses. I have already gotten a job working for CSC (Computer Sciences Corporation) as a Technical Writer Associate Professional, and I will begin working full time a week after graduation. It's been a fun four years Mason, I kinda wish I was on the five year plan like my friends...

ANYWAYS! onto my final project.

I have created a sort of interactive fiction that I have modeled off a short story idea I had a little while back. It was the standard odd couple, 30 year old lonely accountant meets 28 year old artistic music manager. The main focus of the story was that the guy was using the girls blog to figure out what to talk to her about. Eventually he begins writing everything about their relationship on his blog. He eventually begins to feel cool because of all the subscribers his blog gets, and actually begins to take advice from his virtual friends about his real relationship.

I changed this short story into actual blogs! I think the format is really interesting, and it can have actual viewers that can contact the characters via email or blog responses. The readers can check in daily or weekly to check out the new blog posts about this relationship and how its happening. I wrote out the entire story already, so you have to start with George's and scroll all the way down. I think this format of story telling would be very interesting to readers, and each post could be like a chapter. Also it gives the reader the capability to be an active person in the story by writing the characters and changing the future of the relationship!

The story begins with George Bonk's blog.

And it continues with Jenni Aubrey's blog here.

The posts go in this order chronologically:
GB- "I Have Set Up My Blog"
GB- "Upcoming movies I really want to see"
JA- "Yo folks"
GB- "Someone Special"
GB- "Kinda a creepy thing"
JA- "Upcoming shows for my peps"
GB- "Making my move"
JA- "Lightfuse show"
GB- "Oh MY GOD"
JA- "Coffee anyone?"
GB- "Too much Caffeine + Woman of my dreams = uncontrollable shaking "
JA- "Things are looking up"
GB- "Decision"
GB- "Wowww"
JA- "BULLSHIT"
GB- "Heart Broken"

Final Project

I think for my final project I will make an interactive fiction centered around a new social site. However this site will begin with a homepage filled with generic information about the person, then there will be a number of links that will take you to different aspects of the persons life. This way people can choose what they want to read about the person and what interests them. It is sort of a quick way to meet people and only look at what you want to see about them.

NEW SITE

Check out the new music site, District Noise. This will keep you up to date with all the upcoming hip-hop music scene in DC and surrounding areas.

Group project

I have teamed up with Trish and we are still discussing what our project will center around. I know she has expressed interest in a website that deals with local music, and I am all for that. My only concerns so far relate to the format of the website. will it be simply tour dates and locations? will it have brief descriptions about the bands? pictures? audio clips/songs? videos?

It sounds like a big project to undertake, (especially with my very bare skills using basic HTML coding) but we are both excited to nail down the final specifics and get started.

Remix reviewed

The remix project was an enjoyable undertaking for me. Mixing many audio tracks of a great Robert Frost poem into one reading really gave me new insight into the poem. Creating this project was a perfect example of how many people can take so many different meanings from a singular piece of text. The audio tracks all represented the reader's feelings about the poem, and when they were all put together it really came together as a leveled piece of audio poetry.

Owen's piece with the inserted text and subtitles was very clever and humorous. It really gave me a chance to look at a classic piece of film and text and see the way new media can bring a fresh look into it. Also I'm not sure if other people had the same experience, but for me seeing/hearing the new voices made me wonder what the original recording sounded like. It did a great job of entertaining me and increasing my interest in the original production.

My Final Remix Project

Remix Project

For my Remix project I am taking audio readings of the poem "Good Hours" by Robert Frost from the Internet Archive. There are about 41 audio readings all done by different people and all in the public domain.

I plan on mixing the voices so that each line of the poem will be read by a different voice. Once I have reassembled the audio poem I plan on putting short video clips and pictures to it to make a video version of the poem. I also may have a friend create an original acoustic guitar score to play in the background, but that is only if I believe it will help the overall meaning and if time is permitting.

I am not sure exactly what I hope the theme of the final project will be, but I have found myself very interested in the rhyme scheme and possible meanings of changing it.

My experience with the Electronic Literature Collection

I was a bit confused and intimidated when I first got to the ELC. Each picture in the 8x8 grid does not give any obvious hints as to what the literature behind it will feature. I assumed that the electronic literature would be similar to hypertexts such as "Firefly" and "Hegirascope", but I was unsure of what else to expect from it. After moving my cursor around the grid at random for a little bit and reading the titles, I picked Inanimate Alice: Episode 1. I chose this story because the image reminded me a bit of Doug Funny, and the title made me curious.

After experiencing ("reading" just doesn't seem like the right word) the story I was very impressed with the effect it had on me. The story was written well, and the interactive aspects added to the experience I felt. The music, sounds, pictures, and video clips, all work well with the story and help to further express the anxious feeling that the character is facing. I especially liked the inclusion of the "ba-xi", which is similar to a mobile blackberry that Alice plays with. When the ba-xi came into the screen things like the typing text and clicking on the pictures really made me feel like I was on the trip looking for Alice's dad as well.

This piece of literature was interactive fiction, and it is very comprable to other hypertext works. I would say that the focus is more intended to be on the interactive parts of the expreince than on the literature. At times there is no text at all on the page and the user is left just to watch the image of a road flying by or move the cursor over some pictures.

Overall I would say that all the media works very well together to express a very anxious mood and bring the user into the role of an active person in the story instead of a passive reader.

My blog is set up!

I've set up my blog. Stay tuned for future postings.