Interesting Pieces

I found this piece, "Girls suck at video games / Les filles sont nulles aux jeux vidéo" by Stéphanie Mercier linked off the blog Grand Text Auto, which is "a group blog about computer narrative, games, poetry, and art."

It is one of those pieces that has very little text and a lot of graphics, but the combination in a streaming movie has a definite characters, tone, and theme; I'd argue it is literature. This really resonated with me, and while the subject matter of double standards and barriers for women has certainly been done, the framing of this story as a parody of a video game is clever--and I'd argue especially relevant for newer generations where video games are increasingly how boys AND men spend their leisure time: a virtual boys club.

The commentary on the piece asks the question, "Could a generally similar idea have been expressed as effectively in an actual video game?" I too thought of this after watching, and it made me think of how I make decisions about when to give the user control in my own work.

Also interesting is the web hosting site this video was posted on, Vimeo, which has a variety of videos, some of which might be interesting to debate: is it literature?

One of these is a video that uses audio from StoryCorps, which I often listen to on NPR. Often the stories on NPR are moving; I think if I were to listen to this video without watching it, I would instead have found it confusing. The unfortunately sick male narrator is a bit difficult to understand, and sometimes "Danny and Annie" go off on tangents. However, this video is moving precisely because it adds cartoon animation to their story, providing context and properly conveying the tone, which is both whimsical and sincere.

Grand Text Auto also tipped me off to a new collaborative blog on digital writing, NetArtery, maintained by Jim Andrews together with Andy Campbell, Chris Funkhouser, Cliff Syringe, Gregory Whitehead, and Jhave Johnston. It is very up-to-date and includes links to new pieces of digital literature, like Nawlz.com, an internet graphic novel, which I plan to check out despite the critique that the text is far too small to read (a concern I know I take into account; smaller text means fewer frames, but at what price?!).

On another note, Jim Andrews muses on "Pulsate" by Andre Michelle, which is a neat interactive Flash audio piece I recommend you try.

NetArtery also linked me to a new online journal, called SCRIPT, which has a section for ELit. The current issue has a commentary on the visual poem "Language is Hell"... and maybe it was because I was never big on modern art, but I still don't get it.