More Technotexts 2

I had a lot of fun playing with The Intruder. It was more of a game for me than a technotext. I don't think I actually read any of the words that were presented to me because I was concentrating too much on the game. It is kind of ironic though because the reason I wanted to concentrate on the game and not the text is because if you don't do well on the game you can't get more of the story. I don't even know what the story was about, but I knew that I got pretty far in the game. I played like ten of them. I think that's pretty impressive. It was fun looking at some of the technotexts. I thought this one was better than most because it was interactive. However, I didn't get anything more out of it than having fun playing the games. I didn't recognize the meaning of whatever story that was trying to be told. I just remember that I played a couple rounds of pong and caught things in my metal bucket. I also had to jump over phrases that I couldn't read because they were going so fast and I was concentrating jumping over them. This was a cool form of technotext. I'm really disappointed that I couldn't play with the Bad Machine one. That looked like even more fun. I just didn't want to spend time downloading something so it would work properly. Next time I decide to play around with technotext, I will definitely have to try that one.

More Technotexts

I think technotexts are odd and weird and creepy and deep and just something that I could never ever hope to fully understand. Some of the technotexts that we were to view as homework were just so out there that it was hard for me to take them seriously.

When looking at all of the technotext on Anipoems, I enjoyed just letting my eyes relax and watching the moving letters and words. It was enjoyable and very relaxing just to go through them all and watch the movement and make the connections about how the movement relates to the poem or word. However, I find them completely pointless with no meaning. It relaxes my eyes enough for me to fall asleep, but I really tried to find a deeper meaning to it all, but I could not find it. I think this particular version is pointless and pretty uncreative. I do not see a reason for it at all.

I really had a lot of fun doing the Field of Dreams experiment. I used to play Mad-Libs all the time when I was a kid and actually got a couple of books of Mad-Libs two Christmases ago. I love them. Some of them are so funny that one could never attempt to achieve that sort of humor without doing it through a Mad-Lib. They are fun and they also teach kids types of words and what they are.

I find a lot of technotext hard to read. Like the Neo poem that we had to look at for homework. It was cool because of the arrangement of letters and how they moved on the screen, but I did not successfully find a meaning to the poem. I just think a lot of this techno text is cool to look at, but I can never derive a deeper meaning from them. It just seems like a fruitless effort to try and be so abstract with whatever they are trying to say. I guess the Neo poem just went through the alphabet and did cool things with the letters and showed some words that started with those letters. Is there supposed to be a deeper meaning? Hopefully there is, because if there is not, I just think this is somewhat a waste of time. It is not a complete waste of time because it is fun to watch. That would be an even better point because then the creator actually achieved something.

Word Processors and Computer Word Processing

I believe that there is such a difference in computer word processing than in any other form of word processing. In computer word processing everything looks uniform and the words become so transparent on the computer screen. I believe that words lose their meanings and that the author in a way is lost. I think that handwriting is such a tell tale sign of who a person really is. It can tell a story without even reading the letters. It truly enhances the words on the page and having something tangible like a piece of paper that is being read off of is so much more meaningful to me than reading something off of a computer screen. It scares me a little that handwriting is being used less and less. I feel as if identity is lost. If handwriting goes, I believe that many facets that make us ourselves will be gone.

It is interesting that in one of the readings there is a quote that talks about how new innovations paves the way for another interpretation of art. “We must expect great innovations to transform the entire technique of the arts, thereby affecting artistic invention itself and perhaps even bringing about an amazing change in our very notion of art.” This made me think a little about what I was just talking about and how if handwriting goes than identity might be lost as well. Well, what if we looked at losing handwriting as gaining art. I am positive that once handwriting becomes somewhat obsolete, we will have artist recreating handwritten works as art pieces. Since it will not be a common form anymore, handwriting will become a delicacy in the artists’ world. With the loss of handwriting, handwriting as an art form and not as a commonality is gained. I suppose that people got used to the new technologies and found new ways of indentifying themselves. If it so happens again with handwriting, I believe society will just find a new way of doing the same thing. This will create new and interesting things to study and it will have a huge impact on the lives of everybody involved.

This is a very rapidly changing time in our lives and I can only wait and see what comes out of this exponentially growing race of technologies. I am so happy to be living during this time to see the new and interesting ways people are inventing on doing new or even the same old stuff better. Computer word processing is only the tip of the iceberg.

Mobile Writing

Mobile writing has become part of our everyday life. Texting is always occurring and people can get e-mail and access the internet through cell phones. Mobile writing has become something that is constantly around us as a society. It has also become an object that society cannot seem to live without. It has become so important to us as a whole that we believe it to be some parasite that has defeated us and sucked out the life force in each and every person who owns a cell phone and now we are unable to live without it.

Text messaging has become such a big thing because it is quick and you can do something else and talk to other people orally while having a texting conversation with somebody else. Texting has become the secret chat because when you are unable to talk on the phone with somebody in fear of disturbing somebody or something you are able to have a complete discussion with somebody without anybody really knowing about it. Also, nobody can overhear a text message conversation. It is able to be fairly private and only viewable by the people in the conversation. That is not entirely true, but it seems more private than Facebook wall posts and more private than a phone conversation in which somebody could easily eavesdrop.

While reading some of the assignments for this week, I was completely freaked out about the readings that dealt with spimes. I cannot believe that we could be heading in that direction. It is just getting a little too close to home and way too close to me in regards of bursting my personal bubble. The technologies that Bruce Sterling mentioned in “When Blobjects Rule the Earth” have been really useful in society, but I would never want to see those sort of technologies used for tracking me down. I like the way I still have some form of personal space and privacy, but it seems that we are losing it by the second. I also am really opposed to parents having complete access to their children’s cell phone conversations and having a GPS on their cell phones. The children need to learn from their mistakes, but how are they going to make them if Mommy and Daddy are constantly holding them under their thumbs? It is creepy to me that parents are so concerned. I understand being concerned about a child, but stalking them? I believe that has gone a little too far.

Uncreative Writing

Uncreative writing is a very odd topic for me. I do not quite understand it all. I completely agree with Truman Capote’s thought that uncreative writing is not writing, but typing. That is how I felt when I did my own uncreative writing piece. I felt as if I was just entering data into a word processor without thinking about the meaning of the words I was typing. I also was not thinking creatively in the least. I do not believe that one creative thought entered my head. I was just completely in the zone of transferring the information I was reading to my hands to type which then translated the motions into words on a Microsoft Word document.

Also, when we were assigned to look at Kenneth Goldsmith’s Weather, I could not even get through the first line. I knew that there was not a chance in hell that this could be interesting so I did not bother to read it. That is another reason why I do not understand the purpose of uncreative writing. Well, at least, I do not understand the purpose of publishing uncreative writing. It is completely pointless because it just copied something that already existed. At the time of the first publication, not the uncreative writing copied publication mind you, the information was pertinent to the situation at the time and important to some people. However, when it is copied again, I do not see the reason for reading it at all. Why would somebody feel the need to publish that sort of work? I can sort of understand that simply typing clears the mind and you become sort of a robot in that you have no feelings or thoughts whatsoever while in the process of uncreative writing. It is somewhat relaxing to create an uncreative writing piece, but I do not understand why this would need to be made public.

I also thought that it was slightly humorous that Kenneth Goldsmith had this whole definition and meaning planned out to his crazy form of writing which he calls uncreative. It is uncreative all right, but it also seems dumb and pointless. I just could not believe that he put that much thought into something that can be so simply defined. Here, I will show you how easy it is. I can define his “uncreative” writing in one simple middle school word… Plagiarism. Yup, I said it. That is all uncreative writing is. I do understand that Kenneth Goldsmith cites his works, but are they internally cited? Well, I guess that the plagiarism is not a true definition of uncreative writing because some people (Kenneth Goldsmith) choose to waste their time actually writing down movements that his body has gone through during the day. Why don’t you do something meaningful with your life like save a third world country?

FLARF AND OTHER WEB-GENERATED TEXTS, March 21: Amanda Cook and Katie Kane

The presentation on flarf and other web-generated texts by Amanda and Katie was well put together in my opinion. I believed they had a lot of good quotes and other examples of web-generated text that went well with the presentation. I believe that their presentation was a little heavy on the web-generated texts rather than the flarf, but I completely understand since we were on the subject of technotexts again and for some reason it seems that our class does not remember class topics that were taught mere weeks ago. I really enjoyed watching and listening to the examples presented by Amanda and Katie. The Korean technotext was a very new experience for me, but I would have rather just watched the poem and listened to the music rather than try and read the poem and deduce a meaning from it that went along with the music and the way the text was being presented. I also like the technotext that had the letters that would form into words and change color. I thought it was really funny that the nonsensical words would turn red and then blow up. It was just amazing to me how somebody could write a program for that.

MORE TECHNOTEXTS, April 28: , Kevin Eure and Jennifer Kramer

The presentation by Kevin and Jennifer about technotexts was interesting. I really enjoyed watching “While Chopping Red Peppers.” It was a very odd thing for me and I found the audio slightly chilling. I was a little freaked out mainly because of the way the narrator spoke. It was almost emotionless, but it was also filled with a sort of sadness that she had become somebody her father had molded her into. I felt at times that the class discussion was very hesitant and was lacking for much of it. Eventually, we got to a point where we had pretty regular class involvement, but I do not believe that Kevin and Jennifer captured the class as much as the other presentations.

WORD PROCESSORS & COMPUTER WORD PROCESSING, April 21: Leah Wolfeld and Celeste Lohr

The presentation about word processors and computer word processing by Celeste and Leah was pretty good. It was a fairly well put together project, but I believe that Leah asked a lot of the really good questions that the class was involved in. I really enjoyed the discussion about how using the computer to write differs so much from using pen and paper. I also thoroughly enjoyed the writing prompt in which we all had to switch our methods of organization and either type and outline on the computer or write one by hand. That was a fun experiment that really had the class thinking. The class did not necessarily think about the topic in which it had to create an outline for, but we all thought of how switching to either computer or writing by hand affected the way of execution. It was a good thing to have our methods tested and see the outcome of the change of regular process.

MOBILE WRITiNG, April 14: Pauline Parikh and Victoria Mangam

I thought this presentation by Pauline and Victoria about mobile writing was very interesting. We had a lot of good class discussion about how cell phones are an extension of ourselves. Because of mobile writing we are able to communicate faster and this allows information to constantly be up to date. When the topic of cell phones is brought to the table, the class always has something to say about it. The topic of cell phones is always an interesting one that brings a lot of good intellectual ideas of where our society is going. This presentation was well put together and had a lot of good information that really got the class going in discussion. It was enjoyable to listen to the presentation and information that was presented, as well as the interesting class discussion that ensued.

I do remember we had a very good discussion about spimes and they introduced me to the wonderful website called mykidissafe.org. We had a lot of fun talking about how parents are overprotective and how it is absolutely crazy that there are ways of being constantly updated on your kids' whereabouts and even text messages. I very much enjoyed the fact that I learned a lot about spimes and other sorts of new technologies in this field. I believe that in our class discussion we might have digressed quite a bit and maybe that was a good thing because we did talk a lot which equals an A for the presentation.

UNCREATIVE WRITING, April 9: Sarah Kabi and Barry Wong

The presentation about uncreative writing by Sarah and Barry, but I did not take much out of it. Perhaps, it is due to the fact that uncreative writing is not a very interesting subject for me. I did not fully understand its purpose nor did I understand why anybody would be interested in doing this uncreative writing at all. It is simply copying whatever you choose to write about. I guess people would want to do it for the challenge that it creates because it is a very restricted form of writing. When I did my uncreative writing, I did not try and change anything, but I did not feel the need to elaborate in my own words about the clothing labels that I chose to wear that day. It just seemed like a waste of time to me to copy everything down and it was also slightly stressful. I wanted to make sure that I was doing everything the same for every article of clothing in which I was copying down its label. It was hard in regards to keeping the format the same, but otherwise, I found it pointless. I do not remember much class discussion on this topic during the presentation, but I believe that most of the class has the same sentiments as I do about uncreative writing.

UNCREATIVE WRITING, April 7: Abbey Verrillo and Scott Douglas

The presentation about uncreative writing was informative and interesting to listen to, but it kind of freaked me out because of the youtube videos of the uncreative writer, Kenneth Goldsmith. He was absolutely crazy. I suppose anybody who takes uncreative writing as seriously as he does would be a little crazy. The whole topic of uncreative writing is an anomaly to me. First, it’s uncreative because the writer is just writing down every detail of every action that the writer’s body goes through during one day, but then the idea of writing all of this information down is very creative to me. I do not see where we can have uncreative writing without creativity. The presentation did well to ask that question and the class discussion was very intellectually stimulating. Abbey and Scott were very informative and really knew their stuff on uncreative writing. I very much enjoyed the presentation, even thought I might not thoroughly understand the topic. However, this is not due to their lack of information on the topic, this is solely due to the fact that I am unable to completely wrap my head around uncreative writing. I understand the method, but I do not understand how this writing is fully uncreative.

PAPER, LETTERPRESS, BOOK ARTS, April 2: Lindsey Hawk, Matt Kiehl

I thought this presentation was VERY informative. It was very intellectually stimulating and I truly believed that I was being presented this information by experts. Because Lindsay is an artist herself, I really enjoyed hearing her personal opinions that came from an artist's point of view. I also enjoyed listening to the information that Matt provided about the history and beginnings of book arts. I also loved the examples that they showed. It showed a lot of different facets of book arts and how many ways one art can be achieved. It gave me a lot of inspiration for my own book arts project. The presentation really gave me an idea of how the media used to create the artist’s book really intensifies the message that the book is trying to convey.

I also thought it was interesting and really helpful to see Lindsay’s personal collection of zines. They were quirky and fun to look at. I also thought that the class discussion about zines was very interesting to listen to. I do not think that zines will ever be looked at as a reputable source of information, but they will be looked at with interest and an artistic mind.

Blogs and Social Sites

While reading “Facing my Facebook self,” I thought it was very interesting how he described his Facebook self as something better than he ever could be. He also claimed that it was a consistent version to which he could not commit. I do not understand this at all. I believe that people are putting their Facebook self on this pedestal which it should not be placed upon. Also, I believe I have mentioned this before in my other blogs, I really do not understand why people cannot be true to themselves on their Facebook profiles. I completely understand untagging yourself from pictures of you underage drinking due to the fact that you probably will get caught if you are involved in school activities or are trying to get a serious job. However, untagging a goofy picture because you are afraid of what people might think of you is idiotic. People need to stop trying to be what others want them to be and just be themselves. There is no way anybody could be happy living with these restrictions and with the guilt that their friends do not actually know the real person inside.

When I read on in “Facing my Facebook self,” I read about how he made up his profile and how he put so much thought into it to make sure that his “favs” showed different, good qualities about him. When I created my Facebook profile, I really did not put that much thought into it. Some of the parts are not even completed because I got lazy. Granted, I am friends with a lot of people on Facebook, but the people who I really care about already know what I like and know who I am so there is no need to try and be at the top of my game when it comes to my Facebook self.

After reading “On Facebook Scholars Link Up With Data,” I thought it was very interesting (and goes along with my way of thinking about Facebook) that studies showed that people with 800 friends or more are seen as popular on Facebook, but they are actually insecure. I completely agree with this. How could somebody have that many friends. Well, I guess the point is that they really do not have that many friends, they just friend random people or they accept friend requests from people they barely know to look like they have a ton of friends. I think it is all so silly. Get over yourself, people!!! Stop trying to be somebody you are not!!!

Now on to blogs… When reading “Blogging, the nihilist impulse,” I could not believe the numbers of people blogging. I think blogging is ridiculous. Well, the personal diary ones that people make public so everybody can see how dumb their life is. However, I do think it is acceptable (notice my use of acceptable and not cool, neat, or awesome) when people document a trip via blog, so their friends can see what nifty things they did while in Jamaica.