Here thar be final project:

http://www.geocities.com/cmoccult/

It seems as though I’ll never actually get to making that video. While I got the files working and was well on my way, something else came up that caught my interest. A use-group for horror buffs that I subscribe to is holding a contest for best fan story. I thought this would be a cool opportunity to do something the judges wouldn’t expect, so I set up a fictional website for a fictional organization and used it to present the story.

I’ve already gotten some positive feedback from other members, a few of whom even went as far as to say that they might like to contribute stories revolving around this fictional group, which I think would be very cool.

So for my final project, I’m considering doing a video remix. I found a bunch of old cigarette adverts on the Internet Archive, and if I can get the video files to work, I’ll fire up Premiere and see if I can whip up something interesting. Maybe get a beat going in Fruity Loops if I feel the urge.

Of the group projects, I found Katie, Jonathan, and Tierney’s project, the fictional MySpace pages, most interesting.

I think presenting a story in the form of private journals is very intriguing. It hails back, in many ways, to the epistolary novel (novels written in the form of letters and journals; see: Frankenstein, Dracula). The blog format, however, also evokes elements of nonfiction because that’s a form typically reserved for such. There is nothing about the blogs that indicates that they’re fictional, so for the uninformed viewer, having just stumbled across these blogs while surfing, they could very well be mistaken for the actual journals of actual people, something not likely to happen with, say, Dracula.

Knowing that they are fictional, the format still adds a lot to the effect. It makes it easier to suspend disbelief and become engrossed in the story. It allows the reader access to character’s thoughts while still allowing each a direct sense of voice. And, it adds a certain “voyeur thrill” that comes from imagining we are peering into people’s personal lives unnoticed. In one respect, it is even less participatory that a book, because reading these web pages does not require that the reader obtain and sit down with an object who’s sole purpose is relaying the narrative. On the other hand, the option for greater reader participation is present, because anyone (with a MySpace account, that can be easily and quickly created) can leave their own comments, in a way involving themselves in the story by becoming part of the series of posts and comments that make up the narrative. Conceivably, authors could react to such comments in-character, making the whole piece entirely immersive.

Very cool.

Link: http://collection.eliterature.org/1/works/kendall__faith/index.htm

Unlike traditional works of poetry, which are decidedly static (once committed to the page, they remain the same) this poem continues its evolution in front of the reader, moving from simplicity to complexity and, at the close, returning to simplicity once more.

What this accomplishes is the engaging of the reader in the process by which the poem comes into being. In many ways it subverts the standard, wherein the reader sees only the finished presentation, of the relationship between reader and writer by closing the gap, somewhat, between the reader and the writer’s work.

Traditionally the writer is at some distance; even in an intimate work, such as an autobiography, there is still a sense that what is being read is a presentation because it very much is. The reader is excluded from all the parts of the piece that didn’t make the ‘final cut’, so to speak. Anything that was omitted or altered before printing is inaccessible. However, because, in this piece, the reader witnesses the evolution of the poem, there is an illusion that the whole of the process is laid out for all to see, even though that is, of course, not true.

This is a test of the emergency blogging system.

Additionally, the website:

http://www.geocities.com/outsideangelx/index.html?1202774553390