RE: Digital Narratives

On to digital narratives. Of the five digital narratives that I read/experienced/navigated/etc. I found Six Sex Scenes and DAKOTA to be the most interesting to me; more on that later. The initial question that seems to need addressing with regard to these narratives is to their “conceptual framework.” Works like Six Sex Scenes seem to mimic the cognitive semantic map. In other words, the use of hypertext links allow for the user to navigate through the thoughts and intentions of the author in much the same way that the author would remember these events happening. In that regard, the conceptual framework of the pieces themselves is analogous to Bush’s concept of the “memex.” Rather than being scientifically-rooted (that is, they are not meant specifically for researching), these narratives are personal, autobiographical, and experiential. Works like Six Sex Scenes appear—whether artificially or not—to be autobiography, whereas works like DISTANCE (which asks, “Is technology a veil?”) try to represent—through narrative—the way in which the author has tried to navigate her own experience to long-distance, communication-based media. So, these digital narratives are capable of being autobiography and a great deal more.

Because these digital narratives run the gamut from autobiography to translation—or distillation—of experience, a question is begged of the reader: are these events really non-fiction? In other words, are these true experiences? In my experience, this question has been put to rest in the world of non-fiction. Currently, whether an expression/outshoot/love of postmodernism or not, I encounter people who have no problems with the embellishment that occurs when someone tries to write non-fiction. I believe that the lines between fiction and non-fiction are eroding and that there is no such thing as objectivity. On a tangent, if there were such a thing as objectivity, it would present itself in an incredibly fascistic manner to the writer of non-fiction; it would dictate their writing to a paralyzing degree.

That said, I see this play between fiction and non-fiction (which is most apparent in MY BODY, Six Sex Scenes, and DISTANCE) as a natural artistic offshoot of Internet phenomena like Wikipedia (or, perhaps, the other way around, as I believe many of these narratives pre-date Wikipedia). Such a website asserts that there is an “absolute truth” that can be achieved through labor and scholarship (the collective efforts of those people who wish to see “truth” achieved); in doing so, Wikipedia commodifies “truth.” What these artists do, then, is distort this premise by embracing subjectivity in their work (whether it be the hyperbolic, break-neck dialogue/monologue of DAKOTA or the fantastic, sensual writing in MY BODY) and thus allow their work to more closely represent “reality.” I think a better articulation is to say this: these artists embrace fiction in a way that makes their non-fiction works even more so. While the artists “manipulate their data,” they do so in a way undoubtedly reflects their relation to reality and thus achieves a closer approximation of their experience or narrative. Because these narratives are intentionally digital, Laporta’s question, “Is the virtual, real?” is especially relevant. Unfortunately, I don’t have an answer; I equivocate.

Finally, there is one more aspect that I would like to touch upon. In redridinghood, I stumbled upon the artist’s “thesis.” It reads:

Does point and click interactivity destroy the story?

I think, to a certain degree, that it does. Take this hypothetical: someone is navigating redridinghood. They get to the point in the story where they are “supposed” to click on the correct window to further the story. This person, however, clicks every window but the correct window and gives up. The story, for this user, has effectively been destroyed (unless you want to make the case that this is the story, bold one).

Therefore, do the other texts we’ve read destroy or pervert the narrative? If I missed a piece of MY BODY, did I miss the point? I would think the artist who works with digital narratives intends for the user’s navigation to dictate the story, but works like DAKOTA show an artist who does not wish for the reader/viewer to control the flow and temporality of the piece. Thus, there appears to be conflict between whether the user should be allowed—or not—to dictate the movement of the piece.

Insomnia

For your (my classmates) consideration:

If you're at all interested in video games and theory, but have no place to discuss both in practice, I would suggest you take a look at this website:

Insomnia.ac

It is, without a doubt, the only place on the internet where one can find essays from Baudrillard and Nietzsche nestled up against video game reviews (ranging from the most recent Grand Theft Auto to 1990 Nintendo Famicom console games) and game-related commentary. I cannot recommend this site enough.

Thoughts/Responses to Benjamin/Bush

So, bling-bling blogging, eh? First, I would like to explain a basic equation with regard to my comprehension of dense, philosophic and theoretical texts. Upon first reading, I, on average, understand about 50% of said texts. This comprehension decreases exponentially with each concurrent reading. Therefore, first reading is 50%, second is 75%, third is 87.5%, and so on. Such an equation is convenient because it never assumes total comprehension. Rather, it is impossible. That said, I’ll be talking about Benjamin and Bush.

Two sections were of immediate interest to me with regard to this course. The first section pertains to Benjamin’s concept of the aura:

The cult of rememberance of loved ones, absent or dead, offers a last refuge for the cult value of the picture. For the last time the aura emanates from the early photographs in the expression of a fleeting face.

If I understand this passage correctly, Benjamin seems to assert that, when photography was in its infancy and being used for only such stated things, it was still capable of maintaining an aura. As if somehow perverted by its move from individual, cult-like (by which he means attached to ritual and animalistic values) use, photography became incapable of maintaining an aura the moment it became [re]appropriated for showing objects in things like picture magazines.

Interesting, here, is what to make of such an assumption. Having little background in photography, I can only assume that those people invested in photography would find such a treatment as overly harsh. After all, I do believe we’re interpreting the aura as a “good” concept (i.e. artists would like for their works to have an aura). It would seem to me that Baudrillard would be a likely next-step in trying to reconcile the aura and works of art that are technically reproduced.

The second passage that I would like to address involves Benjamin’s treatment of the way in which Séverin-Mars describes the state of film and its artistic possibilities. On this, Benjamin says:

It is instructive to note how their desire to class the film among the “arts” forces these theoreticians to read ritual elements into it—with a striking lack of discretion. Yet when these speculations were published, films like L’Opinion publique and The Gold Rush had already appeared. This, however, did not keep[…]Séverin-Mars from speaking of the film as one might speak of paintings by Fra Angelico.

This passage is especially poignant for me, as I have little background to digital art. The passage, then, instructs me to be especially cognizant of the language and approaches that I will take when trying to describe and talk about digital art. In other words, do we talk about digital art as though it were a mere website, an image on a screen, long-winding strings of code—or, further, ones and zeroes? Or, perhaps, am I losing the aura—if it can, in fact, exist in digital art—for the medium?

On the Bush article (which is remarkably prophetic), there were again two passages that I found of particular interest. The first begins:

Today we make the record conventionally by writing and photography, followed by printing; but we also record on film, on wax disks, and on magnetic wires. Even if utterly new recording procedures do not appear, these present ones are certainly in the process of modification and extension.

While rather obvious, I find this of importance because it shows the way in which Bush sees information going beyond the written word. Later on, he implies a synthesis between all media that seems to assume the advent of the internet. In relation to digital art, I see Bush’s prediction of “modification and extension” as an anticipation of digital art that instructs through its indexed nature.

The other passage of particular interest to me came toward the end of Bush’s article. It goes:

Our ineptitude in getting at the record is largely caused by the artificiality of systems of indexing. When data of any sort are placed in storage, they are filed alphabetically or numerically, and information is found (when it is) by tracing it down from subclass to subclass.

While my original response to this idea was, “yes, with the internet, we index things arbitrarily,” only to be disproven by Bush’s concept of a more semantically-mapped, semantically-dependent index. After all, the algorithms that Google uses (as I understand them) are dependent upon the users search data and website-accessing patterns. That Bush would have guessed the framework of the most popular search engine is incredible. Furthering this is the idea of the browser, wherein the user can chronologically map their relationship to data and websites over the time that they’ve used that browser.

Certainly over the word-limit, I’ll conclude this broadcast day here.

Ahem

Is this thing on?