Useful links

Jew's Daughter references

Essay by Hayles

links to projects

Wanna See My Hypertext?

This is the Way the World Ends

  The Ballad of Carmel Evans

 Digital Blend Lounge

Great Class!

The show was AWESOME. Your presentations were well done and the audience (small but interested) was suitably impressed.

You can post a response to the feedback questions on your blogs or send comments via the course via email.

Thanks for your great work this term - and keep in touch.

Final details on the show

Turning in your work
Turn in your work by Tuesday night. Make sure I have clear directions for how to find + open+ run your work.

Also, create the blog entry (for directions, see the last heading for this post) that will serve as the entry screen for your texts

The Show - where and when.

The Show will be in the Nancy Dryfoos Gallery (to the right of the main door to the Library (facing CAS). Sam and I will set up the show Wednesday morning so it will be open by noon. We will close it after 8:00 pm.

You are expected to be at the show from 6 - 7:15 - the time for our class. If you could stay until 8:00, that would be nice because I am guessing we will take more than the 1 hour 15 minutes for our class for each of you to speak.

Your presentations at the show.

Beginning at 6:00, I will introduce you as a group to whoever happens to be in the gallery. Then, one by one, you will introduce each of your works (see below for the format regarding things to cover) and answer questions. We will move from computer to computer so you can do a "show & tell". Not all guests will necessarily listen to the speakers - but that is OK.

During your presentation you should: state the name of the piece and indicate the genre it connects to- for this discussion you might mention other works from the course that gave you ideas; also name the software you used and how it allowed you to do what you did; discuss the ideas central to your piece; and then talk a little about how to "play" or interact with your work. You might also want to ask if there are any questions.

We will use a Blog post as the resting screen for guests to access your work. This post should have:

1. a short bio where you describe yourself in terms of your interests, accomplishments, and aspirations.

2. The names of each of your texts along with short descriptions (as per the assignment sheets - include genre) + how to access/play them.

3. Anything else you would like to say.

This should be fun!

Showing and reception

The show is set. Sam has created a poster for us (which I could not manage to post on this blog) and it will be visible on campus tomorrow.

I am in the process of rustling up computers so it looks like this actually might happen.

Tonight - in class - you will talk through your short presentations on your work. If we get through, you can start on the reflective writing posted on the previous blog.

Teaching this class has expanded my perspectives on both literature and writing - and it has been FUN. I am looking to your comments for ideas about how to make this course even better. Thanks for your creativity and dedication - I feel really lucky we got to do this class.

Some reflections

READINGS:
Theoretical readings: were there enough? in the right order? did they go into enough depth? what would you like to read more about? anything you need to leave out?
Examples of genres: were there enough? in the right order? would would you like to read more of? anything you'd leave out?

COURSE BLOG:
Useful? Anything you'd add? Anything you'd ditch?

ASSIGNMENTS:
Project 1, Project2, Project 3 => Clear criteira? Appropriate criteria (did they move you deeper into your understanding of & facility creating electronic literary texts)?

Need more, shorter assignments? Fewer longer assignments?

Was feedback/support useful during + after the composing process?

Blogs: What were the blogs good for? What were they NOT good for? Would you keep blogs as a feature of the course and why? Anything you'd change

Review: How did this assignment contribute to your understanding of electronic literature? How did it contribute to your understanding of how to WRITE electronic literature? Would you keep this assignment – and why or why not? Anything you'd change?

WHAT YOU LEARNED
How did this course affect your understanding of literature?
What did you learn about electronic literature?
What did you learn about writing electronic literature?
How did this course expand your proficiency with software? hardware?
Clearly composing electronic texts differs from writing print texts; how did this course affect your composing process?
What kind of students would you recommend this class to (or not)?

Wednesday, April 22

We continued to work on finishing up your final projects.

Come to class Monday with your work finished enough to give a little presentation. Have the set up (introduction/overview/how it works part of the assignment) finished so we can go over it and make sure it will work for the Exhibit. We will have a rehearsal/walk through of what you will say during your presentation at the Exhibit.

A link to your work, or an electronic copy can be handed in in class - or at the Writing Center on Tuesday if you need to make final revisions. Sam and I will set up Wednesday morning, and the show starts at noon.

We will also be doing some reflection on the course. I will post the prompt by class Monday, but I am guessing we will not have much time in class to do it. That will be your last Blog (sigh).

Have a great weekend, and see you on Monday.

Monday, April 19

Sam has nearly completed our poster for the final presentation. Today was a workshop!

Lisa is planning a murder mystery where John will be knocked off by one of us (please submit pictures and bios to Lcupo@kean.edu).

Sam is debating whether to do the biggest Inanimate Alice parody ever, or a locative piece (but alas the cherry blossoms. . .), or?

John seems to be working along so I am assuming that his project is going well.

Ryan is selecting music genres for his last piece - so I am assuming that is going well too.

Ania is planning a piece on the five senses(taste will be by implication? interpreted through visuals? touch the same. . ? interesting)

Justine - the changing cycles of being - the universe (sunrise/sunset) plants(trees/flowers). . .?

Nic is going to present players with moral dilemmas - or him/her control/judgment over a character

Yvonne is crafting her videos from the trip to the zoo into a series of visually or aurally parallel images/movements/relationships (the merry-go-round= animals in their cages; the baby and the peacock; the monkeys climbing and the kids. . .)

Melissa is going to extend and complicate her second project on writer's block (that's kind of funny).


Good work!

Final grades+ turning in your work

On the syllabus it states that your grade will be calculated based on:
1. Class participation, homework, journaling, review 20%
2. Short projects (hyperlinked text & non-narrative text) 30%
3. Collaborative multimedia performance project (for final class) 20%
4. Final project 30%

We did not do the collaborative multimedia performance project - so I will simply drop that out, and keep the same percentages for the other requirements, so that:

Class participation etc 25%
Short projects: 37.5 %
Final project : 37.5 %

Total = 100%

Each of you will turn in your work in a form suitable transferring to the computer at the final show at the Nancy Dryfoos Gallery; make sure I have a copy of whatever you need to set up your work no later than Tuesday, April 27. Sam and I will set up for the show to start on Wednesday, April 28.

Although you will not be in class on Monday, May 3, I will post a set of prompts I would like you to respond to - either as a blog post - or an email if you are feeling private. They will provide feedback on the course - and help me figure out what was good and what needs to be better, what to add and what to revise for the next time I teach this course.

That's about that.

Event

Digital Literature by Kean University Students

Wednesday, April 28, from noon to 8:00 p.m. in the Nancy Dryfoos Art Gallery. The exhibition will feature original digital works by students from the course ENG 4081: Writing Electronic Literature, including works of hypertext fiction, interactive works, flash poetry and other genres of electronic literature. Authors will discuss their work at in informal reception from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. For further information, please contact Samantha Jackson at jackssam@kean.edu, or Dr. Sally Chandler at schandle@kean.edu.

Class April 13

Melissa gave her presentation (thank you, Melissa) on Girls Day Out, and we did some brainstorming on the final projects. The emphasis on this last project will be to create a literary work - a piece that resonates with the features we identified as literary and associated with new media.

Some features of literature in digital works might be:
- connections between theme and form that are unique to digital media (for example the hidden texts in Girls Day out and The Jew's Daughter; the organization + structure of interaction in 12 Blue; the illusion of choice in "All Roads")

- the use of motion, sound, visual representations, and textual structures such that these elements are interpretive features of the text's meaning (as in Faith, Storyland, and Nio)

- multiple interpretive possibilities arising from your choices for representation, metaphor, and interaction = all texts! (a general feature of literature)

- references to and re-conceptualization of other works of art or real-world events (as in Hypertext, The Jew's Daughter, Little Red Riding Hood, Deviant, Girls Day Out, etc.

- concept or image centered explorations

Important notes:
If you have not already sent Sam images for the pieces you will present at the final show - send them to her ASAP.

I collected Project 2 in class. Those of you who have not yet turned in your work - send it to me/provide me with a copy for a grade.

For Wednesday:
Anna and Yvonne will give their presentations and you will spend the rest of the class working on yoru final projects.

Random text generator

For those of you interested in creating a piece of text-based generative art - you might check out markoff - software for generating random text based on a model text you provide.

What we did April 5 + what to do for class Monday, April 12

In class Justine walked us through Storyland, and Ryan presented on Nio. Great presentations both - thank you very much.

I pointed out the sampler of electronic literature genres (posted on the right sidebar) and we talked over some ideas for the final project.

For Monday, Anna will be presenting on Strings, & Melissa sill talk about Girls Day Out. After their reviews we will devote the rest of class to work on the Final Project.

We will spend any time left in class working on your final projects.

Final showing for your work: Sam has arranged for us to have a one day exhibition, from noon until 8:00 p.m. at the Nancy Dryfoos Gallery across the way at the Library on April 28. We will set up your works as on display in the morning, and you will give individual presentations on them beginning at 6:00 - until we finish. If some of you have to leave, or have class conflicts, we can schedule you first. I just didn't want to run out of time.

Sam is working on the PR materials. For the poster, we decided to do a grid like for the Electronic Literature Collection, only with images from the works you want to display. So:

ASAP send via email, a screenshot or image (at least 300px) that represents each of your projects to Sam at jackssam@kean.edu

Blog 15.5: do some writing to identify the concept, software + basic structure.

In class you will be expected to be ready to move on developing this piece.

What we did in class + ideas for final project

We looked at projects by Sam, Justine, John, Yvonne, Nic and (after class) Ryan. They were all AWESOME. We also took a brief look at the assignment sheet for the Final Project.

Also - Sam indicated that if I could come up with the laptops, we could have a one-day exibition culminating with presentations on your electronic literature projects at the gallery downstairs. I will check into the laptops and get back to you on Wednesday.

For Wednesday - bring an electronic version of Project 2 to class and I will collect them on a usb memory stick. Justine and Ryan will be presenting on Storyland + Nio = two examples of generative electronic literature.

We will talk about this form - and this should lead into a discussion of what other forms you might use for your final project - along with some serious brainstorming. Meanwhile - look at the Digital Literature Sampler - for some ideas.

Blog 15: Start some brainstorming writing for what you will do for the Last Project.

Final Project

Final Project: Writing Electronic Literature
Hypertext, network fiction, interactive fiction, locative narratives, installation pieces, codework, generative art, and flash poems => any combination of your imagination.

Purpose: to compose a piece of orignial, non-trivial electronic literature; to explore new media composing processes and practices; to make something exciting and wonderful that others will find the same.

Description of assignment: create a work of digital literature where image, sound, movement, spatial relations and other visual, audio cues are significant components of the work . For this assignment you may use any software that you feel will work with your concept; you may pose interactions between physical and digital spaces as in locative works and installations, and/or you may use generative or network components (elements we have not covered extensively in class). Your work should have a literary focus/concept that is realized at least in part through the use of new media.

As in previous assignments, the complete work will include:
- a short introductory statement or “abstract” to characterize what the text “does”
- instructions or suggestions for readers to have a successful experience
- a readable/playable digital text linked to or embedded in your blog (in the case of performance or locative works, include sufficient directions for the physical components so as to allow play/reading of your work in the appropriate setting)
- a folder for visual & sound files, and lexia associated with the text
- a schematic, “map” or timeline to describe the design of your text
Criteria for grade: The complete work will include:
- a comprehensive design that is integral to the text’s meaning/conceptual focus
- multimedia elements that engage sight, sound, movement, configuration, and user interactions as active features in the texts’ reading
- a thematic, symbolic or conceptul focus that allows for a “literary” reading;
- elements that are creative, well composed, and appropriate to the text’s theme and to the media in which it is composed

The abstract & suggestions for reading will be patterned on the introductory material in the Electronic Literature Collection, Volume 1.

March 31

Lisa gave her excellent presentation on "Dawn" (thank you Lisa) and you worked on some of the software details for your projects. I have emailed grades for those of you who have presented so far. For those of you who have yet to present - I am in fact using the criteria from the assignment sheet to arrive at grades - so it wouldn't hurt to look it over one more time before your presentation.

For Monday - finish Project 2 & either embed your project in your blog (see previous blog) or post a link to your work at a site with enough space if your work is larger than is allowed on blogger.

In class you will give one-by-one in front of the class presentations on your projects.

We will spend the rest of class identifying genre possibilities (some that we haven't covered)for your final project + brainstorming ideas. Sounds like fun, right?

Blog 14: Project 2 with (revised if there were any afterthoughts/changes) abstract.

What we did in class March 29

Tonight John talked us through "Bad Machine." (Thank you, John). Check his blog for the details. Several of you - Lisa, Nic, Ryan, Melissa, & Yvonne also gave sort of mini-presentations on what you've got so far for Project 2 - and we brainstormed ideas. It sounds like you are getting the idea =

- make sure you have a literary focus (think back to those recurring discussions of what literature is & what it does);

- use the software in a way that creates an "experience" for the reader that is integral to your project's meaning.

For Wednesday, Lisa will talk to use about "Dawn," (Yvonne will be presenting on "Carving the possibilities" - but she has been transferred to a later date:

Lisa Dawn 3/31
Ryan Nio & Justine Storyland 4/7
Anna - let me know & Melissa Girls day out 4/12
Yvonne - "Carving the possibilities" Date TBD

You will spend the rest of the class polishing, finishing, "testing" your projects. Come to class with a "working" draft so your classmated can try them out + give you some feedback. You can either embed your project in your blog (using the links from the previous post) or bring it on a thumbdrive.

Also Blog 13: write your abstract for project to (patterned on the author descriptions in the Electronic Literature Collection pieces). Include a description of what your piece "does" / what it is about; the software & connections to other "literature", etc.

Posting your ppt to your blog

Embed powerpoint slides in your blog

or

another way to embed powerpoints into your blog

For this one - you don't need to download Irfranview - if you figure out the pixels for the width of your blog post (just right click and you can read it from the code) - the Scribd will automatically convert the code for you. My post column is 400 pixels wide - so like the blogger, I typed in 399.

CCCs Talk Sally

March 24

Nic's presentation was on All Roads. He gave us an overview on how to play the game + the different scenes you participate in. He described the navigation as flawed + frustrating. Pointed out that you could look at things in the room - but you couldn't get enough information. Interactive moves: senses = no smell; search & examine were the same command; though layering effects were good. Meet characters in different places and the characters respond to him differently - need to move through the scenes to figure out why. Felt that characters were flat.

One of the problems Nic identified was that "you weren't really the hero" - which curiously is an expectation from video gaming - but not necessarily from literature. As we discussed in class - electronic literature has "cross over" interference both from print literature + from gaming - and if you get stuck in expectations from either of those - you may miss part of what the texts do.

If you want to play into All Roads more deeply and need some help with interactive fiction - you might want to check out:

Guide to playing all roads

Sam spoke about Red Ridinghood. See her blog for links to relevant information.

For Monday, John will present on "bad machine". During the rest of class you can work on Project 2 - anyone who hasn't presented their draft can get some feedback.

Blog 12: Post an update to how project 2 is going - with requests for feedback.

I will be reading blogs over the weekend - so if you want comments on Project 2 - post by Friday. Have a great weekend and see you Monday.

Class March 22

Tonight several of you gave presentations on what you've done so far to get started with your second project. The presentations reviewed what your work as 'about,' what software you used, relationships between content and choice of software, and how you created the effects central to your piece. The purpose of the presentations was to share ideas and get some energy to experiment with creating a flash-type digital text.


On Wednesday, Nic and Sam will present on "All Roads" and "Red Ridinghood." Read through these texts so you can participate in the presentation. All Roads does not take long to play through to an ending - and Nic will give us the low-down on all the other possibilities. Red Ridinghood is more about spending time / exploring the space. These are both worth looking at. As you play - think about how /whether you could build something similar with the software you are familiar with.

The remaining class time will be spent working/presenting on Project 2. Think about what you want more information about or help learning how to use so you can work with classmates.

No blog - just check out the texts + work on your project.

Schedule for presentations:
Nic All Roads + Sam Red Ridinghood 3/24
John Bad Machine 3/29
Lisa Dawn & Yvonne to be determined 3/31
Ryan Nio & Justine Storyland4/7
Anna - let me know & Melissa Girls day out 4/12 .

Class March 10

We talked about "These Waves of Girl" to open up some more possibilities for building electronic lit texts. Take a look at Raine Koskimaa's essay on "these Waves. . ." - she points out connections among structure and narrative that might slip by on a quick read. Think about how your next text can use the structure (and the animation/presentation) as an element of storytelling.

We also talked about what makes texts literary - and what factors you need to take into consideration to make sure Project 2 is a "literary" text. For example - which is more literary = Nio, or Singing Horses? Storyland? Why? What are the features that make a text literary?

We then spent some time brainstorming - coming up with ideas, what you might do + how you might do it. Project 2 is another opportunity to experiment - to help you figure out what you can do for your major opus => the final project.


Schedule for presentations on reviews (see assignment sheet posted below for details).

Nic All Roads + Sam Red Ridinghood 3/24
John Bad Machine 3/29
Lisa Dawn & Yvonne to be determined 3/31
Ryan Nio & Justine Storyland4/7
Anna & Melissa 4/12 => evidently I didn't write down your texts - let me know.


For Monday, March 22:
WORK ON PROJECT 2
Blog 11: Yeah, this time REALLY post the map for Short project 2 and write a draft intro for your piece.

In class you will talk through what you have so far + workshop your piece.

Assignment sheet for Project 2:

Project 2: a work of digital literature that is interactive , involves codework, is generative art or is flash-based; you may use some combination of these new features and hypertext – but for this assigment you need to go beyond hypertext structures to incorporate motion, audio or video content, animation, and etc. As with Project 1 = structure should be integral to the project’s meaning.

Purpose: to gain deeper understanding of the purposes, forms, technologies, and reading strategies associated with non-hypertext electronic literature; to experiment with composing practices for creating a range of forms for digital literature; to explore software that can present images, sounds, and text in the forms associated with digital literature; and to design and publish a work of digital literature that is not exclusively a hypertext.

Description of assignment: create a work of digital literature where image, sound, movement, spatial relations and other visual, audio cues are significant components of the work . You may use powerpoint, flash, windows moviemaker, or any software which allows you to create a text that incorporates sound, images, and movement into your text.

The complete assignment will include:
- a short introductory statement or “abstract” to characterize what the text “does”
- any instructions or suggestions for readers to have a successful experience
- a readable/playable digital text linked to or embedded in your blog
- a folder visual & sound files, and lexia associated with the text
- a schematic, “map” or timeline to describe the design of your text

Criteria for grade: The hypertext itself will have:
- a navigation or interactive system that is integral to the text’s meaning
- elements where sight, sound, movement, configuration, and other active features of the text play a role in the texts’ reading
- a thematic, symbolic or conceptul focus that allows for a “literary” reading;
- elements that are creative, well composed, and appropriate to the text’s theme/focus

The abstract & suggestions for reading will be patterned on the introductory material in the Electronic Literature Collection, Volume 1.