Hayles Network Art
February 22, 2009 at 11:39 pm | Posted in Multiplicity | Leave a commentTags: playable media
Hayles discusses the idea of “Playable Media” in her book, Electronic Literature. This is a term coined by Noah Wardrip-Fruin to denote computer games and other interactive works to accurately express the user’s engagement with the game-like aspects of the work. Wardrip-Fruin uses “playable media” to give speech to that which has no language, just as the memo of multiplicity tries to accomplish.
This correlates with the e-lit example of Poundstone because both use game-like aspects to make their work more interesting and enjoyable. These interactive works express the user’s concentration needed on the work, or else the reader will not fully understand what they are looking at. Even the subliminal messages of Poundstone enable the viewer to look deeper into the work, using different intuitions to fully comprehend what is going on in the story. The “playable media” makes the reader more aware of what they are looking at, and more focus is needed for electronic literature than what is required when reading print text.
E-lit Example
February 22, 2009 at 11:26 pm | Posted in Multiplicity | Leave a commentTags: images and text
While displaying a bottomless and endless looping of words and images, Project for Tachistoscope (Bottomless Pit) by William Poundstone, does a good job of showing a narrative story through rapid movement. Poundstone’s story is not only one of words, but images that quickly are displayed behind each word, really having nothing to do with the word itself. The idea is to make subliminal statements, while incorporating effective sound. It also makes the reader more aware of how distracting texts and images put together can be on your attention span and comprehension.
The subliminal advertising continues as the story goes on, and it makes it very distracting to read the actual words being displayed so quickly. Some of the images placed behind the words were a table place setting, a present, and even a martini glass. The word in front of the martini class was concrete, not really relating the two at all. The complexity of this story is analogous to the idea of multiplicity.
If you would like to see if you can figure out the subliminal messages of Poundstone, click here.
Analogy of Multiplicity
February 22, 2009 at 11:12 pm | Posted in Multiplicity | Leave a commentTags: family life cycle
The emotional and intellectual stages you pass through from childhood to your retirement years as a member of a family is called the family life cycle. In each stage, you face challenges in your family life that cause you to develop or gain new skills. Developing these skills helps you work through the changes that nearly every family goes through. Just like any life cycle, the one with your family will infinitely continue with each generation to come. You are shaped by the generations before you in your family unit continually, and the family cycle has no limitation. There are five stages to the family life cycle: independence, marriage, parenting with adolescents, launching adult children, and senior years. Each stage represents a new part in one’s life that is important as well as exciting.
Each stage in the family cycle of life is important to growth and development. This analogy is comparative to multiplicity because the process of the on-going cycle is endless. Each generation continues to learn from the previous, and no matter how complex the family may get, it becomes a “system of systems” discussed formerly.
Emblem of Multiplicity
February 22, 2009 at 10:42 pm | Posted in Multiplicity | Leave a commentTags: Chameleons
Chameleons are a distinctive and highly specialized type of lizard. Their feet, separately placed eyes, very long tongues, and the synonymous ability to change color, distinguish them. Uniquely adapted for climbing and visual hunting, they are found in warm habitats that vary from rain forest to desert conditions.
I chose to use the chameleon as an emblem of multiplicity because of their ability to change their skin colors. Each chameleon species are able to change to different colors which can include pink, blue, red, orange, green, black, brown, yellow and turquoise. Recent research indicates that they do not typically change their color for reasons of camouflage but instead use color changes as a method of communication, including making themselves more attractive to potential mates (Wikipedia.com). Since this animal can change to so many colors, whether for reasons of protection or attraction, the multiple colors make them blend uniquely with things around them.
There is no limit to when and what the chameleon can change into, just like Calvino’s analogies for multiplicity. The chameleon is an interesting animal because they have the infinite ability to change their outcome when each one starts from the same basic appearance.
Intro to Multiplicity
February 22, 2009 at 10:27 pm | Posted in Multiplicity | Leave a commentTags: no limitations
Multiplicity embodies my aesthetic more than any of Calvino’s other memos. The first thing that comes to mind when describing multiplicity is “no limitations.” This idea explains the multiplicity Calvino is discussing throughout his last memo. He believes that literature is constantly attempting to realize and represent the multiplicity of relationships when in reality there is no ending. Calvino uses the analogy of Goethe and his idea of writing a novel about the universe that will have no limitations throughout the text.
In addition, Calvino believes that knowledge, as multiplicity is the thread that binds together major works both of what is called modernism and post modernism. The idea of the “hyper novel” also plays an important role in explaining multiplicity. The analogy of Jorge Luis Borges and “keeping it short” is a hyper novel in which each goes a different way but begins from a common nucleus to give a novel its plot.
Lastly, the idea that multiplicity can be known as “a system of systems” comes from Carlo Emilio Gadda. He believes that each system conditions the others and is conditioned by them. Gadda’s representation of the world as a knot tangled exemplifies multiplicity in a way that is tied up and difficult to untangle.
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