Hayles Network Art
February 22, 2009 at 9:55 pm | Posted in Visibility | Leave a commentTags: Cognition is Recognition
An important aspect of N. Katherine Hayles Electronic Literature is comparable to the E-lit example of Marko Niemi. When Hayles mentions Douglas Hofstadter in her book, his ideas on E-lit recognition are very important. Hofstadter’s mantra “cognition is recognition” summarizes his conclusion that cognition is built on the ability to recognize patterns and extrapolate from them to analogies. A good example is how pattern A is like pattern B. He uses test cases like “Jumble” puzzle that is in newspapers and “codelets,” which are small programs that function as independent agents performing specific tasks. The result from the interactions of all the agents is the successful construction of a word (49).
Just like Niemi, Hofstadter uses patterns of words for comparisons to make stories, or complete sentences. To recognize that certain patterns are alike, you are also recognizing images that are alike to make up a story, or even a poetic game. From looking at the words in the game, the player is able to extrapolate a poetic sentence. Both E-lit examples require cognition of visual images comparing to the overall idea Calvino has for visibility.
E-lit Example
February 22, 2009 at 9:41 pm | Posted in Visibility | Leave a commentTags: Stud poetry
Stud Poetry made by Marko Niemi is a poker game played with words instead of cards. The goal of this game is to create a strong poetry hand and try to win as much money as you can, just like in actual poker. Stud Poetry is a game that seems to take a lot of thinking as well as concentration, and of course some luck like most games. Like poets, this game forces you to believe in the power of words. Niemi states “to become a great master of Stud Poetry, you need to believe in the power of words, their magic capability to move mountains, minds, and souls.” I found this most compelling because he believes in how powerful words really can be in completing a story, poem, or even a game. Just like Calvino, words are the basis of important literary texts, and will continue to do so for centuries to come.
The game is set to three different speeds, slow, normal, and fast. Even at the normal pace, the word cards move quickly to create a hand of five cards. There are many other players and each person has to think poetically to come up with a good hand to win the money. As each hand is given, the cards are also colored black and red, and have different symbols on them like actual playing cards. Whatever player comes up with the best hand wins with a good pair of words.
This E-lit example stood out visibly because of how the players must use their imaginations to visualize a good pair. The words in the game are what make up the visual imagery and it is important to believe in the power of the words in order to win.
To play Niemi’s Stud Poetry and see if you have the talent and luck to win click here.
Analogy of Visibility
February 22, 2009 at 9:25 pm | Posted in Visibility | Leave a commentTags: 2008 Election
Visibility became very important when the 2008 Election for the President of the United States of America was all over the media. Exposure to the public is what makes an election so visible to so many people. Also, the degree of exposure of the election makes each candidate popular among the public eye in his or her own way. The media plays such an important role, that the tone of how each candidate is portrayed sways the public in favor or against that person.
Since the news is played almost twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, people have a high amount of access to the candidate’s lives and stories. In many cases, the news makes fabricated stories up about candidates to either make them look better or worse to viewers. The imaginative visual image the public then makes up in their minds is what puts them in a direction for or against that candidate. The news is accessible to the entire public, so visibility of the candidates is never hidden and most important to the people.
Emblem of Visibility
February 22, 2009 at 9:05 pm | Posted in Visibility | Leave a commentTags: kaleidoscope
A kaleidoscope is a tube of mirrors containing loose colored beads, pebbles or other small colored objects. The viewer looks in one end and light enters the other end, reflecting off the mirrors. Typically there are two rectangular lengthwise mirrors. Mostly a child’s past time, kaleidoscopes are used to see different images while looking up at the light that shines in. As you turn the kaleidoscope around the images change into different shapes and sizes. What is most interesting to notice is how the colors change and how the light affects the brightness of the colors. People use this toy to see things outside of what they see from day to day and it is very helpful in distinguishing images, shapes, and sizes.
This symbol sums up Calvino’s memo of visibility because it portrays how relatable it is to the imaginative process. There is also an infinite amount of possibilities of images when looking into a kaleidoscope and each time the viewer may see something different. Here, visibility exposes visual images that can be the same or different depending on how you view it.
Intro to Visibility
February 22, 2009 at 8:38 pm | Posted in Visibility | Leave a commentTags: sand dunes
Today, visibility is measured by the distance at which an object or light can be clearly distinguished. Calvino uses the writing of Dante to explain visibility, believing that he uses visual images to create fantasy stories. Visibility is very relatable to the imaginative process and Dante believes there are two types to the process. The first starts with words and arrives at the visual image and occurs when one is reading. The other starts with the visual image and arrives at its verbal expression. Calvino believes that for many writers, visualized scenes come first in the mind and then are put into a story in a succession of phases.
Also, Calvino stresses the idea that the shift from the word to the visual image brings forth a way of attaining knowledge of the most profound meanings. Visual images became the source of all of Calvino’s stories because he identifies with the thought that the imagination is a means to achieve an understanding about things that are completely outside the individual.
It is also interesting to read that Calvino sees two paths for the future of visibility through images. He believes writers will recycle used images in a new context that changes their meaning or wipe the slate clean and start from scratch. In general, visibility contains operations that involve infinite amounts of one’s imagination because writer’s imaginations draw forms and figures from a bottomless well in their mind. This seems most influential when relating visibility to the words of Giordano Bruno, “the world is always the same and always different like dunes shifted by the desert wind.”
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