Points of Praxis

Thursday, September 15, 2005

I suppose the "bloom has worn off the rose," so to speak, because my two-week introduction to e-lit is tripping me out. It just seems so difficult to wrap my brain around the concept of new media like video games and interactive fiction as "literature." Not to say that I don't think there aren't some interesting arguments for its inclusion as literature. It's just unlike anything I've ever read or thought much about before.

What I suppose makes the most sense to me is our class discussion on the "text" of a Gothic church. I'm thinking here of how everything from the rituals of the candles and prayers to the glass windows constitute "texts." (Or, one large text into which those parts make up the text.) Because, what I'm really thinking here is of the "performance" of the church space: Gothic churches make up "spaces" for the performances much like digital spaces offer places for performance, which are considered new media. Camille Utterback describes how texts are reconsidered as objects that occupy spaces in her essay "Unusual Positions." And while some might say, of course, texts are physical (i.e., the printed word), what she seems to be talking about here are "texts" as part of the Sign (as in Saussurian model of the signified/signifier). This reflected in her discussion of the Interactive Poetic Garden or the _Text Rain_ simulation. Specifically, in the _Text Rain_ simulation, "viewers see a mirrored black-and-white video of themselves on a large projection screen. Colored letters in the projection fall down on them from above, like rain or snow" (221). The text in this case is digital, thus, illustrating how, for Utterback, "the symbolic world of text or language attains presence in the physical world and engagement with viewer's bodies via unusual forms of interface" (225).

Likewise, "texts" are no longer singular, if you will, like printed documents or spoken words. Text in this case is performance. Which, if you think about it makes sense. Texts are what humans use to construct meaning. Performances construct meaning. Texts are performance. (Ahhh. That was my lightbulb moment, in case you missed it. In a truly Aristotlian-model, invention and rhetoric are always linked for me. As are enthymeme and invention.)

Perhaps, the reason this connection was so difficult for me to come to is because thinking about text as performance requires the signified of "text" to be reconsidered. Funny how I am constructing and reconstructing my own meanings in regard to jelly sandwiches and Jon Stewart, but something like this, text as performance, is so difficult for me and others to come to (if the contstant justification in the essays from _First Person_ is any indication of the resistance). But, perhaps this is best saved for another day...

Utterback, Camille. "Unusal Positions--Embodied Interaction with Symbolic Spaces." _First Person: New Media as Story, Performance, and Game_. 2004. 218-26.

posted by: rgregory at 01:57 | link | comments (3) |

Comments:

#1 18 September 2005 - 20:01

Rochelle, I don't know if N.Katherine Hayles's book "Reading Machines" is on your list, but if it isn't, you really need to read it, because I think you'd find that she discusses a lot of what you're getting into here in your posts. I read the book in an Electronic Lit class Dr. Grigar taught, and I got the biggest kick out of it, because she really makes you question the whole sanctity of printed text. And she brings in a lot of her personal observations, too, as you have done in your posts thus far. What I enjoy about rhetoric and electronic literature is that both challenge the more traditional approach to writing and literature. Both continually investigate new ways to appreciate all manner of media.