Java-Whatever!

The last paragraph in Erin’s essay sums up the question I’ve been asking myself throughout her entire piece: “‘Literal graphic material is able to entirely and suddenly transform spatial perception and, at the same time, it creates an entirely new space for itself, for inscription and for reading, it creates the potential for a new experience of language’ (Cayley). New Media poetry is just that—a new experience of language.” And I guess that’s what you call a great conclusion, too.

But if we are going to call this form of poetry a “new experience of language,” then shouldn’t we give it a whole name altogether? We have the novel, the short story, the poem, the non-fiction piece, why can’t we have the “new experience piece” (we’d give it a different name, of course). “New media poetry” doesn’t cut it—it puts it INTO the category of poetry, making it a form of poetry. And honestly, I don’t think this new form deserves to be considered a form of poetry. It’s too different from poetry itself—the “real” poetry we know.

This new media poetry takes a skill—and a different skill than “real” poets use. You need to be technologically savvy and able to work those java whatever programs, but do you really have to be word savvy? Poetry is one of the hardest forms of writing, one many writes constantly struggle with. Even once you have perfected one poem, perfecting the next is equally as difficult. But once you have perfected the java whatevers, it’s second nature, you just add the words. New media poetry may start out hard but it becomes easier…”real” poetry starts out hard and remains hard.

If we continue to call this new media form of language a type of poetry, we may be posing a threat to poetry itself. I can so easily see this happening, like how our society has so easily made the shift from snail mail to e-mail: right now, new media poetry isn’t all that popular, it’s still kind of making the rounds, being introduced to audiences. But before we know it, instead of taking poetry classes and creative writing classes, students will begin taking new medium classes, “online poetry” classes. Future generations won’t even know how to write a “real” poem, perhaps even know what one is, what constitutes one. But is this inevitable? Will changing the name of this “language form” really save anything? Is this just the workings of our culture combined with the influence of technology and its constant advancement? Is there any hope? And, on a side note, will snail mail eventually diminish or will we always have a need for it? And that said, will we have a need for “real” poetry?

To even start to attempt to answer these questions, we have to look beyond the concept of language and writing to a sociological perspective. How our culture deals with these new media forms of language will depend on our willingness for change and on our appreciation for history and art. We like change, if it’s going to make things run quicker, more efficiently and most importantly, easier. And these new media forms of language present this threat. O’Conner considers this new media poetry a form of art and says poetry is equally an art. But will our society cherish the artistic values of “real” poetry enough to continue its concept throughout the future? Or will technology take over our appreciation, our values? How big of a threat is new media poetry to “real” poetry? If it does diminish will we continue to teach it as an important piece of history?

The NEW Personal Journal?

As I read Alex's piece, I had to stop in my tracks and do two things: Ask myself if I'm the one who wrote this, because it sounds excatly like what I would say. And, two, not read any further and get all my thoughts on to this post before I forget them all. I assure you, I will finish reading...and maybe even post again if I find anything worthwhile...once I get these thoughts out.

"I have often wondered why anyone would chooce to put their most private thoughts and emotions online for what can sometimes be a very public audience," she says. And I too have wondered the same thing. Do we do this for attention? As a cry for help? Do we do it because we want to be "published"? We want to see our work in some fancy medium? Do we do it because we've always secretly wanted someone to read our faboulous compositions in our journals?

Writing has always been something I've loved and excelled at. I was never in the "high" math or science groups, but always somehow managed to find myself in those "high" writing, reading, and spelling groups. But see, even writing this is displaying personal information about myself--maybe not something as personal as what I write in my journal--which I assure you is tucked away and WILL NEVER BE POSTED ONLINE--but it still is personal. Why did I feel a need to say that? Does it or will it have validity to the argument I am trying to make. I think it was going to, but now I've found myself on a tangent proving this point. Do we blog because we want to talk about ourselves in a society that we really don't have the opporutnity to do so? Is blogging the only time we can be selfish, self-involved, self-consumed.

Perhaps so. But perhaps not. I'm not sure. I know the only time I get to be self-consumed is when I write in my journal or occasionally see my therapist. Yep, I see a therapist--and I'm once again talking about myself. Our society doesn't allow enought for self. There are too man other tasks to complete, too many other people to work with, not enough alone time--"thinking" time. Maybe it's almost as thought our society demands the blog--or else we'd really go insane, and there would be no "thinking" time.

But then, if we demand the blog, why can't we just demand the journal? I don't have a blog (outside of this one for class) for this reason alone: I will no longer be writing for myself, for my deepest thoughts, for self-discovery, for therapy; I will be writing for an audience. I do that enough. I try to please people enough--gosh, once again personal! My private thoughts are for me and my journal. They no longer become private when they're posted on the Internet for the world to see. And then, where has MY time gone? It's no longer. Even though you've taken time out of your own day to post that blog, have you done it for the sake of others, for your audience? Or truly for yourself?

Alex asks, "what is the point of supplementing this new digital mode in place of the esteemed, traditional form of writing in print?" And i don't think it should be supplement. Traditional print should always exisit--and if it doesn't, we have made the wrong choice and future generations will pay. I see blogging as another hobby, like running or knitting. It should not replace the other forms of writing. Will the secret journal be a thing of the past? What will happen to privacy?

Is This Really the LAST New Media Essay?

In his essay, Andrew talks about the "last new media essay," reffering to the blog and beyond the blog, to the new essay shaped for the internet reader. And this is what I'm going to focus on--that new approach to writing that the internet mandates. This new approach, in my mind, requires writers to "dumb down" and to not further discover their thoughts. Like Andrew says, Internet writing needs to be attractive, interactive and exciting--but not necessarily intelligent.

Our world seems to be moving toward casual--people don't dress up to go out to dinner anymore, jeans can be dressy and, well, writing is casual now too, especially on the internet. At the rate we're going, the "old essay" will almost completely dminish soon--and we will be left with this new form, the much more casual and cool form. There is this charm to reading an essay you can't understand every word in--it's some kind of security that you know the writer knows his shit and that gives home more credibilty. This may not be the most valid point, but in many of our minds this works--it makes sense. I like reading an essay and really having to think about what that person said, think ITELLIGENTLY about it. But the "new" essay doesn't do that--it's very conversational, very staight forward, very at your level. It's almost too understanding, it doesn't challenge us, doesn't give us a chance to really think and discover what's being said. And all the back up info is connected by a link--talk about easy research. What happened to going to the library and finding a book?

This easy hyperlink takes reasearch by the reader out of the picture--and not to mention the fact that the reader may find an opposing point, something else to ponder.

I ask, how can we make the "new essay" a little more intelligent and a little less self-explainatory? Or can't we?

Arteroids, Atari, both outdated

Like Dave, I found this "game" rather unamusing. One of the reasons for this, however, may be that I've always hated video games, espically those that force you to use a keyboard as a controller. I have slow reflexes--you should see met ry to play guitar hero or dance dance revolution--it just doesn't work for me. And, although this has a 1995 creation date, has it ever been updated? The graphics are rather simplistic and the set up seems like something my first computer would've had.

Also, I had no idea what I was doing when I played the game. Why do we want to "blow up" words? What's the purpose in that? I don't think that's really "confronting" poetry, but rather defeating poetry. Perhaps it's symbolism for what the Internet, the computer and new media is doing to writing and poetry--"blowing it up," getting rid of it, saying sia-narah (can't spell that one).

In response to Dave's question of what my primary objective was while doing this--it would be blowing up the words. And for a child, who would probably be a big audience for this game, I don't see how they're really "learning" about words and poetry. Almost any child would be more focused on the point of the game--blowing up words AKA blowing up old media to make room for the new.

And if we want to use new media to help our children learn, blowing up words certainly isn't the answer. It's, in a sense, telling them words don't matter. What about a leap frog, and all those games--they're great to build language with. When I was young, Geo Safari was the shit--and that, I'm sure, was "progressive" for the early nineties. Did college students question that media at the time? But for today's children, we should use EFFECTIVE new media to help them learn language (like leap frog) but we must simultaneously give them the classics and poetry on good old fashioned paper.

Dynamic Writing

I’ve decided that for this blog, instead of working off a website included in the article, I’m going to work off a specific quote in Morris’s article. So here it goes:

“The different between the pen, the printing press, and the computer, however, is the gist of Bush’s vision: like the Memex, a computer is an intelligent machine, not just faster but more precise, more capacious, and more dynamic than a pen, typewriter, or printing press. In an important sense, it is said to think with us—even in dystopic imaginings, for us or against us” (11).

Dynamic is what I really want to focus on. Why do we need a machine of technology to make our writing, our poems, our work, our creation, more dynamic? Shouldn’t our writing, the words we have created and arranged on the paper, be dynamic enough?

What may make writing displayed in a technological medium more “dynamic” is the machine’s ability to change fonts, attach images and links to words and make virtual creations, like five by five. But by doing this, we manipulate the words, ultimately manipulating the meaning of the poem. But is this manipulating meaning for the better or for the worse? Maybe because of this “dynamic-ness” people are able to better express themselves. But then I think, through history people have used words to express themselves—some write, some speak, some perform. But those who write to express themselves have that skill of writing—they can arrange their words and speak their mind in a coherent manner. And the same applies to those who use speech as a means of expression.

But now, using a computer now requires a new skill—the knowledge of technology. To write poetry in a virtual medium you have to know how to make this expression occur on your computer—frankly, I have no idea how to make “words come alive,” in a literal and virtual sense, on a computer.

I’m not dismissing virtual poetry as a means of expression, but I am as a means of writing. “Making your writing more dynamic” is what one should do through words, not virtual effects. As computers and intelligent machine comes into our lives, we must not dismiss them but we also must not rely on them. We must work with them, like the quote above says to “think with them,” to better develop ourselves as people. For some, the beauty of expression and the most dynamic words still remain on a sheet of paper, without any virtual enhancement.


Some Notes:
What’s funny, as I read this, is that I basically refer to the machine as person. I say “the machine’s ability,” meaning the machine completes the task. But how does this task originate? Should I instead say it’s the computer coder’s codes entered into the computer that completes these tasks? Or the computer coder himself could’ve indirectly completed this task. Or is it the “writer” sitting and typing at the computer who has created this task?

I also must add that “blog” is a not in this edition of Word that I’m currently using.

Do We Really Want to Write like Shakespeare?

"poet + programmer," as Waber calls himself, = a new job positioning--and this is what technology is doing; it’s not “firing” people and stripping people of skills, but rather creating new positions and asking people to use these skills in new ways. It is impossible for a culture to advance if its citizens are not willing to deal with change. And yes, some changes are more drastic than others, like how we have left snail mail in the dust and switched to the less personal but the way more convenient e-mail. What we often fail to realize is that technology is actually helping us. It is creating more jobs for everyone, and even, yes, for writers. Jobs like website publisher or online editor may not be as creative as virtual poetry creations like “Five by Five” or “The Body," but it does pay the bills.

My roommate, a photo major, read a section of her book on the language of light to me last night and I’ve pondered a certain phrase ever since. It said something along the lines of “Shakespeare was a great writer but we wouldn’t want to write like him today.” And that’s true—and it applies to what we’re talking about here. Writing, just like photography, must change just as time does. If we don’t face the fact that the medium in which we present writing is changing, our work is going to be as unappealing as an outdated retro-styled living room—and sadly that’s not what is going to attract audience and readers. And digital mediums aren’t that bad; they may actually assist us in refining our writing, making it the best it can be. Track changes can make our computer screen look like a paper with lines and scribbles and cross-outs.

And this new medium of virtual poetry lets our imaginations run wild. I especially think the “The Body” poem is awesome. It gives a much deeper look into the author’s psyche and what she is really trying to convey. This poem just wouldn’t have the same effect on paper. It makes the audience think and it lets readers dive into the poem and become a part of the poem—we can pick and chose where we want to visit. And the hyperlinks make it that much more appealing—by clicking on them we realize that the body is one, that it is all related. Frantically piling through pieces of paper to realize this was all connected just wouldn’t have the same effect.

The Charm of Print

Seeing your writing in print has a certain charm—a charm that words published on a computer screen cannot match; and I just can’t help but constantly claim this point. I may be naive in saying this, but I think that people still believe this, and for this reason, print will never die; it may decrease, but it won’t die. Bolter also sticks to this optimism—he says writing in print is more comfortable—it’s easier to read (not distracting to the eyes like a computer screen) and can more comfortably be read in bed (a computer may be quite more difficult), not to mention a book more easily fits into a purse over a laptop.
Before reading Bolter, I formed black and white opinions about the mixture of technology and the art of writing (that it takes away from the writer)—but what I didn’t realize is there is a huge grey area, where my opinion now lies. Writing and technology work together, and it always has—Gutenberg’s printing press was a massive technological advance, as was the word processor and the computer.
A culture shifts along with technology—an advance in technology changes culture, and the writing itself describes and characterizes the culture. All forms of technology, from the earliest from of engraving on a stone to today’s computers, were, in some form, seen as a threat to writing itself. The printing press caused mass production and distribution of works and now computers now reach more audiences. How has the computer-aged era and World Wide Web threatened our culture in a different way than other technological advances? Are we threatened the hyperlinks, hypertexts and hyper-readers? Or is it that we have trouble adjusting to the new medium where work appears (just as, perhaps, those who witnessed the adjustment from papyrus to paper)?
Perhaps writing in a digital medium can improve a writer’s work—make it that much more suitable for publication. Editing on a computer and using the World Wide Web for research, are just two examples how an improvement in technology can improve a work of writing.
The addition of advanced technology to our culture improves writing, and improves that the charm of seeing your own writing in print. I believe we’ll always have books—what would our culture be without books?

My Blog Beliefs

If I was not asked to create a blog for a class, I would not be blogging at the moment, nor would I have my own blog-spot. For as long as I can remember my friend Danielle has had a livejournal account and I never liked it--and still don't. I guess I'm just not comfortable with sharing my personal thoughts with the entire Internet community and anyone willing to find out more about me (perhaps even a stalker?). Sure you can have a "fake" name, as I am just going by K for this blog, but in my eyes, that doesn't change much. I don't want to share my deepest, most darkest thoughts with blog readers--I want to share them with my real journal, the one I keep tucked away in my room that I write in the "old-fashioned" way--with a pen. There's that charm, that pure-ness, of just writing in your own journal--for me, it is the only true time I don't care about grammar and flow, I just get my thoughts out. I am my only audience. But with a blog, I feel like no matter how hard I tried, I would embellish facts and sensor other facts, and how excatly does that help to reveal my true thoughts and feelings?

Just like the facebook, myspace and all the others, blogging is just setting yourself up to be stripped of privacy. Before I was called for an interview at a clothing boutique I was "looked up on facebook." Because they thought I "was cute" and "sounded cool" I was called for an interview and eventually got the job. Of course, I didn't find this out until a month later, when we were searching facebook for a new employee. What if they had stumbled upon a blog of mine and read my deepest thoughts--the ones that reveal I am a little crazy? And this is just for a summer job--what if a big corporate employer was searching me, and all my qualifications were stellar except my livejournal?

I don't mean to fully dis blogs, becuase they do have some benefits. You can connect with people. You can find an audience of people who are willing to listen to you--and to read what you wrote. It's technology continuing to peak. For those who spill their guts on blogs, I give you props--you have much more courage than me. However, for the time being, I'm sticking to ink and paper that's hidden somewhere where you'll never find it.

Oh, and do I think blogs change the world? Not really. They may change people's personal worlds and they way they view their own world, but I don't think they change our world as a whole.