With Those We Love Alive

Well. I do not know what to make of this piece. First, I must say I think it is outstanding that the author created a version for colorblind people. I have never seen that been done before and I think that was so cool of her to do. It started off with a nice sentence from the author talking to the reader. "Please remember: nothing you can do is wrong" across the screen. Soft music starts to play. Now after this slide, it asks you what month you were born in. I thought maybe I was going to take a journey as a Leo or some kind of adventure as my horoscope. I was prepared for something cool like that. But it turned out to be very different. Actually, I have no clue why I was asked when my birthday was because the rest of the piece was just a story filled with different possible outcomes but somehow... we all end up in the same place I think. I looked through the color blind piece just to see what would be different and it was all black and white. Very interesting. It made me appreciate color because the pinks and purples and blues were very nice.

THE CAPE

Well this is a different piece compared to the rest. I can't really think of any it reminds me of or any I can relate it to. This is more of a story telling elit piece from a girl's perspective about her grandmother. I like the scrollover text on each picture in the beginning. Even though I noticed the mouse turn into a little hand allowing me to click on the image, I kept scrolling over each image because the rollover text was all connected. No matter what picture you choose, you still have the option to see what the other pictures contained. At the bottom you can see the images and you're able to click on any that you want. Some parts of the story have sound, some don't. I thought it was cool how the ending allowed you to enter your email if you want any more information about Cape Cod or want to leave comments on the elit piece as a whole. Very interesting piece and also filled with information about Cape Cod that I was not aware of. I did find it a little dull due to the lack of color. That is just my opinion. I like when things are fun and entertaining but this one was very black and white with no cool sounds. That would be my only negative point. Other than that, cool piece.

Sooth is a piece that conveniently ties well together with Separation! Sooth is Epoetry that involves clicking interaction with the reader in order for the poems to be continued. I like the sounds visuals that are provided with each poem. The one that scared me the most with sound and visual was the poem, "weeds". The camera work around the hospital patient was distracting from the words on the screen. As the camera went around the body starting from the legs working its way up to the face, I was getting more and more anxious that the face was going to have some type of bandages or bruises because the person did have a hospital gown on. When I saw the person did not appear to be injured I felt more at ease but then I got anxious again when the patient's eye opened and looked right into the camera. I felt her staring at me while I was trying to read the poem and again I was distracted. I immediately changed the poem since I did feel like I was being watched. The other poems worked well with sound and imagery. The poem, "root" contained my favorite sounds. It went nicely with the images because I saw water and heard droplets of rain into a pond of some sort. It was quite soothing. Oh would you look at that.... soothing.... and the title of the piece is called.... sooth. I didn't even plan that. This was an interesting piece and very interactive which I love. I would just change that one part of the woman in the hospital bed. Other than that, I did enjoy it overall. 

Alexandra Sabogal

Doctor Zamora

Writing Electronic Literature

28 November 2016

Before choosing my piece, I saw myself picking one with lots of visuals and cool sounds. It was what I always noticed in every other piece and was what stood out to me the most. The fact that the piece I chose has no sound or out of the ordinary visuals is very interesting.

Annie Abraham’s Separation was a piece of Elit that caught my attention from the very beginning. It starts off with a blank screen leaving the reader to wonder what to do next. Naturally, we click to see if we can trigger anything on the screen. Once the reader clicks the screen, a word pops up. It starts off with, “lonely”...leaving the reader to realize he/she has the power to make all of the words appear with just a click of a mouse.

I love when pieces involve the reader. This piece is extremely interactive. The whole piece is a poem about separation. The poem appears to be about a person writing about how this one person they are addicted to isn’t good for them. I assumed it was a person writing to their significant other.

After every couple of lines, a screen pops up with a breathing technique. Each one helps the reader disconnect, stretch and focus. For example, the first exercise is called “show the pain”. In this exercise, the reader is asked to open their mouth and lips as wide as possible, simultaneously raising their eyebrows as high as possible. They have to hold for counts of 5 and repeat until the red bar goes away. The second exercise that pops up is called, “caress your back”. The reader is asked to put their arm behind their head with the palm touching their back. Hold onto their elbow with the other hand and gently pull, across and down. Go to the point where they feel a stretch in your shoulder and upper arm and hold this position. Repeat both sides several times. These exercises definitely come off as random when reading the poem especially if you didn’t read the intro to the piece.

The intro talks about how the text was originally written by a patient in a hospital in 2001. The patient was being asked to use a tool to prevent RSI (Repetitive Strain Injury). This tool was the collection of exercises of the brain and body.

Here is a bit of the intro to help explain the piece:

“All computer workers tend to forget their body, and so risk to be a victim of Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI) one day. The visitors of 'separation' are constraint to click slowly (, as someone recovering from rsi) to see appearing one word at a time of the text. Every now and then a exercise is proposed and all interaction with the computer is postponed. (A recovering rsi patient needs to do this kind of exercises.)

The text seems to be about a separation between human beings, only the last two phrases reveal that it's about a separation between a human being and a computer.”

After reading the intro, I knew the poem was dedicated to the person’s computer. It made total sense! The lines that stuck out to me the most were “You never need a break and when you are down it’s me who has to repair you. You won’t repair me”. I found these lines powerful because there is so much truth to these words. When my computer is down, I have to take it to get looked at or read the manual that came with it to help it work again. I do my best to help the computer because I need it for work and pleasure. I have grown so attached to it that when it is down, I freak out and do my best to make it work again. When I am down and broken, the computer doesn’t fix me. When I am sad and going through a rough patch, the computer isn’t asking for help to make me work again. I do more for the computer than it does for me. So why am I so attached to it? Later on in the poem it says, “From now on I will use you and I won’t let you take me over again”. This is something that stayed with me after reading this piece. I will not let my computer take over me and neither should anyone else. We are in control. We are the users of technology. Technology does not control us.

A Hobo Lobo Adventure is very different from the other pieces we have looked through throughout the semester. I actually regret not finding it first because I enjoyed it that much. There is just one thing I did not like from this piece and it is the lack of music in the beginning. Something I point out first from all previous pieces is the sound. It was something I definitely missed because the sounds usually help me focus on the piece and follow through until the end.  I followed through and finished it even without a lot of sound.

After noticing sound I focus on interaction with the viewer/reader. I as the reader got to interact with this quite often. I loved the pop ups and the movement and how my participation was required to help keep the piece moving.

When beginning this piece I saw the title and had no idea what it meant. I looked it up real quick to find that lobo meant timber wolf and hamlet meant a small village. I assumed hobo meant what everyone knows it stands for which is a homeless person and I was correct. The hobo lobo is the main character in the piece. He is seen as a possible hero when there is news about rats being all around the village. Hobo lobo is expected to take care of the situation by the mayor.

Speaking of the mayor, my favorite part was when his face popped up on the screen so unexpectedly. I love when I cant predict something coming in a piece and that for sure I did not see coming.

There were many pop ups that moved all around the screen jumping around and sliding and bouncing. This could be distracting to some but I did enjoy the craziness of it all. The illustrations were great and really played a big part in making the characters come to life.

Again I have found a piece that helps me realize how important sound is within a piece of Elit. "This is how you die" is a game online in form of a slot machine one could find in a casino. Except this game won't bring you a dollar and some change if you're lucky. This game is actually frightening and it's main focus is death and how the player will get there. I took a couple ideas as inspiration from this piece. For example the voices of the man and woman, I enjoyed that. The eerie music was also a great addition to the whole piece. This definitely wasn't one of my favorites but for sure one of the oddest pieces. I found myself not being able to listen to it by myself in my room because it made me that uncomfortable. It wasn't as interactive as other pieces but I did enjoy the fact that I was playing a slot machine and had credits. That made the game realistic in a way even though this is a literature piece. I am interested to see what Kelly has to say about this piece because out of all of them, this is the one I find myself having the least amount of words to explain how I feel about it. I will definitely say I enjoyed the sounds and imagery.

This was a very interesting game/Elit piece. I am fascinated by the pieces that are considered games because they aren't one's usual electronic video game. They are much more than that. This piece was a game because of the pieces put together to build the woman and discover all of the objects that make her whole. I enjoyed all the noises and music and voices with random comments that helped describe what was going on in the scene.
There was one scene I related to most and that was when the woman was talking about what she wears and what it means. She mentioned how what a woman wears like jewelry or clothing does not depict who they are on the inside. I totally relate to that in the sense that for work, I have to dress in all black every single day. In order to dress up my all black look, I have to wear jewelry and accessorize. I always relate all-black to a more gothic style so I feel like what I'm wearing on the outside does not symbolize who I am on the inside.
"Pieces of Herself" has a lot to do with women and how they realize who they are and what makes them who they are as a person. This piece plays with sounds and colors which I think is done to keep the reader/game player entertained and intrigued. At least that's what it did for me. I enjoyed all of the scenes where there were black and white backgrounds but the pieces itself were colorful. It was pretty scary the way it started in the bathroom with blood on the curtains. This raised a lot of questions in my mind but I just kept going because it had me wanting more.
Something I noticed about this piece that I liked is that it doesn't have a clear ending. It made me understand that my Elit piece won't have to be a story that has a clear beginning with a problem and a solution with a perfect ending. Our Elit stories won't be a typical novel setup. It can just be a piece that has a character or characters in an important setting with a message to the viewers and that can just be it. The idea of what I have for my piece is that I want to have a girl be able to see her life with three different guys. You can click the different faces and with each one will be a different journey. I thought of this idea because of my friends who just don't know how to pick the right guy. So in my piece I want the mean guy to yell out different blurbs like "go change I don't like what you're wearing" and the second guy to say "you better call me when you get there and when you leave. If I don't get a call we're going to have problems" and then the third guy to say "I was thinking for dinner we can do Chinese and then watch this movie I bought us tickets for,  what do you think?" . This way - the player can have a chance to see what their journey in life could be like with each possible guy. But each one will start off nice and throughout the game - their true characters will show. This is just a thought for right now. With time I will work on clearer images and sounds for my piece.

It is because of readings like this one that I have learned to love eliterature. I am loving these readings that make me feel different emotions when navigating through. It was obvious hat Alice needed help throughout this story and I felt as if I was the only one who could be that person for her to help her. Thinking back, I wonder why I didn't feel pressured like maybe if I couldn't save her she would end up dying because of me. Instead, I was motivated because she kept popping up and it would remind me why I had to get through the story so that I could save her and keep her from falling. I enjoyed the fact that I was scared. The reading stimulated my emotions but it gave me a drive to want to finish. I was very intrigued. This has been the piece where I show most interest from start to finish. Inanimate Alice contained music that was fitting to the story. It was music I had never heard of before which helped me concentrate and stay focused. It added a little mystery to the piece.


Listening to the music made me think of my final elit piece and what I want to work on and it reminded me how music will play a big part. I would also like to add a game somewhere in my story. It was fun to play a quick game while being scared for Alice's life. Depending on what I want to write about, I'll see if a game will fit. I had fun with the game during Inatimate Alice but I can also see how someone would be distracted my it and not enjoy playing. I definitely want to navigate the reader through my story and help them feel what I feel as the writer. That is when I will feel successful and be proud of my Elit piece.

Tailspin Reaction

I enjoyed the layout of Tailspin by Christine Wilks. There are many things I can say about this piece on not only the story line but the layout as well.  There were several characters that were mentioned throughout the story. Such as; Daddy, Moma, Edna, Karen, Lauren and Chloe. I could not tell who the narrator of the story was. Sometimes it felt like it was a girl telling the story but then at times I felt a boy was talking. That was one part that confused me along with other things.

I liked how I had to click on the different spinny things to continue the readings. One thing I would have changed with that part is including numbers on each swirl. I had no idea if I was hovering over the right swirls in the right order because they are all over the page with no obvious sequence. This caused confusing for me when reading the story because I was never sure if I was reading it in the right order. I did like that once I hovered over every swirl, a blue one would pop up in the middle to allow me to continue with the storyline.

There was a lot of imagery going on with this story. A few things I remember while going on this electronic literature adventure are: airplanes, the old phones you have to put your finger in to dial numbers, hearing aids, burning fires, war, dud ear, birds, etc. I noticed that the mom was the nicer one of the two parents. I kind of got the feeling that with the two parents there is sort of a "good cop bad cop" action going on and the mom would be considered the good cop while the dad is the bad cop.
I also got the feeling that maybe he is a veteran who suffers from depression from being in the war? I got that idea just from hearing how angry he is and how he yells at the children and how he, "never listens". But then it is mentioned that the child thought that he was always a war pilot when in reality he later found out that the dad lied and he was just an aircraft fitter. Although he was just an aircraft fitter, his children seem to believe he is a hero anyway.

With my first Elit blog assignment, I have discovered that there can be some technical difficulties. When working with regular, non electronic literature, all a writer needs is his or her pen and paper and they are good to go. When working with Elit, there are more challenges a writer will face. For example, my first assignment was to read a hyper text and then blog about it. I could not read any of the readings assigned because apparently my Adobe Flash Player is out of date. Why wouldn't it be? Why wouldn't my mom's laptop be missing the ONE thing needed to complete this assignement?! So with that incident, I have learned that Elit might not work 100% of the time. There will be obstacles I'll have to face and work around. My current obstacle is this Adobe Flash Player. Even after downloading it, I am still unable to open the readings. The way I can work around my obstacle is to use the computers at school (I'm sure adobe flash player is up to date) so that I can complete my assignments. Eliterature involves a whole different world of electronics where programs need to be downloaded and computers need to be running and keyboards need to be working. Without just one of those things, the literature can't be completed! This is something I am going to have to learn to work with.

First post on my new blog #elit