Research Point - Creative writing and new media

Simon Biggs's reRead https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSias0PZ6js

The technological as the socio-political: some case studies

James Nelson
Wide and Widly Branded http://www.secrettechnology.com/ausco/compass3.html

Birds still Warm from Flying http://www.secrettechnology.com/ausco/poecubic2.html

Roger Dean and Hazel Smith
Instabilities 2, http://www.drunkenboat.com/db12/06des/smith/instabilities.php

M.D. Coverley, Accounts of the Glass Sky: http://collection.eliterature.org/1/works/coverley__accounts_of_the_glass_sky/glass1.htm


One of the main characteristics of new media writing is its capacity for kineticism. A major consideration in any animation is how fast the words move. In animations, letters, words, phrases or blocks of text can be rearranged, added or subtracted in such a way as to continually generate new words or arrangements of words. For example, word animations can create connections between words which have some similar letters but are disconnected in meaning, by using the common letter as a pivot. A highly meditative approach to animation, in which the sound, image and words unfold slowly and repetitively can be seen: Alan Sondheim and Reiner Strasser's Dawn, http://collection.eliterature.org/1/works/strasser_sondheim__dawn.html

The second important technique in new media writing is the use of a split screen. Split screens allow you to juxtapose multiple narratives with interplay between the different streams. Screens can be split vertically or horizontally, symmetrically or asymmetrically, into two, three or four components. What is critical and timing between the different parts of the screens - that is, decisions about when the words will flash on and off, and whether there will be several pieces of text on different sections of the screen at once. M.D. Coverley, Accounts of the Glass Sky: http://collection.eliterature.org/1/works/coverley__accounts_of_the_glass_sky/glass1.htm

Will Luers http://will-luers.com/ 

A third important feature is interactivity. This can be introduced through programs such as Flash and Processing, or in the case of interactive fictions, through programs such as Inform.

The reader has to imagine how a character can excape from being locked in a room with his hands tied before progressing with the story.
Jon Ingold, All roads, http://collection.eliterature.org/1/works/ingold__all_roads.html

Aaron Reed, Blue Lacuna, http://blue-lacuna.textories.com/

Jim Adrews, Stir-Fry Text, http://collection.eliterature.org/1/works/andrews__stir_fry_texts.html

M.D. Coverley, Afterimage, http://califia.us/Afterimage/end.htm

Finally, a very important set of techniques is the juxtaposition and merging of text with sound and image, all the pieces discussed in the case histories section contain multimedia elements. Images and sounds can be found or composed, representational or abstract, taken from the environment or synthesised. Sond includes the voice, which can be recorded and edited by a program.

Creating interplay between sounds, words and images augments the capacities of language. In the work of Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries (http://www.yhchang.com/), for example, the rhythmic music coordinates with the speed at which the words appears, producing a new slant on the concept of verbal rhythm.

In terms of the relationship of sounds, images and text, major considerations are: a) whether a text and an image, or a text and a sound, are working with each other (in a contrasting, oppositional or independent way) or against each other (in contrasting, oppositional or independent way); b) whether they appear in a relationship of superimposition, juxtaposition of fusion, and c) the degree to which they adopt each others' characteristics, so that, for example, words are presented as visual objects using different fonts, spacings and colour.