For our transmedia wiki entry we thought the Week 5 Landow reading was pretty cool.

We loved Landlow’s discussion of the adaptation of Samuel Pepys 17th Century diaries into a blog entry, enabling his work to be more accessible and relevant to modern audiences. This is a great example of how texts can be adapted via blogging, and reminds me lots of the 2012 web series ‘The Lizzie Bennet Diaries’. I watched this religiously last year because I thought the diaries were a fantastic way for people who studied P & P in Year 10 Lit and kind of hated it to delve back in to an important text. This was certainly the case with me, I read P&P for school and was like ‘jesus Jane stop with your long dissertations on the weather at Pemberly’. I love literature, but I didn’t really get why this was such an important text, particularly to feminism. I thought Lydia was an idiot and Jane (Bennet) was boring as heck. In the end I just watched the BBC Mini Series and then Bridget Jones.

But the web series really made me think. Unfortunately, I realised, in this case I might be one of those silly gen Ys who can’t respect anything that isn’t made relevant to them! The series ingeniously threads together the story of P&P in a modern context. Lizzie does the videos as part of an integrated media Masters she is undertaking alongside Charlotte Liu, her asian bff who ends up becoming a ‘partner’ at Mr Collins’ digital media company ‘Collins & Collins’. Lydia is your average party animal, who like every teen gal makes dumb decisions and goes out with silly guys. The coolest part of it all was that you could follow all the characters online through twitter, facebook and instagram. Who could forget the moment Gigi (Georgiana) Darcy followed Lizzie on twitter, the pics Lizzie put up on instagram of her lunch date with Darcy and the moment Kitty Bennet debuted as a literal Cat.

The series absolutely blew up and birthed the ‘welcome to Sanditon’ (an unpublished Austen manucript) series which I believe is a more intricate social media adventure built around an app the creators built called ‘Domino’ and another series on ‘Emma’ is coming soon.

How exciting is the capacity to combat anachronism in literature by bringing disaffected ex lit students back into the literary fold through social media!

I might try it soon, I’ve already made a short film based on Oscar Wilde’s work called ‘Wilde Thing’, recontextualising his plays in a girls high school. Think Mean Girls vs. The Importance of Being Earnest to The Troggs.

Just imagine, twitter would have been perfect for Oscar whose epigrams would have definitely fit into 140 characters or less.

 

 

Ghetto Throney fabulous Sophie Turner, a girl who kept her character’s direwolf as a pet after its death on the show. Sophie, Versace look chain, husky puppy- what could be more beauteous?

As stated before, the intricacies of life being explained by science doesn’t always sit to well with me.

1) because I am not a science person at all and…

2) I’m a philosophy student constantly lectured about the short comings of predicting or representing the world through pure patterns and grids.

It’s interesting that Watts notes my second trepidation a bit in his discussion of the ‘holes’ in scientific research every grad student loves to stumble across. He says there are so many theories and studies of the impact of networks in all sorts of disciplines, but there is actually not a lot of research into how they really work and why such patterns do occur in the first place. It seems like it’s all more focused upon the effect, rather than the fundamental cause of things. His research seems to investigate whether it is really useful or justified to cordon life off into mathematically sound patterns, or are there some things so chaotic and ‘weird’ that we just can’t conclusively explain them using science as our secret weapon.

Watts asks very thought provoking questions in the reading about the nature of the composition of networks, such as…

If reducing the effect of damage to individual elements meant a global meltdown, how does individual behaviour aggregate to collective behaviour?

Honestly, in light of the election result there has got to be something in asking that. Might Australians have a governing queen bee telling them what to do? Or are their responses to political advertising merely unpredictable and totally independent of any other part of the system?

Depends on your personal feelings about the result I guess.

I love the discussion of how the parts making up the whole don’t sum up in any simple fashion, rather they interact with each other and in interacting, even quite simple components can generate bewildering effects.

The bewildering effect being Clive Palmer winning an LNP safe seat of 23 years (Fairfax)? Through his interaction with the pop culture reference of Miley Cyrus at the VMAs?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuVgMLNhFuc

 

Unfortunately will not be able to make it to Unsymposium #4 tomorrow due to an interview.

As a side note, my god I am too busy for my own good.

My class was the one directing the questions this week, so it’s pretty annoying that I won’t get them answered. I like the idea of having preplanned questions in the unlectures, I made a few muddled suggestions in class last time which were collaboratively rephrased for the lecture tomorrow, so I think it’s great that we’ve got some clear concise zingers to ask. The QandA style of the unlectures is great, but I’d never want to duplicate the moments on the show where someone can’t quite furnish a question clearly and it’s awks for all involved (Tony has to step in and save the day).

I’m sure no one in the room would want to be in the same sich as the pastor was when K Rudd rolled him… so thought and consideration is key in formulating our questions I feel.

Goodness me, the break has been a blur of interning, rehearsing, tutoring and eating marvellous creations. I’m struggling to reckon with uni work a touch, thus see the lack of blog entries on networked media.

Unfortunately I have chosen to fill my recreational hours with watching the mtv reality show ‘The Valleys’ instead of engaging with the readings, however I feel the show could possibly tap into some ideas about Hypertext.

I feel like viewers use tv shows like these for gratifications specific to their reception contexts. For example, after interning all day and endeavouring to be a professional, articulate, David Lawrence wearing woman one needs a release in crappy tv shows depicting people unafraid of living up to professional or civilised standards. Since I am not one of these select few, I can treat the show as a form of escapist entertainment from hostile concepts such as ‘media liason’, ‘journalists’ and ‘business appropriate’.

Now, I’m not sure this is what the producers of the show intended. If you asked the Family First candidate in my local ultra conservative electorate, they would say the show’s raison detre (I dont think thats correct but excuse my french) lies in it’s glorification of crass behaviour and stupidity and I’d actually deign to agree with them here. The Valleys depicts the worst kind of reality tv monstars, Lateysha who thinks she’s Beyonce, Jenna who has a law degree however also a boob job and an aspiring ‘glamor model’ careeer, Leeroy an aspiring rapper recently charged with assaulting the mother of his 1 year old (glossed over on the show) etc…. It actually makes me thank god that the reality tv medium actually exists for these people, who would be out of place in almost every other environment they might encounter in life.

Anyways, my reasons for consuming the show are at odds with its original purpose. I don’t condone a lot of the behaviour and treatment of the cast members by the show itself (the exploitative ‘glamor’ shoots err on the side of pornography), but I do watch it and wish I was in an environment  free like them from the manacles of common sense and decency. Everyone does! The point is that we stay as voyeurs of this sort of thing, not the reality tv show’s subjects. This can lead to fame and your own onesie line, however not the respect of your audience really, who like you for your dancing monkeyness and scripted one liners about ‘tashing on’ (hooking up-Geordie Shore) ‘tampin’ (being annoyed-The Valleys) and ‘smushing’ (intercourse-Jersey Shore).

Thus, I am using the show for my own gratifications specific to the fact that I’m over being smart for the day and need something to soothingly lobotomise me for 40 mins or so. I’m sure Stephanie Meyer intended her novels as tour d’forces of literature, however I disagreed… yet read them cover to cover when I was stressed about Year 12. The night before I got my VCE results, I bunkered in and watched 10 hours of Jersey Shore to the point where I woke up in the morning and had not a care in the world about ATARs, for perhaps one day I could make money off being unintentionally hilarious.

For the love of god, no one hunkers down with their loved one on a Friday night to consume a Lars Von Triery/Gus Van Santy exploration of the pits of the human soul, none look too a 4 hour play featuring a man stripping down and painting himself red centimetres away from you when you are in the grips of glandular fever and don’t know where you are (this has happened to me) and finally who gets stick into some Bronte if it is in fact nice outside and you are going out with a non socially challenged Rochester.

Consumption of Trash Culture is actually a highly active and participatory process of cultural reappropriation, which just screams Hypertext to me.

1. Bonnie McKee’s “American Girl” video and song.

My jam for the fortnight. So vacuous, so catchy, so neon ombre, so versace chain pattern. Bonnie wrote all of Ke$ha and Katy’s songs, and this one is the best mix of their entire body of work. Wish I could use this as my Year 12 anthem… sigh oh well we had Rebecca Black.

2. Marvellous Creations

A marvellous creation indeed. The fusion of all facets of joy and lust for life in one chocolate bar. Eat along with caramello icecream and haloumi mi goreng with girlfriends or apply liberally to very tired friend at the casting for her new short. Or just eat alone and don’t feel an ounce of self loathing, it just defies it all… until you spend more time with it than your boyf/pets.

3. My boots

Industrial, made for hospitality and sheep shearers, my boots have withstood a lot of crappy part time jobs. They are also incredibly supportive for my long suffering ankle…. basically I managed to tear a ligament in my right ankle a few days before the debut of a children’s theatre show I did over summer, I left it for the two month season whereby I danced to gangnam style twice a day (poss the worst dance to attempt with a sore ankle) because I was too excited to miss out on the opportunity. Then I went to the physio, who was shocked and appalled that i had done a very physical theatre show with an ankle the size of jupiter. Anyways, last week I was going to Bounce for a friend’s birthday, it was raining bucketloads and metres away from the entrance of the hallowed emporium of fun I managed to stack it and roll the ankle all over again. The people of Bounce are a generous culture, so I got a refund as I could not bounce. Other than some industrial strapping, my boots are a comfy and stylish (in a muckish sort of way) alternative to a moon boot or crutches!

4. SNL breaking Supercuts

My fave:

 

I have already written on how cool I think Hypertext and storytelling is. It sets up a kind of ‘choose your own adventure dealio which I cannot wait to study academically in Integrated Media 1 next year’s focus on Kosakow films! It will be great to see if Jasmine’s fascinating comment “take away a story’s linearity makes us experience stories in a completely different way”. 

Hyper-textual stuff thinks about narrative seriously. When I first heard about it I thought it sounded a bit gimmicky, like getting a box of cards and arranging them to form a 400 page novel does not sound like a fulfilling reading experience for me. Of course I am of a completely energised mind set now about the wonders of Hypertext!

I liked the discussion of small parts and how they are created multiple points of connection, to many other meaningful pieces in a multitude of meaningful ways. Until now I’ve usually thought of Hypertext as something super empowering for the reader but Adrian made the great point that such systems give agency to the computer… for example we have Hootsuite to publish status updates 50 years into the future, to every hour on the hour depending what your company needs.

Now I’ll just describe briefly some secondary takeaway ideas:

I liked the discussion of Hyptertext as a musical, poetic form of repetitions and loops.

Reading for the same intent as the author, nope, we all interpret and reapporiate meaning with a snap of the finger.

POP culture leaves smaller gaps in meaning, art has bigger ones, placing more importance in the reader/viewer. No one can guarantee that meaning will come across.

Expressing ideas helps us form them.

Blogs do not exist until the moment someone requests to see them. We are writing publicly whether we have an audience or not.

Write for audience we imagine, if we do this well the audience will come into existence.

If there are fewer books does this mean there are more creators with the rise of self publishing

How incrediballs is this? I have already reflected on this reading in a previous blog entry! I became a bit obsessed with it actually.

The reading by Yellowlees regarding Hypertext also influenced a piece I did for EMT last semester, as my sound narrative aims to be an act of ‘reading as guided creation’.

My narrative centers around a group of socially awkward boys at a party and follows the tale of their quest to kiss a girl on the dance floor. The piece references other texts heavily, with dialogue from films like Napoleon Dynamite, Lord of the Rings, Anchorman and Space Jam as well as the tv show Workaholics. I chose these sound clips because of their clearly recognizable nature, some (such as the Workaholics, Anchorman and Napolean Dynamite clips) aid in creating the social ineptness of the characters as the texts depict similar figures, while others further the narrative as they refer to ‘being on a mission’ (LOTR).

This piece draws upon elements of Hypertext in that I present the listener with very little linearity or causality so it is up to them to form their own connections between these familiar yet disparate parts of sound. However, at the same time their interpretation of the narrative is guided by the parameters I have set up in the editing process, ie. Adjusting volume to draw the listeners attention to particular sounds, the structure of my narrative building to a climax.

 

As a Professional Communication student, I sometimes feel as though I am drowning in the flood of technical skills my Media student friends bring to their courses.

I especially found this in first semester, having spent a year working upon theories of persuasion and manipulation (in PR) and professional writing (in the Journalism strand), suddenly having to work with editing software and media equipment was a foreign concept to me.

I want to write Media texts, but in a different way to my Media friends. Instead of utilising incredible practical skills and amazing equipment, what I want to do is literally write. Thus, I am ecstatic at the blog component of this course. Where Writing and Editing Media Texts focused upon academic reflection being evident in technical production, this course allows me to engage with theoretical concepts on my own, more literary terms.

 

Additionally, the hyper-textual element of blogging allows me to construct richer meaning for my reader through the ability to link out to other things. In the process of embedding, linking and creating widget buttons readers are referred by association and implication to many different worlds, texts and understandings complementary to my own original intention. It all reminds me personally of Jacques Derrida’s idea of a matrix of communication. In the Derridian matrix meaning kind of inconspicuously flits about the system, waiting to be recognised through it’s association with something else. To me, this is how I understand the elusive concept of a ‘network’, with ‘networked media’ the particular matrix we are concerned with in our professional studies (for other disciplines it might be a matrix of anthropology, prior court decisions, fashion trends etc.).

 

Thus far, I have used my blog to curate my own little communication matrix. I’ve linked to the readings whilst discussing them closely, as well as other stuff that has struck me in my trawling through the internet. I’m a regular visitor to reaction gif centred blogs such as ‘what should we call me’, so I’ve been mirroring that style a bit in my posts ie. Putting inane gifs under titles like ‘When I realised the point of this course before my friend did in my unlecture’. I’ve vented about popular culture a bit (when Patrick died on Offspring, my thoughts on the manic pixie dream girl character type) and included some writing pieces I’ve done.

 

Blogging has definitely motivated me to keep up to date with the readings for this course. One of the distinctive things about blogging is that it chronicles thoughts/academic writing etc. so if you are doing Week 1 reading reflections this week ahead of this submission, it won’t really fly.

 

Since I love to write I find blogging an incredibly satisfying experience. Having written a diary since I could physically write, an online version of this activity just meant a switch in mediums for me from notebook to mac. What I have found difficult however is the feeling that you are cutting down that tree in the forest and no one is there to hear it- your writing not properly existing until someone else has read it. Thus, I’m ashamed at how excited I was each time Adrian linked to my blog on the Networked Media home blog!

 

In future I’d love to use the blog as a little exhibition of myself to future employers. I’d include any projects I’ve undertaken related to my degree as well as more informal stuff. I write a lot, so it would also be great to use the blog as a self publishing tool. Finally, I am prone to fixating upon particular academic areas I am introduced to at uni, so perhaps I can use my blog to undertake my own kind of Honours study until I actually can specialise that much!  

• Sir Ken Robinson: Do Schools Kill Creativity? 2007. Film. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG9CE55wbtY&feature=youtube_gdata_player

In the absence of the unsymposium today, I checked out Sir Ken Robinson’s lecture ‘Do School’s Kill Creativity?’. First off, I’d love to be one of his besties as he seems like the loveliest man, was this why he got a knighthood? I’ll do some research.

He presents his arguments in an endearing and personable way and I can’t help but say ‘HE’S ABSOLUTELY RIGHT’ outloud in the student atelier. He mentions something Pablo Picasso said about every child being born an artist and how the doctrines of education kind of quell this child like ingenuity and brainwash us into measuring the happiness of life and a person’s merits on superficial things.

If you google it, there are some super famous high school drop outs. Albert Einstein, Tarantino etc. People who have obviously defied the constraints of education and managed to completely own life and pursue their passions like the choreographer of Cats Ken mentions (I want to be on a first name basis with him).

As a gal paying an upwards of I don’t know what to be taught stuff (or indoctrinated, though I’m not quite at Jane Eyre’s Lowood school for Girls) at uni, I don’t quite know if I want to accept what Ken has to say but as a consolatory thought I’m reflecting on the creativity and general wonderment of children and im sure you will too with this gif: