English 569: Digital Media and English Studies

comments on comments on Hayles

Fascinating book, isn't it? And once you realize how much difference the "look" of Writing Machines makes, you start wondering why more books don't take advantage of design possibilities. Or at least I do.
Jen's comment on the magnification effect is dead-on. For me, another interesting thing about the magnification or fish-eye effect is that I sometimes have to think hard about why this passage and not that one. I can't so easily read past or read through, in the way I might have been able to if Hayles had used italics, or underlining, or bold-faced type.
This also relates to Lyndsay's comments on transparency, a concept that becomes "visible" to her through the mirror-effect on pp.121-22. Richard Lanham, author of The Electronic Word, has called this experience of noticing the medium as well as the message (can they really be separated?) "looking at" rather than "looking through," which is what we usually do when we read.
Dawn notices another visible element - the barcode - that raises questions about uniformity, about coding, about transparency and opacity (we can't read it unless we have a special machine, and even if we could, it would probably give us letters and numbers that are another code) - all of which further make Hayles' point about the generative inquiry made possible by the design of the book.
Great comments! Keep 'em coming!

more flash arguments (or are they?)

Here are two very interesting sites to look at for both content and design of argument.
Creative Commons, as its website announces, is "devoted to expanding the range of creative work available for others to build upon and share" by providing ways for writers, artists, photographers and others to make their work available in less restricted ways than traditional copyright. It also maintains links to rich image, audio, and video resources in the public domain. Look particularly at the 1st and 3rd-place winners of their contest.
Insomnium is the website of photographer Kevin Wilson. This link goes to his gallery of Flash movies inspired by dreams. Look at "The Trees on the Left" (top row, second from the right); consider what its "argument" is, and how the movie's aethetics (elements of beauty and taste) convey part of that argument.

writing machines

Katherine Hayles writes, "In this experiment called Writing Machines, exploring what the print book can be in the digital age, only part of the story lies in the theories, concepts and examples articulated here. Another part, obvious from the moment you lay eyes on the book, inheres in its visual design" (9). Do you agree with Hayles that the visual design of this book "matters"? To put the question another way, could her words appear in a different place, a different format, and mean the same? As you consider these questions and respond to them (before noon tomorrow, please!), illustrate your response by choosing a specific visual design element and explaining how it contributes to, detracts from, or makes no difference to the meaning of this little book.

digital image editing

Here is a fascinating website created by Greg Apodaca, a photographer (and musician) from San Francisco who works as a digital retoucher. This page, which shows images before and after retouching, illustrates how much manipulation can go into images we assume are "candid" or "real." And of course then we have to ask (again) what is "real" when we are looking at a representation, and we also have to think (again) about the ethics of digital manipulation.