Final Project: The CAMera On Effect

The CAMera On Effect

 subjectivity of perception

Improve Your Mental Health- Curated Exhibition

Improve Your Mental Health- The Brain and The Machine

Flashing lights: Quote regarding Bjorn's Installation and Burroughs

William S. Burroughs, expounding upon his thoughts in his book The Job, quotes from The Living Brain, by Gray Walter: "The rhythmic series of flashesappear to be breaking down some of the physiologic barriersbetween different regions of the brain"[12]. Burroughs points out that a consciousness-expanding experience can be induced by a flicker-that is, a rhythmic light flashing in the retina at the rate of 10 to 25 flashes per sec, which produces effects characteristic of consciousness-expanding drugs. (page 310)
--Oki, Keisuke. 1995. ""Brain Wave Rider": A Human-Machine Interface". Leonardo. 28 (4): 307-310.

Copyright?

 The virtual worlds pose a new problem with the way we think about copyright and intellectual rights.  “As new technologies have shifted the ability to make potentially infringing copies from the exclusive domain of expert technicians into the hands of the unskilled individual, copyright owners have repeatedly been confronted with the social fact that most individuals simply ignore copyright laws” (Jenson, 533).  It has been estimated that in ten years the Internet will come to look like a videogame with no text.  With this movement into virtual worlds, will copyright create a new digital form within cyberspace or will it be tear down the online playground of lawless citizens (Noveck)?

We simply ignore the law?   In 1813, Thomas Jefferson had written, “That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition.”  As I quote someone in my own writing, I must question the difference between what I am doing now versus using copyrighted video or music in a creative project.  As long as the creation of works from “already-made” material retains the essence and mark of its origin, I believe the work should not fall within copyright infringement. 

A good example of this would be amateur manga  (Japanese comics) culture in Japan also known as dōjinshi (roughly translated as “fan fiction”).  Many amateur artists in Japan form circles or collectives to create their own versions of commercialized manga.  “[This dōjinshi] is in a continual state of deletion and supplementation… the disappearance of one part is of no particular consequences… [as] it will be replaced… by other parts—other characters, other functions, other plots, and their extensions.  [These] supplementations are all quotations from other [dōjinshi] elements which are, in turn, quotations from manga” (Wilson, 222).  Although Japan is more culturally accepting of such activity of filtering and remixing materials within and outside of their culture, these individuals are still ignoring copyright in order to creatively build from original materials.  The freedom of these individuals to do so enables these amateurs to create a legitimate art form that in turn can be bought and sold in America legally.

Lawrence Lessig creates a major point with his article, “In Defense of Piracy” about the attitude of copyright laws and regulation in America.  Youtube, being his main example, of amateur activity in regards to copyright infringement shows the American viewpoint and societal control of “open source” and free culture—a system that supports and protectors creators by granting intellectual rights but allows the freedom of use to “follow-on creators” (Lessig, 2).  Anytime copyrighted material is uploaded onto Youtube that individual is influencing others that there is nothing wrong with disobeying law.   Eventually, Youtube will remove the materials and even discontinue the account of the individual with continuous disobedience, but cyberspace doesn’t limit the individual from creating another account and continuing to upload materials.  Additionally, there is nothing to stop other individuals from downloading the same infringing material to later upload them again through their accounts.  In the end, the current condition of copyright law proves to be futile in cyberspace.

To give an example of using copyrighted materials outside of the digital realm, Arturo Herrera, a Venezuelan artist, uses images from Disney coloring books to create collages that express the unconscious.  Regarding the topic of copyright and Disney, I was interested to find that using black and white images instead of colored images of Disney characters is allowed, but copyright infringement would occur with the use of Disney images in color.  This could be an explanation to why Herrera was allowed to use these images within his work. 

Arturo Herrera
"Untitled"
1997-1998
Mixed media collage on paper, 12 x 9 inches

As Lessig stated, the world we live in is essentially build upon free culture.  To restrict the rights of individuals to freely analyze and interrupt materials, we are not only limiting our expression, but are also stifling our ability to be creative.  The creative works of amateurs are just as important for creativity to flourish in society as it is for professionals.  Dōjinshi serves as an example of the building of creativity and professionals through amateur works and expression.  Herrera’s work exhibits how using “ready-made” materials are powerful tools for creating new work and analyzing culture.  Reform of copyright needs to allow the freedom of the free culture we live in; otherwise the lawless attitude of citizens will continue to grow and influence society. 

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"Books: Lessig: Free Culture". 2004. Business Week. 16.

Jensen, Christopher. 2003. "NOTE - THE MORE THINGS CHANGE, THE MORE THEY STAY THE SAME: COPYRIGHT, DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY, AND SOCIAL NORMS". Stanford Law Review. 56 (2): 531.

Litman, Jessica. 2001. Digital copyright: protecting intellectual property on the Internet.

Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books.

Noveck, B. S. (January 01, 2005). INTRODUCTION: THE STATE OF PLAY. New York Law School Law Review, 49, 1, 1.

Wilson, Brent. 2003. "Of Diagrams and Rhizomes: Visual Culture, Contemporary Art, and the Impossibility of Mapping the Content of Art Education". Studies in Art Education. 44 (3): 214-229.

Upcoming Events of possible interest....

November 11, 2010, Denver, CO at 7:00PM Shutter Shift
Panel Discussion on Contemporary Photography with Albert Chong and others.

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Friday, November 19, 3 p.m., CAS Speaker Series Event: "The Prehistory of Soft Power: Godzilla, Cheese, and the American Consumption of Japan," a lecture by William Tsutsui, Professor of Japanese History and Dean of Humanities and Science at Southern Methodist University. Humanities 1B90.

Today, manga, anime, fashion, food and other forms of popular culture have created the image of "cool Japan" internationally.  But Japanese "soft power"—the global appeal exerted by culture rather than the threat exerted by force—is a relatively recent development. This lecture will explore the reception of Japanese pop products abroad in the decades before Japan was cool.  Focusing on the editing and dubbing of Japanese films and television shows for American audiences, it will also reveal how Japan has regularly been framed as a laughable, cheesy, and inferior place in the American imagination since World War II.

Rhythm Science

Figure 1. The Remix Cycle must begin through a complex creation of multi-consciousness. 

A forensic investigation of sound as a vector of coded language.

Margaret Crane and Jon Winet

Introduction to General Hospital, 1996.

“A kind of do-it-yourself soap opera looping through the infinite void of electronic space,” General Hospital, a virtual mental hospital, occupies public space to analyze how mental health is accepted and represented in 20th century American society (Harris).  The creators, Margaret Crane and Jon Winet, went into their art residency at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) Pair Program to confront the diminishing support and lack of awareness for mental health programs through a satirical augmented reality.  Having an optimistic view of technology, Crane and Winet explore the use of technology to shape and evolve the collective psychology of society through 1) cyberception and 2) critically analyzing aspects of urban life through language.   

New York, America and The Globe, 2004.

"Artists and scientists tend to be similar types of people... They are interested in finding truth -- whatever that is...” (Gold).  Previously, Margaret Crane and Jon Winet had been working collaboratively for over ten years before being recommended to the Xerox’s PARC artist residency.  The goal of the company was to pair artists and scientist to solve societal problems by using technology.  Previously, Margaret Crane and Jon Winet had dealt with the issues surrounding political elections in their art, which is still an overall theme of both their collaborative and individual work seen today.  An example would be the 2004 America and the Globe where multiple sites where created to follow the election campaign and analyze America’s political culture.  They have learned to skillfully occupy online space by providing information about an issue.  Then, they influence their audience to be aware of each other by analyzing and adding to that information within that space.  Their use of technology to “[communicate, share, and collaborate]” as well as “[to transfer thoughts and transcend our limitations]” points to their ability to create what Ascott referred to as cyberception*.  Associational lineage within their work from one idea and image to the next mimics the mind and allows this convergence of the language and visual representation.  Thus, each experience of the audience and society becomes unique and that aspect is captured and reframed back within the work to form a new perception. 

One major component that allowed for the collection of this material was a newsgroup and forum created within the 1996 General Hospital project called alt.society.mental-health.  Here anyone from mental health professionals to individuals wishing to research side effects of antipsychotics could come together and add their presence and information to the space.  This is why the Internet is an important medium for Crane and Winet to embrace. “[All… activity amounts to a largely unscripted 24-hour improvisation… [which serves to gain] insight into our culture.  [It is thoses who are left out that are]… heavily [affected by the] edited mainstream media” (LeFarge, 213). Crane and Winet’s use of the Internet can similarly be identified with Umberto Boccioni’s idea of synthetic continuity where human movement within space is infinite.  With the focus of space and perception, this is how works such as General Hospital positively incorporate technology into the virtual setting of urban life and analyze culture.  

Clinical Depression Screening Test, The Typhoon Ride, General Hospital, 1996.

To further analyze, General Hospital, the hyperlinked images and text not only give an alternative “space” for individuals to learn about mental health, it begins to create a poetic nature through language.  Limited by HTML encoding and technology of the later 1990’s, the interactivity of the site was purposely left simple and conceptually complex with themes of brain and technology function placed together.  With language discussing the history and experience of the mental health system, such as discussing Freud and mental health surveys, the language becomes very concrete.  Linking the language loosely, it allows for associating to occur.  By referencing popular culture with the title, they are able to filter and analyze how their audience is psychologically affected by what they refer to as three different forms of information provided for mental health awareness: 1) mental institutions, 2) romanticized versions of that institutions through media, and 3) their institution in virtual reality.  Then through forums, such as alt.source.mental-health, the audience is able to access and add their opinions and experiences on mental health.  Through the collective flow of language, Crane and Winet’s General Hospital changes the way American society occupies a public space and builds upon creating consciousness beyond our world.  Thus, creating a platform for society to critique the culture surrounding societal issues. 

Another example of their work that incorporates data, societies, and space is entitled, Monument from 2002.  In this project, they researched and collected data from interviews and mapping the inner-city from industrialized area of Newcastle, England over a one year period and recreated the place in a virtually space with hypertext.  As the project came together, both the negative and positive psychological affects on the area’s culture from industrialization were reflected through the collective consciousness of the community.

Margaret Crane and Jon Winet positively use technology to address social issues and the psychological affect of those issues on the collective conscious of their culture and society.  Through the power of politics, the collaborative team addresses the Internet as public space and uses it as a tool to transcend and evolve the function of the mind within a virtual space.  General Hospital stands as a powerful example of their ability to use that space through the simple means of hypertext.  Crane and Winet unfold the history of societies and record the affect of events and real life within that society. 

* A new form of awareness that converges conceptual and perceptual processes (Ascott).


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LINKS: 
General Hospital 

List of Exhibitions and Information

Beyond Interface

Related Artists:
JEVBRATT (Information)


Ascott, Roy. 2000. Art, technology, consciousness mind@large. Bristol, UK: Intellect. 
http://www.netlibrary.com/urlapi.asp?action=summary&v=1&bookid=71082.


LaFarge, Antoinette, and Robert Allen. 2005. "Media Commedia: "The Roman Forum Project". Leonardo. 38 (3): 213-218.

Feeser, Andrea, and Margaret Crane. 1997. "An Online General Hospital:

Constructing an Experience and Representation of Mental Health". Leonardo. 30

(5): 355.

Gold, R. PAIR: an experiment in using technology as a common language between artists and scientists. International Society of Electronic Art; 1996 September 9; Rotterdam, Netherlands.

Harris, Craig. 1999. Art and innovation the Xerox PARC artist-in-residence

program. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press. http://www.netlibrary.com/urlapi.asp?

action=summary&v=1&bookid=39958.

Pseudonymous, confidence, art

Bernard stated, “We have reached the fraud stage of social control in the evolution of succession [through the] forms of [that] control.”  According to this sociologist, social control contrives itself on framing a network in which it will consequently turn on itself and create the need for “means” in a society engulfed in self-interest.   In this manner, this is how the members of Yes Men operate.  The swindle, the mark, and the operatives are the subversive means of deception that the Yes Men employ.   “[With some degree of] establish[ed]… rapport [with the] mark, he [will] see… that the mark will trust him… [and] the con man [creates a scheme to evoke the dishonesty of the mark] (Schur).  Being a brilliant form of what Debord termed as detournement, the Yes Men bring the act of hacker activism to a new degree to allow the consequences and power of “social control” to expose and fix itself.   Whether some artists agree with their artistic method, I believe that their work holds an aesthetic of “intelligence” in art that has been long upheld in societies.

 In the case of Yes Men, the “means” and purpose become “identity correction.”  Led by the activists, Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bananno, they use tactical media to correct the identities of large corporations and organizations.  Their purpose is to address the abuse of power within these systems that affect their society and the world at large.  Their movie, Yes Men, focuses on the World Trade Organization (WTO).  By taking over the appearance of the organization’s website, they were able to attract the attention of those desiring association with the WTO and pose as spokesmen in their favor.  With the structure of social control, they were able to research and fit into the ‘norm’ as standards of appearance and language give the power back to the individual.  This action in itself is satirical of social control and power, since the abuse of control and power is now manipulating ‘the abuser’.  Then again, this relates back to De Certeau’s explanation of consumers and producers that move within a “technocratically constructed space, [using an already established vocabulary].”  These become the tools that the individuals will form into pseudonymous invention and challenge and critique their society and art practice.         

Just within the field of art, “Introduction to net.art 1994-1999,” and “Fluidities and Oppositions Among Curators, Filter Feeders, and Future Artists” are examples of the satirical nature of individuals and networked operatives critiquing the sub-society of art.  They deconstruct themselves in order to address the abuse of control within their world and evolve the methods of Debord.  As the society works itself into a self-indulgent state, it begins to wear down its well-formed structure.  The same is true of works, such as the autocannibalistic, Google Will Eat Itself.   GWEI recycles incoming money from Google’s text advertisement accounts to buy shares of the Google Company.  As the system continually updates, the system in the end will buy itself.  This work mimics how technological is now possessing the “societal control structure” and creating a “norm” in a space of unreality.   Therefore, the evolution of social control and power abuse are emerging to a level that swindler is now beyond the “means.”  By forming an unconscious power, the aesthetics of this art form, tactical media can alone embody “intelligence” and create a new standard that the next generation of media artists will have to evolve and expand farther into. 

   

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Bain, R., Bernard, L. L., & American Sociological Society. (1934). The Fields and Methods of Sociology. New York: Farrar & Rinehart.

Hollingshead, A. B. (January 01, 1941). The Concept of Social Control. American Sociological Review, 6, 2, 217-224

Lambert, D. R., & NAVAL OCEAN SYSTEMS CENTER SAN DIEGO CA. (1987). A Cognitive Model for Exposition of Human Deception and Counterdeception. Ft. Belvoir: Defense Technical Information Center.

Schur, E. M. (January 01, 1957). Sociological Analysis of Confidence Swindling. The Journal of Criminal Law, Criminology, and Police Science, 48, 3.)

Margaret Crane and Jon Winet

Jon Winet

America the Globe

Beyond Interface

The Art of Communication: Facetbook, Identity, and Shared Consciousness

“[Through electronic dimension,] art [can] reflect post-industrial society more accurately” (Gidney).

The distortion of communication through technology serves to be an issue of our times.  Liz Filardi confronts the complications and expresses how technology is changing the way we communicate.  Announcment greatly implicates the function of communication in society to individual expression of identity.  In the piece, she rides the bicycle (“freedom” symbol) with a sign stating, “Just Single.”  As Facebook can allow individuals to explore identity, it breaks down the psychological affect we experience when communicating in person.  Digital art acknowledges this impact as Eric Gidney suggests in 1991, “there is an urgent necessity for artists to enter into a dialogue with, as well as, a critique of, our technological culture.”  Now, several years later, Liz Filardi is one of many digital artists doing just that. 

Here is one of the models that reflect the interaction of two users of technology by Everett Rogers and Lawrence Kincaid, which suggests that the context or meaning behind the original “message” has the tendency to become distorted.  Also in regard to identity, Gidney suggests that philosopher, Jean-Francois Lyotard, observed the technology would break down the bridge between human identity and the material world.  That would create a “shared consciousness” between the users of the technology. I think Kutiman’s ThruYou is a good example of this evolving consciousness. Plus, he shows the creative advancement of technology into an artistic medium and how its interaction creates the new form of communication.  Many of these ideas developed in the 1980s before Facebook or other major forms of the current communication applications were created.  Now, artists are responding to these consequences of technological use. 

With the availability of computers for public use and the Internet, this new form of communication was able to evolve quickly and even unintentionally.  One example written by Merel Mirage, she discussed her cyber communication experience in Leonardo in 1997.  This communication began unintentionally when she was researching silkworms and came across a Chinese forum.  “Then casually, we started to email back and forth, and, from an anonymous source of information, this person I got used to and even started to appreciate.  It was an experience just like real life, in which you come across many people but like some more than others” (377).   For me, Facebook gives this experience, but in such a quick manner that we are not even conscious of the fact that we are making these distinctions. 

By Liz Filardi addressing “identity” in the cyberworld with Facetbook. I wonder what will come of our ability to communication and function as a society with technology absorbing us.  “Barriers are disappearing.  The machine penetrates us, we penetrate the machine and this knotting creates a cyborg ‘identity’ that is distributed and multiplied over information networks” (Dyens).   Dyen indicates that technology will evolve our consciousness into a new state that will include new perceptions, works of art, and emotions.  Facebook and Filardi’s response through Facetbook already show the signs of our loss over the ownership of our identities.  Through our responses of creating and destroying identities, perhaps this is the field where our cyborg identity shall rise.  Have we already given over our identities to the machine?  With my experience with the cyberworld and cyber communication applications, I admit that my identity of Cam rose and continues to develop from cyber communication.   

“Art maybe be a method of finding the true meaning of technology”

–Martin Heidegger, Philosopher

Dyens, O. (January 01, 1994). The Emotion of Cyberspace: Art and Cyber-Ecology. Leonardo, 27, 4, 327-333.

Gidney, E. (January 01, 1991). Art and Telecommunications: 10 Years on. Leonardo, 24, 2, 147-152.

Mirage, M. (January 01, 1997). Memories of a Virtual Butterfly: The World and the Screen. Leonardo, 30, 5, 377-383.

Subversive Imagination, Filters, and Future of Art

At first, the term, netizen also known as a cybercitizen or a person actively involved in online communities caught me off guard. Game warez? Music warez? Then again, there are several words that are foreign to me as I read through “Fluidities and Oppositions among Curators, Filter Feeders and Future Artists.” The idea of the artistic world seems to be quickly hacked by the explanation of the future of art exhibition. An interesting topic that is discussed by this author is “subversive imagination.” The author uses this term to discuss their approach to finding what they want to curator. In this case, the author takes up a persona of a Japanese teenager and applies themes with this character to create filters in her online environment. The approach seems to function like a chain reaction as one netizen influences another to build the world or exhibition they are looking for.

Second, the idea for the artist as well becomes more accessible. First, artists began by finding galleries or as indicated by the list: “New York” to make their career function. Here, the future artist is able to break into an art career without structuring their life around a traditional studio space. Basically, the main idea is to say that anyone can become an artist; although as described by the author, their approaches to how they do this will come about by different means. Then again any work of “digital” could face the satirical judgment of this article, because digital works of art would commonly require the use of technology.

Some past digital sites can be applied as a model with the article's, “Fluidities and Oppositions among Curators, Filter Feeders and Future Artists,” comparisons of artists. In particular, Jen Meagher’s Four Stories shows aspects of Future Artist Y’s scenario. In order for the work to be completed, the artist had to work with others to create the content for the work. The website was purposely left simple so that a broader audience could view it. Using basic HTML tags, tables, and some animated gifs, the 1998 work is still functioning. In comparison, I was not able to view several other works from years, such as 1995 and 1996 that used Netscape or even browsers that don’t exist anymore.

In contrast, I viewed the recent work,Prototype #44: Net Pirate Number Station by Yoshi Sodeoka. This work also is done in collaboration with different artists to complete audio, programming and the overall production of the website. The projects began in 1997 and they use various technologies as they arose, such as Shockwave, Flash, and the DVD. The version, Prototype #38 made it into the 2002 Whitney Artport. Being interested in guided missile systems and government surveillance, these themes appear in Prototype #44.  Even though Yoshi Sodeoka, as the artist, might not be using subversive imagination for the same purpose as the author of the article, the same control in the subject matter of the piece is expressed with lines, such as “If you are a drug dealer or the agent of a national security group or of some kind of watchdog group or human rights organization or if you are a practicing socialist/communist spy, you are in the wrong place. You will be disappointed and should leave now.”  This statement is a summary of many of the ideas of “Fluidities and Oppositions among Curators, Filter Feeders and Future Artists” from criticism of popular culture, sarcasm, subversive imagination, and filtering.

Media Art: Masaki Fujihata

     Bookchin and Shulgin define what Internet Art is while adding a humorous guideline on how to successfully achieve these listed standards.  After choosing your “mode” and “genre,” all the tools for navigating through the “self-defined” Internet Art world are ready to command you.  Specifically, these guidelines are created by “malfunctioning software.”  Is this where Bush and Benjamin Walter’s concluding statements about destruction as art come into play? “Its self-alienation has reached such a degree that it can experience its own destruction as an aesthetic pleasure of the first order” (Benjamin).

     Working at the same university that Murakami Takashi graduated from, Masaki Fujihata is a professor in the department of Inter Media Art. Naturally, he is a media artist and also known as a “pioneer of Japanese new media art.” He creates work through computer graphics and animation. Interaction and “the reality of existence” is one of the main focuses in his work. According to his interview with International Symposium on Electronic Art, he ”was one of the first artists to use stereolithography, a technique in which a laser polymerizes a liquid resin as it sweeps its surface” (Yvonne, Masaki Fujihata, Simultaneous Echoes,107).

     As for Musaki Fujihata’s work, his concept revolves around the function and meaning of technology in society and how it defines humanity and our reality of existence. Also, the use of interactivity in his pieces draws his audience to explore or even test this questionable reality. Themes that appears in his work, quoted as “uselessness,” “existence,” and “imperfection” can relate to several difference areas of Japanese culture and even appear in the well-known Japanese artist, Murakami Takashi’s work. These topics can be related to the Japanese aesthetic of wabi and sabi. Although Murakami Takashi’s connection to these terms is much more complex, they both relate, even though Murakami’s work focuses on a Japanese sub-culture known as otaku . One of his recent interactive installation works from 2009 is called “Simultaneous Echoes.” For the project, GPS devices capture data and the information then is sent to composite video images. The audience is then able to control and view the 3D imagery through touching a disc. For this project, he collaborated with Frank Lyons to compose and organize sound. During the 1980’s, he began creating sculpture through computer generated processes. By the 90’s, he realized the importance of interactivity in digital works of art. One of his well-known, early interactive pieces, was Beyond the Pages where viewers used a pen to explore visual and verbal language in a virtual book.

     Next, the Polish, Piotr Szyhalski studied in several different mediums at the Academy of Visual Arts in Poznan. Piotr Szyhalski has similar themes as Musaki Fujihata with the importance of interactivity and existence in his pieces. Piotr Szyhalski’s work goes further to explore what is beyond our conscious existence and gives his audience an opportunity to explore that. A piece entitled, Ding an sich was commissioned by Gallery 9. He claims that within the 10 canons of this project, there is a variability in perception. He views the interactivity between the viewer and artist as “communication.”

Digital Narrative

When speaking of digital narrative, I immediately think of keitai shosetsu (the cellphone novel). In 2003, a thirty-year old (“Yoshi”) in Japan first popularized the idea by publishing his novel, Deep Love, in book form. In relation to hypertext narratives, the cellphone novel plays a similar role that bridges the world of post modern idealization, but quickly commercializes it into a profitable market. Since 2003, the cellphone novel has spread into Western countries and creates a plane to which unconventional authors, such as Momo, can flourish outside the strict standards of a publication office.

Often keitai shosetsu offer the desired entertainment for “low art” that culturally dates back to the late 17th century when the vulgarity of Ukiyo-e (Japanese woodblock print) began. Shelley Jackson’s My Body, Adrienne Eisen’s Six Sex Scenes, and Tina Laporta’s Distance express a similar theme; although their presentation is not merely meant as low entertainment, but instead are highly politically charged in their society. Japanese society tends to be accepting of such issues due to their “flattened” identity and Westernization, regardless of their strict societal hierarchy. In addition, vulgarity isn’t really identified as taboo, since it is an established cultural norm in contrast to the previous thought in Western culture.

Beginning with navigation, Chang Heavy Industry’s Dakota function in a similar way as the cellphone novel by being linear. More control is given to other digital narratives, such as My Body or Six Sex Scenes, but only because the reader is allowed to read at their own pace. No hyperlinks are presented in Dakota and distinguish the interactivity of the digital narrative experience. As a reader, I lost my interest at times, because I had no control over the text’s speed. Next, Dakota’s shortened sentence structure and framework of the story replicated that of a cellphone novel. In its origins, the cellphone only allowed 70-100 word chapters for each text. Six Sex Scenes and My Body tell their stories through a variety of sentence structures and length. Their navigation was more flexible and allowed the reader to choose the direction of the story. Jackson’s hypertext allows the reader to choose which part of the body that they want to read from, but I became frustrated when I felt I was stuck in the story’s armpits. Six Sex Scenes’ navigation followed a chronological structure. The different pathways of the story followed the main character as she grew older. This consistency kept me engaged. Overall, Six Sex Scenes gives the reader enough control in navigation that they will want to explore and read through the different story options as if it is a novel.

Moving onto the use of autobiography and fiction in digital narrative, I find that it is difficult to distinguish fact from fiction, because these narratives are digital and posted on the Internet. The concrete nature of words published in book form clearly separate autobiography from fiction because of categories and genres they are placed in. Digital narrative doesn’t have to deal with defining itself. Another Japanese example is 2channel’s Densha Otoko (Train Man), where an individual created a thread on a bulletin board system and through various “characters” contributed to the story’s development about an otaku falling in love. Because the story took place in BBS, it is hard for its readers to absolutely know if the story was true or not. Six Sex Scenes and My Body cause an analogous dilemma; especially Six Sex Scenes. If the reader searches to find a concrete biography of the author, Adrienne Greenheart, they will only be sent in a loop of several fictitious identities to realize that Ms. Greenheart is most likely a mythological persona. Because My Body lacks the chronological structure of Six Sex Scenes or Densha Otoko, it is harder to believe that it more than just a fictional account. Dakota doesn’t face this problem, since it is easy to find that it is the remixing of Ezra Pound.

Even though the purpose of cellphone novels and artistic digital narrative differ, I think the line between literature and art are blurred. Both serve as representation of their current culture. The literature of a cellphone novel greatly deviates from its traditional form, because it is digital. Though widely popularized by digitized generations, cellphone novels are still too new to fit solely into literature and uphold an artistic character just like the digital narratives discussed. At the same time, digital narratives embodies literature and gives fiction the ability to become believable.

The Technological Destruction of Art

When confronted with our technological past, the future seems to blur into a stream of endless possibilities. Consequently, such availability and advances can lead society to a faster and more troublesome end. As Vannevar Bush stated, “[Humankind] may perish in conflict before he learns to wield that record for his true good.” Technology not only limits the use of knowledge and functionality of our own brain processes; it can create a greater sense of power over another and allow individuals to readily overpower larger masses. This ability can easily be misleading and even fall out of hand of its wielder. In regard to art, the ability for individuals to mass-produce their ideas or art strips the power once obtained through its sacred position or “cult” tradition. On the other hand, the availability of this mass produced work can target larger audiences and create a wider array of control through a commercialized spectrum. The power of spreading these selected ideas through the advancements and availability of this ever-changing and adapting technology creates a new power and tradition in societies. Ultimately, through it all, will art lose its significance as technology bleeds its originality?

The function of technology depends on “logical processes.” Unlike technology, “ the repetitive processes of thought are not confined however, to matters of arithmetic and statistics” (Bush). The human brain works on two different fields of thought that I’ll define as “logic” and “creativity.” Depending upon “logical processes,” technology has the capability to work more efficiently and faster through theses processes than one individual alone and cause a dependency and admiration of this one process. In the end, the creativity is left in an unequal position when compared to the function of “logic.” In regard to art, the affect of art’s presence diminishes when creativity is overpowered by the logic. An individual’s viewpoint is shifted away from the artwork itself as technology regulates its power. In contrast, technology, having a substantial ability to control creativity, can also support the outreach of creative ideas to larger audiences and give individuals greater access to discovering intuitive and creative ideas outside of their localized region. Regardless, technology’s “prime action of use is selection, and here we are halting indeed” (Bush).

During the times of both Walter Benjamin (1936) and Vannevar Bush (1945), they began to see the rise of technological advancement and its influence upon art. Bush’s description of the “memex” explains what we experience today as the computer and databases. Technology has truly aided our time, breaking barriers between nations and empowering the effectiveness of security and ideas, but in the end, it creates a sense of control and power that “self-[alienates our experience to]… such a degree that [we accept our]… own destruction” (Benjamin). To the same degree, art reflects that destruction and becomes our “aesthetic pleasure” toward ourselves. This internal conflict created within us by technology will thus encourage and push the death of ideas and creativity. Leaving art to be subject to that device, the original portrait of art and "cult" tradition will become the shadow behind the logic of technology.