Author: Ethan Evans

Out of all of the themes in digital literature we’ve discussed, the idea of the dysfunctional was probably the least relatable and most uncomfortable for me. As a perfectionist, I am often obsessed with aesthetically pleasing, complete, functional things. If I see something broken, missing, or askew, I feel the need to correct it. Therefore, exploring works like “Game, Game, Game, and Again Game” and “Perfect World” where images are blurry, text is ‘glitchy’ and misaligned, and scribbles fill the screen is difficult to enjoy.

One reason for my perfectionism in a digital space is the result of what I have learned in classes like web design and game development. Centering text/images, using aesthetically pleasing color palettes, and managing clutter are universal tenets of web designers and game developers. Any sort of misalignment or mistake at the pixel level is noticed, critiqued negatively, and considered ‘bad practice.’ Digital education has shaped my preconceptions to block out works like “Game, Game, Game, and Again Game.”

Playing “Game, Game, Game, and Again Game” immediately reminded me of another example of the dysfunctional: noise music. Noise music is a niche genre of “music” that attempts to transform everyday sounds into “music.” The reason I put music in quotation marks is because noise music pushes the limits of what society considers music. To some listeners, including myself, noise music sounds like meaningless commotion, while others find it relatable and expressive. The reason I connected noise music to “Game, Game, Game, and Again Game” is because of their shared chaotic and seemingly disorganized nature.

To tie it all together, Dr. Sample poses a question at the end of his video that resonated with me: “is it possible that dysfunction, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder?” “Game, Game, Game, and Again Game” and noise music have very small, specialized fanbases. In the eyes of these fans, these works are quite ‘functional’ and appealing, but as I have said, I am not the biggest fan. This subjectivity allows for all types of digital works to thrive and find unique audiences all around the world.

My definition of the sublime has been a flawless splendor or greatness that can manifest itself in both physical objects and intangible ideas. David Nye’s article “American Technological Sublime” and Dr. Sample’s videos clarified this definition for me; the sublime is a space or experience that overstimulates or overwhelms the subject. One aspect of the sublime, just like the eerie and the uncanny, is that sublime is subjective. My sublime could vary drastically from someone’s from a different background or culture with different interests and fears. Along the same thread, Nye argues that preconceptions or expectations of the sublime can dampen its overwhelming effect on the subject. There are two types of the sublime that Dr. Sample mentions: the natural sublime and technological sublime. My interests intersect perfectly with these two types of the sublime. as I enjoy outdoor activities like hiking, biking, and fishing as well as computer science and biotechnology.

I encounter these types of sublime frequently; in particular, I am drawn to moments where the vastness or sheer magnitude is highlighted. One moment of the natural sublime has been on a cruise ship, staring at the seemingly infinite ocean. In that time, it was difficult to understand the magnitude of the space in which I was. A moment of the technological sublime was working with a computer algorithm to scan through a DNA sequence with millions of bases. Any time I work with ‘big data’ as it is called, I am astounded at just how comprehensive the computational tools have to be in order to analyze it. These examples aren’t just sublime, but they also provoke feelings of intimidation and even dread.

Finally, I would like to comment on John Simon’s work Every Icon, an excellent example of the technological sublime. Each “icon” is created through a systematic, procedural process, characteristic of digital works. This work reminded me of combinatory, randomly generated works; by nature, Every Icon is very calculated and determined, but the idea of seemingly endless combinations is typical of combinatory literature.

Scott Rettburg discusses the history of combinatory poetics by analyzing some noteworthy works like “Love Letter Generator,” “Stochastic Texts,” and “A House of Dust.” These pieces of literature all produce their content through a programmatic procedure where lists of words are inserted into a standard sentence structure. High quality writing was never the goal of these early combinatory literature producers; instead, these works were meant to highlight how computing could produce literature with meaning and diverse variable outcomes.

Combinatory literature is not always as poetic or even as coherent as the programmer would hope. Lutz’s “Stochastic Texts” often produce sentences that make little sense at surface level, such as “every laborer is narrow.” This is because the combinatory algorithm is imperfect and does not account for linguistic trends and meanings. However, I think producers exploit this element of combinatory literature; ambiguous or ‘meaningless’ sentences result in a greater variance in reader interpretations of the text. Text that provokes thought in the reader is characteristic of poetry.

Some of the earliest origins of combinatory poetry come from the Dadaist movement and their methods of poetry creation. Words were cut out of a newspaper and picked at random to be used in a poem. I have personally used this technique several times, either for poetry subjects in English classes or for subjects in magazine collages. In both cases, picking words at random reveals unique outcomes that might not have been formed by human thought; I call it artificial creativity. However, artificial creativity is still creativity.

Falling close to the idea of creativity is originality. The randomized combinations of text allow for completely unique sentences, at least in relatively complex combinatory algorithms. In a way, this mirrors the creative processing system of a human writer, who is sifting through the text possibilities in their own mind. For this reason, it can be difficult to differentiate a work created by a computer and one created by human hands. I especially see this in “Love Letter Generator” where I could be convinced that any of the love letters were written by a human.

Jeremy Douglass describes the history and meaning of interactive fiction, using Andrew Plotkin’s Shade as both a typical and an innovative example. Shade is a hypertext game where the reader is the protagonist. The reader is in room preparing for a desert vacation, but as the reader slowly unveils more details through exploring the room, they realize that they had already taken the trip and are stuck in the desert hallucinating about their past life. We have explored several interactive fictions in class, but Shade reminded me most of The Baron. Both require extensive exploration through space in order to solve some puzzle, and at the end, the reader comes to a realization about the meaning of the work.

I recently read an article for my game development class that argued how game developers’ ability to create emotional connections between the game and the player is what sells the game. I see Shade as a clear example of this. As I played Shade, I continually felt frustrated because I kept using invalid commands and couldn’t find any clues, yet I was compelled to continue for almost an hour. No matter what my emotional reaction to the game was (frustration, joy, anxiety), the important point is that I made that connection and became hooked. Interactive fictions are particularly skilled in doing this because of their internal interactivity and second-person mode of address. As with The Baron, I felt personally obligated to reach the ending of the story.

Douglass presents a rather thought-provoking analysis of the ending of Shade, where the reader sees a dying figure in the sand which is supposedly also the reader. Douglass argues that the second-person perspective could be transforming into a third-person perspective that views this interaction from a spectator’s point-of-view. This analysis only complicated the ending for me and brought it to a more abstract level than I’d like. However, it did prompt the following question: what are the affordances of using second-person versus third-person in this story?

Janet Murray characterizes digital environments using several properties in her article Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace. These electronic spaces act as infinite expanses for free expression due to their interactive and immersive qualities. As a computer scientist, many of Murray’s examples sounded familiar to innovations in deep learning and language processing about which I have heard. Examples of unconventional, electronic works that Murray and Dr. Sample have showcased are often feats of cutting-edge computer science.

The ELIZA program, in particular, interested me because it bridged the gap between computers and humans and integrates computers as functional “members” of society. Similarly, the IBM Watson computer can interpret human questions and search for answers online in record time. I saw IBM Watson play Jeopardy, and I was astonished by how quickly the computer could listen to Alex Trebek and translate his voice into something understandable to a computer. In an internship I had last summer, a mentor of mine discussed a natural language processing algorithm that “read” a doctor’s note and inserted that information into a database. This is impressive considering how notoriously sloppy doctors’ handwriting is. These examples of language processing are critical advancements in the digital world and unlock a whole new way in which we interact with games, literary works, and business projects.

Today’s electronic literature reminds me a lot of modern abstract art. There are no rules or conventions with abstract art; there are experiments and unlimited styles. The user/viewer’s interpretations or decisions are incredibly valuable in the meaning of the work, like with the Zork game or choose your own adventure novels. With the rise of technology and the wide variety of current digital environments, it begs the question if there any boundaries or limitations to digitized spaces. Murray argues that digital narrative holds “new beauty and new truths about ourselves and the world,” so as long as we continue to push the boundaries of English, computer science, and digital studies, our digital world will have unlimited potential.