{"id":251,"date":"2020-01-31T02:30:42","date_gmt":"2020-01-31T02:30:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/elit20\/?p=251"},"modified":"2020-01-31T02:31:22","modified_gmt":"2020-01-31T02:31:22","slug":"who-has-the-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/elit20\/2020\/01\/31\/who-has-the-power\/","title":{"rendered":"Who has the power?"},"content":{"rendered":"

While reading chapter 4 “Interactive Fiction and Other Gamelike Forms”, I came to realize that we never really defined what we mean by literature or what comes to mind when we do. Even though I am not about to fully respond to that (at least not for now) it got me thinking that up until now we have considered everything we have come across to be a part of “literature”. I am certain that if we showed an English Literature expert or writer the\u00a0My Boyfriend Came Back From War<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>(1996)\u00a0piece\u00a0by Olia Lialina, they would most likely disagree. But would\u00a0My Body – A Wunderkammer<\/em><\/a> (1997) \u00a0by Shelley Jackson be considered literature by the same person?<\/p>\n

Thinking about the last couple of interactive literature pieces we have explored, I realised that what they all had in common was not necessarily the literary aspect of them but more so some form of gaming nature. The mixture of those two aspects however create a power dynamic that is not found in your typical\/normal literature books. The reader knows where he or she stands and the book has a visible start and finish with no prospect of change, whatever is written is written. On the other hand, interactive fiction gives you the option to\u00a0feel\u00a0<\/em>like you’re the one in control. Pieces such as Galatea<\/a> and Photopia<\/a>\u00a0allow you to choose what your next step should be. In that moment you’re the reader, the player, the author. You have the power of how the plot is going to continue. Something you cannot do in actual literary books.<\/p>\n

But do you really? In a way it definitely gives you a sense of satisfaction and control, and maybe that is the whole point of IF. The creators give us the opportunity to feel like we are also contributing in the writing process of a piece. However, there are so many limitation of what you can do, type or say. I found myself extremely intimidate and frustrated while exploring both works for Friday’s class, as most of the time the words or commands I typed would not work and I ended up skimming most of the paragraphs instead of reading them just to see where they would lead me.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, no matter what you do, there is always a specific path to follow and specific endings and beginning that have already been plotted\/coded. So what makes interactive fiction so different than actual books? Probably the experience and interaction between the consumer and the piece of work, but also the sense of power we have been given (by the creators) when we are a bart of a IF piece of work.This might be a farfetched thought, but people like having power and control and like to feel as if they are a part of something bigger, which is why IF seems so appealing and intriguing. IF definitely has a feel of a detective novel, as Mary Ann Buckles explains, which puts the reader\/player in yet another position of control – to figure out what is going on. So the power is all in the hands of the creator but the feeling of power is in the hands of the reader\/consumer\/player.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While reading chapter 4 “Interactive Fiction and Other Gamelike Forms”, I came to realize that we never really defined what we mean by literature or what comes to mind when we do. Even though I am not about to fully respond to that (at least not for now) it got me thinking that up until …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":272,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-group-e"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/elit20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/elit20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/elit20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/elit20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/272"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/elit20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/elit20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":256,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/elit20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251\/revisions\/256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/elit20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/elit20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/elit20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}