For Monday watch Inanimate Alice. You should watch all three episodes (which should take less than half an hour total). Next take a look at Implementation. You do no need to read all of this work, although you can if you are so inclined it is relatively short, instead read the project description, look at some of the photos, and read at least the 1st letter. This should give you a sense of how this narrative works.
Leave your comments below, and email me if you would like to discuss your project proposal.
“Inanimate Alice” is a remediated hypermediated narrative drawing from several other media such as: video, music, gaming, photography, and illustration. The notion of safety is what struck me most forcefully in this reading. In all three episodes Alice is fearful and feels unsafe. In the first episode (China) she is afraid that her dad is lost and this is particularly scary because the world outside the compound is not a safe place. In the second episode (Italy), Alice is afraid that “I’ve lost both my parents…Not lost as in dead, at least I hope not.” She runs out of the chalet into the snow of the Italian mountains only to fall into a snow hole, increasing her fear. Again, the world outside is scary. In the third episode (Russia), the adult world is scarier still: her parents are fighting, threatening men come to visit her father, she is told to hide in the closet, she can’t go to school because it’s dangerous, her family has to leave the country under the cover of night. The video images and music combine to serve the narrative of fear and lack of safety in the adult and outside worlds; they are dark, cold, dissonant, menacing, and unstable. Alice, however, finds comfort and security in her player, which can do just about everything: take photos, make phone calls, play games, draw pictures. All of the images related to the player are colorful and non-threatening. In fact, it is Brad—or her crude, childish drawing of him—that comforts her and saves the day in each episode by telling her which way to go (Episode 1), telling her what to do when she falls in the snow hole (Episode 2), and by comforting her at the border stop (Episode 3). Is this a generational thing? Where the world of the player and gaming is a safe haven and the adult world, or world outside the player, is a scary, unsafe place?
?? Why is this comment section called Alice’s House of Leaves?
While Inanimate Alice did not strike me as being aesthetically pleasing, it did introduce a discursive theme; Games inside of games/narratives. I could not help but notice the icons that appear on the side of the screen after each section reminding me of Alice’s Ba-xi player. There is this interesting transition that happens where as the viewer we are interacting with the browser(flash player interface) but at the same time Alice is interacting with her own player. Are the creators of Inanimate Alice trying to focus on Alice as a real life character? Or, perhaps they are trying to show us an example of the layers inherent in all fiction; Even, the layers that are created by the fiction itself.
That idea is what interests me most about this work. It reminds me of a few games I have played where there are mini-games within the main game. There might be puzzles or other tasks you must accomplish before you can move on. That reminds me of the quote from Derrida about certain texts “turning back” on the institution of literature. Inanimate Alice is starting to do this in the digital space. I think it would be interesting to have a digital narrative/story that was primarily based on different layers of games and/or puzzles.
Starting out by saying I really did not like Inanimate Alice. The first two episodes were so distracting, not just with the multitude of different image styles, but the music was so…off, for lack of a better word. Episode 3 was the most enjoyable as the environment was fluid. I didn’t feel as though my senses were being thrown into multiple directions. I could focus on the images, the story, and the sounds and see how they interact with one another, not feeling that I’m being thrown into Flash 101.
That being said, does Inanimate Alice want us to look at this piece as outside hypertext? Are we expected to feel confused, angered, even annoyed as a contrary to awe and amazement of hyperfiction? Maybe this is my own personal view, but I really felt that the aesthetic intention was to be gritty and jittery. The electronic sound of the written text was really making me want to take off my headset. And I did for episode 2. The sound was so annoying that it was causing a headache to form. Is this suppose to be some metaphor about Alice and her player (and the gamer) or a crude form of entertainment? The ugly side of beauty? Possibly too broad of a question. I really didn’t enjoy this week’s assignment, but appreciate the variety.
In looking at this week’s readings I have trouble understanding why they come together. “Implementation,” while reliant on Web distribution, is close to a traditional text arrangement. The narrative is cohesive provided the reader comes across it in its entirety. But “Inanimate Alice” seems all over the place. Alice and her family live first in China, then in Saudi, and finally move to Russia. Her father’s profession is obviously global (not much money in threatening the locals, right?) but each episode feels like her family has been in that particular place forever. We don’t get any explanation about why they moved or how the came to be in each country. Alice is just there and goes on with her life.
Looking at both narratives from the perspective of what “Implementation” calls a Web reader, scattered stickers are more together than written and produced Flash animations. Each sticker holds a bit of a story that, when read together, works. I can’t imagine coming across one of the tidbits on a subway or in line at the bank, but they appear to complete each segment enough to engage readers who care enough to give them any thought. “Alice” didn’t give me that completion. Instead, the episodes seem recycled for different countries – threat, game, Brad, phone, safety. The episodes depend mostly on music to get the reader involved. The text narratives are simple and don’t bring the heart rate up. At least in Russia we get to play Alice’s little game.
Each item breaks with tradition – “Implementation” by using sticker distribution and “Alice” by bringing the reader into the narrative by requiring enough attention to click the correct section before moving on – and each came in installments, but I see no other similarities. I stick with my original question – what is the tie that binds these two narratives together?
Inanimate Alice
Focus on one thing. Usability seems to be a missing aspect of many of the digital narratives that have been examined so far in this class. Inanimate Alice was another example where the conventions that have been put forth for the online medium don’t seem to be considered. Reading, Inanimate Alice on a black background with white text and then additionally, blurring text is not a good idea for our already strained eyes.
Readability is an important aspect online. The use of white text, smaller font than expect on a black background, along with no real controls to try to manage the text — to make it more readable, broke many of the “conventions”, I teach others when designing for the online medium. It has been shown in many studies how font size, type of text and backgrounds affect us in both positive and negative ways — links below as examples:
• http://www.stcsig.org/usability/topics/readability.html
• http://www.benefit-from-it.com/index.php?fa=wdu101presentingText.fontSize
• http://psychology.wichita.edu/surl/usabilitynews/41/onlinetext.htm
• http://www.netmechanic.com/news/vol6/usability_no17.htm
These are just a few examples as there are many more resources on the topic. If you want more information about this I can give you other options. It seems that the world of digital narratives has not run into the commercial issues of usability and accessibility (508 government compliance) online. I spend a lot of my day trying to make sure that the site I participate in managing is easy to read so that users will come back, stay longer and tell friends.
As I was hunting around for information about Inanimate Alice, again I was struck by the number of blogs, websites and online forums that made it difficult to read their information. Several backgrounds were black with white and/or grey text. The biggest “offender” was this site http://www.jesslaccetti.co.uk/2006/02/inanimate-alice.html which I had to stop reading because it was such a strain for my eyes.
Reading online is an important aspect that should be considered when designing these types of digital narratives. If you want humans to read you should consider more of the cognitive factors that go into processing information online and less time considering the aesthetic appeal of color schemes. Or at least bring more balance between the art and the science of the medium.
Inanimate Alice is a narrative in first person from a child’s perspective. The story carries this perspective in dark murky silhouettes and simple language in a picture book sort of presentation. The visual obscurity mimes the incomplete comprehension of a child’s mind while providing a canvas to place our own imagination. The picture book we read is a hypermediated one, providing street maps, GPS powered Google Earth like location information and animations, but also demonstrates the instability Alice feels with intermittent audio static and occasionally shaky text.
Alice is isolated in each of the three episodes; we participate in her solitude as she reflects on her current situation and survives traumatic events in her childhood. In each episode, she copes with her isolation through creative activities with her mother and her handheld computer. Her handheld computer is her security blanket, the one thing she controls and her source of comfort, the computer being the domain of her alter ego Brad the skateboarder.
The picture book narrative is hypertextual in the way beats of the story are symbolized and hyperlinked by icons that accumulate along the right border of the screen as the story progresses. The progression of the story is also cinematic, linear in its revealing and closely tied to a soundtrack. The soundtrack compliments the visual style of the story and adds a heightened sense of drama. For instance, as the family car stops at the last checkpoint in episode 3, the music stops and we hear the footsteps of an approaching guard.
The narrative is very effective and affective – creating a strong sense of mood and suspense – and only falls down when it attempts to incorporate arcade style gaming into the third episode. The reader (if they play the game version of the narrative, it was good to provide this choice) is obliged to find Russian dolls hidden in the pages. Clicking on them launches a facsimile hand held computer arcade game. The controls for the game were not consistently responsive and were entirely disruptive to the flow of the story. It would have been much more effective to incorporate only the task of locating the hidden doll images as the story progressed. Puzzles compliment the obscure and mysterious presentation of the story, the stark objectivity (and poor implementation) of the arcade approach does not integrate with the narrative and should be expunged.
What I found most interesting about “Inanimate Alice” was the use of her handheld computer to tell parts of the story and keep it moving at a relatively steady pace. Besides having to click on various knobs to literally move to the next segment, Alice turns to her Ba-xi player to make her feel safe and to keep her entertained. It’s as if the player is her imaginary friend. Perhaps the character she created on the player is more a friend than the player, but her reliance on the handheld player tells us a lot more about Alice and her living conditions than the pictorial images of Russia and the Middle East.
Which brings me to another point. I find it interesting that the only character in the series that’s somewhat defined illustratively is Billy, the imaginary friend Alice created on her Ba-xi. He’s only a pencil drawing, but we have a clue about his size, shape, etc. With Alice, we have no idea what color hair she has, whether she’s short or tall, has big feet or little feet, whether she’s black, white, Asian, etc. All we really know is her age and given her father’s apparent profession, who knows whether that’s accurate. The funny thing is, as much as I want to know what Alice and her parents look like, the language she uses and her actions give me more of a feeling of who she is than the drawings of Billy tell me.
“Inanimate Alice” reminds me a little of “Patchwork Girl” in the sense that you have to really work to move the story along, particularly in the third episode where the reader has to collect all the Russian nesting dolls to get to the end. Why this is necessary is beyond me? Perhaps the idea is to get you thinking like Alice would, but having to constantly search for a button to move to the next page just makes me want to grab a hardback book.
Inanimate Alice
Let’s start by saying that of the three chapters I could easily do without the first two (both of which are so similar, except for a few details), although they might be of relevance within the grand structure of the story, by allowing us to see the development of the character, Alice, a future video game designer, starting out as a child living a relatively simple life facing simple problems, whose talents evolve as the story progresses and whose problems also become more complex and dramatic. This is an interesting idea but we still have to see if the following chapters manage to fulfill the expectations created by this premise.
There are other appealing elements in the production, for example the concept of incorporating video games into the story, specifically the matrushka dolls game in the third episode, which offers something other to a story that so far is not yet very engaging by itself. In this case the game was relatively easy, however I did find myself in one of the Internet forums while trying to find out the location of one of the dolls for a specific sequence (in which you had to turn the brightness of the computer screen to a 100% in order to discover the doll).
Visually, the production is effective, but not exactly (or not entirely) attractive. I felt like the creators failed to incorporate elements of the countries where the episodes take place (except for the third episode where at least they tried to incorporate the dolls and a certain font, which, in my opinion, wasn’t enough), and use them to enhance the visual experience, to a point where it made me wonder if the locations mattered at all.
Finally, here’s a link to a website that has some interesting interactive poems:
http://www.bornmagazine.org
I got a little hung up on the handheld device interference sound. I was hoodwinked! At first I thought that it might be my phone sitting next to my computer speakers. No, it was part of the ambiance of Inanimate Alice.
Having noted the interference sound, my next though leads me to wonder about the sponsorship behind this series. I wonder what their feelings are about interference noise. And maybe this series doesn’t rely on sponsorship like KateModern does. I digress…
Either way, this interference is just one lovely example of how the authors move the needle of the narrative. Little additions (like this noise example) add to the story and help ratchet up the creepy factor.
Sorry my text got all jacked (from the post above). I tried to use italics and the comments puked on publish. Sorry!
“Inanimate Alice” was a quick and interesting “read.” What I understand from the website is that these episodes are for children of all ages. The only thing that stuck out, at least to me, was how the stories resembled a simple children’s book. Not too much detail, not very descriptive, but just enough information on the screen to keep the audience hooked and the story moving along. The primitive graphics were enough to tell the story, and the animation of Brad, her imaginary friend was a curious inclusion. Could it be Brad Field, the head of production? It seems that Alice keeps losing a parent or two, and I cannot help but wonder if this is going to get old by episode 5 or 6. It does, however, address a common fear of losing one’s way, which Alice tends to do. I gather from the website that the story will continue until Alice grows up to be an animator, sort of a “Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego” meets Bridget Jones. I liked the strange ambiance of each story and will stay tuned.
I agree totally with Jamie that the Inanimate Alice’s did resemble childrens book. I found myself muting the sounds temporarily when I heard the (speaker inductance) sound come on, it was like hearing nails on a chalkboard. Thinking of Alice as a childrens narrative, as opposed to a story told of a child, gives the text a different perspective. The elemental method of distributing information was childlike, and viewing it in that manner made the narrative much more appealing. I know that educational projects like these suffer from money constraints, but if they had the resources the episodes could have been tightened up with the help of a Ben and Jamie.
I like the idea of implementation, the part I struggled with in looking at the description is that I was trying to decipher is this was performance art or literary work. It can be seen as both I suppose, so the real question in my head becomes, what would be more provoking, and which would do a better job at describing the narrative. The idea that the story takes place on a location and in many locations is fascinating, as it becomes a “living” story, not (as they describe) a choose your path narrative, but a narrative that is expanding and contracting with the input and participation of the creators, those that choose to get involved and those following the narrative.
“Inanimate Alice” was a refreshing break from the complexities that I had with “House of Leaves.” First, I enjoyed the interactivity of the story and the various pop ops that occur. The story of a girl going through life with her parents moving from one place to another is a story that invites to be voyeurs. Well, to me we are reading her multimedia diary while at the same time we are witnessing her experience through video, animation and sound. Could this be the next generation of what will be known as “book reading”? I have to say I was visually stimulated by all what was going on, my brain was on overtime while my eyes are trying to capture every motion, every change in scenery, and every text that is displayed. My only disappointment was that the visual quality was of low budget design, if it was more visually stunning than my interest would be alot stronger. I any case, I look forward in continuing to “read” future episodes to see where this girl’s life will progress to as a designer. By the way, I did play that game of trying to find all the hidden Russian dolls, I thought the gameplay while reading the text was at times how to multitask to but I’m sure the brain would adjust to this level of imersive narrative in the near future.
“Implementation” is a great example of utilizing hypertext, immersion and interactivity in a very unanticipated way. The narratives are mailed to participants from different locations. Pieces of the narrative are then taken somewhere to be placed, whether it be a parking meter, wall, trash bin, etc. To the regular reader, this particular narrative might prove challenging because of the continuity of the narrative. Looking at the picture of where the narrative piece is located may cause some extra pondering for the reader as he/she wonders why the narrative was placed there. To me, I think this may be considered more of an artistic piece more than a story are there any objections? Once again this narrative falls under the peculiar text structure which were found in Patchwork Girl, Inanimate Alice, and House of Leaves. Once again the gears of our minds must move faster and harder in order to make at least an attempt to find the continuity found in “Implementation.”
I actually liked Inanimate Alice. i particularly thought the sound did a good job of conveying emotion to what was going on, and at times I felt really worried about her! I liked the echo effect on the text, and I thought the aesthetics worked well with the story. I did feel a little frustrated on the last segment when I realized at the end I was supposed to have been collecting the dolls throughout the story (and I loved the one in the silhouette of a kidnapper’s pocket!) Probably a ten-year-old would have caught on to this ahead of time unlike me! I think some kids I know would be interested in this story, as well, as it does a great job of conveying situations through the eyes of a child that age. I did like the interactivity of the text, though it seemed miscued at times, as when the articles of clothing came up, I had to click on them many times to get them crossed off. But overall, I thought it was a successful piece and the story flowed well, particularly due to the use of sound to convey urgency.