Watermelone, In Trippy Fo'm

Funky

I Made Patrick Dempsey Ugly

Twitterbots Are Pretty Awesome

"Twitterbots" are exactly as they sound: bots that operate on Twitter. These bots, short for "robots," are emerging entities of new media that speak through tweets. They can follow other users, retweet other users' tweets, make tweets of their own, and post @replies to tweets that have certain words or phrases that they are coded to find. Many users follow bots because they tend to be humorous and entertaining.

Twitterbots are created with code by human authors to express a certain meaning. This often leads to the question: who gets the credit for tweets composed? Does the human who made the code or the code itself get the credit? The code follows its instructions to portray what the human wants; however, without the human, no code would have been made in the first place. This means that there is shared authorship with this type of new media.

A personal favorite twitterbot is the account @everyword. This bot has tweeted every single word in the English language. If you visit its page, you will see that they started this account way back in 2007 and finished in 2014. It took them seven years to finish this 109,000-tweet account! The reasons it is so interesting to the Hugh Manatees are that it has been made into a book and that it is "finished." It's not often that an account can be said to be "finished;" usually it just stops posting. It's not a typical twitterbot, and its uniqueness is pretty awesome.

Many people question if twitterbots are capable of making meaningful work. The definition for meaning is "what is intended to be, or actually is, expressed or indicated; signification; import," according to dictionary.com. At first it seemed like "no way, a computer just spits things out from a random code; there is no meaning behind it." However, after learning about different types of new media, the thought resolved that through a partnership of author and code, bots can be meaningful, even if that meaning comes solely from the author. The author crafts the code in such a way that it will produce what he or she wishes it to. Some forms of new media, such as self-generating poems, are still dubious sources of meaning, but twitterbots can definitely illustrate meaning as it was intended by the author.

Even after experiencing twitterbots for just the first time, it seems obvious that new media is thriving. There are innumerable ways in which to create, explain, and develop ideas with new media. Twitterbots are among our favorite varieties of new media because of their modern genesis and their home on a well-used recreational medium. They could prove highly influential in getting Millennials such as us interested in new forms of art.

Writer: Morgan Gleixner

Editor: Patrick Stahl

Imagery: Zack Tokosh

Hypertextuals: Molly Verostick

E-Poetry: A Second Gen Art Form

"Digital poetry is a conglomeration of forms that combine the semantic sugar of traditional poetry with the strong, lithe protein of binary visual mediums. Digital poems rely on one's attachment to various stimuli, such as the reading of words, the viewing of .gifs, and the sympathizing of man toward nature, to delve into new meanings which stand on the periphery of insights one has already acknowledged, at least on a subconscious level. Digital poetry is both a 'hot' and a 'cold' medium in that it bombards one's senses with information, yet it leaves interpretation largely to audience hands. Digital poems can utilize the visual plane in three and a half dimensions (length, width, time, and some depth), as well as the auditory plane." - Patrick Stahl, defining Digital Poetry for UPJ's new Digital Poetry course

There are many forms of e-poetry (aka "digital poetry"), but all of these forms stick close to this definition.  Sure, some poems are hotter or colder than others, but none of them are simple.  A spectrum exists for quality digital poems that runs from "traditional poetry with some digital enhancements" to "a digital experience with pretty words."  E-poetry is by no means a homogeneous art form.  Much of the variety in e-poetry is caused by its nature as a second generation art form.  Unlike other second gen forms (e.g. animated cartoons and films), e-poetry has yet to be boxed in by populist pressures.

Leonardo Flores, in his essay "What Is E-Poetry?", describes seven genres (or forms) of e-poetry.  These are actually lifted from a book by Christopher Funkhouser titled Prehistoric Digital Poetry.  The forms are: generative poetry, code poetry, visual digital poetry, kinetic poetry, multimedia poetry, interactive poetry, and hypertext poetry.  Like other so-called genres, these forms can overlap or be bred together for particular poems.  Still, it can be useful to understand what these forms are so as to help distinguish the various experiences drawn through e-poetry.

E-poetry, when done well, is stronger than traditional poetry, while maintaining at least most of its beauty.  Theme, imagery, and emotion are still important elements taken from its non-digital parent.
The incorporation of digital processes allows for interactivity, motion, and sound.  These attributes aim to improve upon traditional forms, though when implemented poorly, they can disrupt rather than embellish.  In certain cases, it is the traditional poetry that is blended into the electronic.  The same risks are taken here.

In the same way that animated cartoons transformed comic strips, e-poetry has transformed traditional poetry.  The comic strip was not replaced by animation, but it was outmuscled.  While the Peanuts comic strip may be consumed more on a weekly basis, it is the Charlie Brown holiday specials that many Millennials hold dear.  What the animated cartoons lose in spirit by their transition from newspaper to television they make up for in visual rapture and a truer representation of life as we experience it (at least when we aren't knee-deep in a comics page, comic book, or graphic novel).

Unlike the transition of the novel to film (though similar to adaptions of short stories or Biblical passages), digital poetry can expand the structure of traditional poetry.  While the epic poem shows digital poetry who wears the big boy pants in the family in almost all instances, the average digital poem is a more substantial experience than the average traditional poem.  That is not to say that short traditional poems cannot sometimes give their digital cousins a run for their money where depth of meaning is concerned.  Digital poems can fall flat quite easily and are always at risk of feeling gimmicky.  In a world of trade-offs for art, neither form can be said to be superior to the other as a general rule.

Only time can tell how e-poetry will fare compared to its first generation parents.  Thus far, adoption by the masses has been limited, starkly contrasting the historical rush to consume cartoons and films.  The gavel is yet high in the air.

Writer: Patrick Stahl

Editor: Molly Verostick

Imagery: Morgan Gleixner

Hypertextuals: Zack Tokosh

"my body": Insight

“my body: a Wunderkammer” is a beautiful piece of interactive electronic literature developed by Shelley Jackson. The piece is semi-autobiographical in nature, meaning that the author lived through a number of the stories and memories shared throughout, but also that some of the text is exaggerated or even entirely fictional. “my body” offers the opportunity for any person with Internet access to explore the emotional aspects of a woman’s body through her direct remembrances, thoughts, and feelings.

When the reader first begins “my body,” he or she sees a black-and-white drawing of a female body. Most of the body parts are labeled, and each body part is connected to a hyperlink that, when clicked on, will take the reader to a passage poeticizing that specific body part. Each passage explores a memory or feeling—though possibly a fictitious one—from the author. To give an example, when one clicks the woman’s neck, several paragraphs of text appear. Part of this passage refers to how the author used to draw princesses with “necks no wider than their chins.” Each passage contains hyperlinks that are connected to words or phrases in the passage. When activated, these will lead the reader to further insights.

Because this piece is navigated via hyperlinks, there cannot be a “right” or “wrong” order in which to study it in. It is highly unlikely that all readers will begin their journeys by clicking on the same body part, and it is even less likely that readers will read every part of the body and in the exact same order. As a result of this digital structure, as well as the personal perceptions and interpretations attributed to each reader, no two people will experience “my body” the same way. Some readers may be able to directly relate to what the author is offering, while others may feel at a loss for any significant empathetic connection. The absence of a solid order of interactions in this hypertext piece is a component shared with many other examples of e-literature and hypermedia; the personal adventure offered by the digital landscape of “my body” is what makes this piece beautiful in my eyes.

For readers struggling to make sense of “my body: a Wunderkammer,” Shelley Jackson embedded inside the piece a section titled “Cabinet.” There, Jackson explains to her audience what the essence of her creation is meant to be: her body is a “cabinet of curiosities,” a Wunderkammer, and any or all are invited to peer within. Each body part in the diagram represents a drawer, and in each drawer there are stories, memories, thoughts, and feelings. In the words of Jackson, if her audience members wish to truly understand her work, they must “feel their way in.”

Writer: Molly Verostick

Editor: Patrick Stahl

Imagery: Zack Tokosh

Hypertextuals: Morgan Gleixner