Project two assignment
The second project is actually a number of small assignments designed to encourage you to engage directly with new media, experimenting with concepts which are developed in the readings, and reflecting on the experience of creating new media objects.
The most important part of this assignment: do not conceptualize these works as essays. Do your best to move out of the realm of the essay into hypertext.
Components
1. Image reason
The Ulmer selections discuss mood, voice, and other components of thinking and expression that are repressed by literacy, but will likely become very important in electracy. Find a short essay, poem, or narrative, and recast it as a hypertext, using images, colors, and other techniques—the “image reason” Ulmer discusses in “Hypermedia” and “Image.” To that end, you should use little, if any, prose, but focus on image-oriented ways of thinking and expression. Any words you do use should function in an imagistic fashion, as Ulmer describes.
I believe that as you're doing this assignment, you'll find the commonplace “A picture is worth a thousand words” is false. So don't pick too large a selection, lest your work require the use of a thousand images. When turning in the assignment, please provide a copy of the work you are imaging (or a web link to an online text) to me.
2. Interfaces, illusions, forms, & operations
In Chapters 2 through 5 of The Language of New Media Manovich proposes new forms of media and ways they will be used—in conjunction with, or in contrast to, old media. Select two related concepts from these four chapters—one a noun, and one a verb. For example, you might pick human computer interface and montage.
Develop a hypertext which describes the “noun” and explains how it will function (that’s the verb). Providing examples or demonstrations is ideal. To continue with the pair I explain above, I could discuss the ways common computer interfaces enable montage in layering and compositing in programs like Photoshop, but often resist it by making hard separations between windows. I could also discuss the ways that montage is being redefined by computer-oriented ways of combining images and text. And I might discuss the possibilities for new concepts of montage.
3. Extending the opposition
Consider the group work on oppositions as
a draft, and move forward, answering my comments on your work, and
extending your discussion of the importance of the opposition you have
named in light of further reflection. You might also connect this
opposition to other concepts you deal with in your project, and/or the
work of other students.
Draft & peer review
For the first project, while some of you engaged peer review well, some didn't. This is in part my fault, for not given more class time to review, and in part because many projects were turned in late. For this project, we will spend more time discussing peer reviews in class, and review partners will be assigned ahead of time. Please see the peer review page for more information. (Those of you who did complete quality peer reviews for the first assignment have earned extra credit.)
I will provide email feedback on all drafts turned in on the due date. If you turn in a draft late, please make an appointment to see me about your draft, to ensure you get prompt feedback.
Some formal requirements
Many of these are repeated from the first project assignment.
- Your assignment must be posted online on the WIU webserver.
- You should make a subdirectory named “480p2” in which to store your Project Two files.
- The first page of this assignment (in the 480p2 directory) should be an index page (index.html) which includes links to all the parts of the assignment.
- You should also have a link from your home page to the first page of the assignment. (These links and standard naming conventions will enable me and your peer reviewer to easily find your project.)
- I expect some level of citation for references to the text. I also suggest you keep records of the web sites from which you borrow images, if you do so—this enables not only participation in the “citation economy,” but further connection of your project to other Web pages.