Images can form the basis of a work's navigational structure. This sets the tone for the work and highlights the image as it bestows a central form and function to the image. This can be used to:
Augment meaning: Look at Robert Kendall's Study in Shades. Here, the same image changes brightness and opacity s the character's views of each other fade in and out. This dynamic shading highlights the progression of the two parts as the father and daughter grow further apart in their words and the intensity of the images their narrative provides. How does the changing image influence the text? What would happen to the meaning and reading of this piece if the father's image grew lighter and the daughter's image grew heavier? What would happen to the meaning if the images changed color?
Obscure/reveal text Images not only form counterpoints of meaning; they can become part of the overall experience in e-poetry. Stephanie Strickland's Slipping Glimpses employes algorithms that allow the text to float on the water--moving in and out. How does this motion of the text work with her words and meaning? How does the obscuring of text with images emphasize/de-emphasize the meanings?
Serge Bouchardon's Loss of Grasp forces the reader to interact and paint the image to show the stranger--who at the end, becomes his wife. How does the interaction with the image change your perception of the characters?
M.D. Coverley's Endless Suburbs has the bright text and tone of a 50s advertisement, but the continually deteriorating image used as her main navigation shows the continually deteriorating life in the suburbs. Since it is navigation, the image takes on a more central role in this piece. What would happen to the meaning here if the navigation image had continued to be a series of bright cheery advertisements?
Jackie Craven's In the Changing Room uses an image as an icon for each of her characters and for the home page for navigation. Why did she pick those images for those characters?.
Exercise: Drowning in the Distance
Create an electronic literature piece using any tool that connects the corresponding image in the three image sets to the words (that is, connect image 1a, 2a, and 3a, to text a; image 1b, 2b, and 3b to text b; and image 1c, 2c, and 3c to text c).
a
We reached out to the distance but nothing came through. All of us stretching to find what lay beyond the beyond. Yet we could travel no further.
b
The water rose beyond our levels of comprehension. There was nowhere for it to go, and so it pooled there, gathering, holding in without a ripple. We waited forever, but it would not evaporate.
c
What brought us to this fate? The sounds of daily living drowned out our cries. The world continued on, even after we knew it had been shattered.
With these insights, put these
pages and the images together in your electronic literature piece.
Exchange: Share Your Creations
Share your work in person Perform your piece in front of an audience--show your images (as a slide behind you in a large group or as a picture in front of you for a few readers) and have different readers read the texts in different voices.
Share your work online
Create a video or take a picture or render your creation to be read on a computer (use any tool you can). We'd love to show your work--either send it or send a URL for your work here to be a part of this site so others can see how you worked with links.
We'd love to show your work--either send it or send a URL for your work here to be a part of this site.
