In Class: Introduce "New Media Writing" and "The Social-Creativity Project"

Terms

• New Media
• Writing
• Reading
• data entry
• writing
• "New Media's Always Very Tricky"

Handout

Ikea (3 written treatements)

The First Assignment

The Social-Creativity Project, due 2/19

Resources

• War of the Worlds (H.G Wells, Steven Spieiberg 2005)
• Lou Beach's book 420 Characters
• Sistine Chapel
• "Touched by His Noodly Appendage"
  

Readings

Printout, read, mark, and bring in Sven Birkerts, Introduction and Chapter 1: "MahVuhHuhPuh," both available as PDFs via the course Moodle site.

Follow the "Moodle" link in the menu above, and then open the PDF files under the section heading "Readings").

As you read these assignments, try practicing the techniques of Active Reading as you look for responses to the following questions. Be sure to mark your printouts to show where and how Birkerts speaks to these issues:

Thought Questions

1. In what particular ways does Birkerts define writing and reading?

2. How do these styles of writing and reading represent not just literary practices but social and personal values and ways of living?

3. How does "New Media" threaten these ways of writing, reading, and living?

Do not come to class without these printouts! You can printout a PDF with two pages per sheet if you wish.

Advice

Note that the first paragraph of Chapter 1 is something of a false start: dense and vague. Don't let it put you off. Start with the second paragraph if necessary.

Writing, Reading, Thinking, Living

Review of Wednesday

• NMAVT (characteristics of New Media)
• PVIPEN (characteristics of "Writing" with a capital "W," as in sample C from the Ikea hanout from last time):

Point of View

Voice

Implication

Presence

Experience

Narrative

The First Assignment

The Social-Creativity Project, due 2/19

Discussion

Discussion of Sven Birkerts and his relationships to the The Social-Creativity Project.

Readings

Printout, read, mark, and bring in Janet Murray's Chapter 3, "From Additive to Expressive Forms" available as a PDF via the course Moodle site

Do

1. Come in having memorized Murray's Four Principles of New Media, which you can remember by the acronym "PEPS."

2. Using the techniques of Active Reading, identify passages that you think might speak to some of the concerns and issues from Birkerts, either agreeing or disagreeing with him.

Principles of New Media

Discussion

Discussion of Janet Murray's Four Principles of New Media (PEPS) and The Social-Creativity Project.

Writing

Dialogue of Birkerts and Murray about Traditional and New Media.

Readings

Read the beginning of McFarland's Chapter 1" Dreamweaver CS3 Guided Tour," pages 21-49.

Be sure you have a good handle on the location, look, and purposes of the following elements of the Dreamweaver interface

• document window
• file panel
• property inspector
• tag selector

Write Online

In a message to the Moodle forum "Birkerts and Murray," pair up quotations from these two writers as described on the handout and then write a short paragraph of your own commenting on the degree to which Birkerts challenges Murray, or that Murray answers Birkerts.

Do

On your USB drive, create the following set of nested folders:

new media writing

www

4250

exercises

social

assets

essay

was

assets

Dreamweaver Introduction
Missing CD

Review of Monday

• Murray's PEPS and how they make each other necessary
• Manovich's NMAVT ("New Media's Always Very Tricky")
• Duration and the Social-Creativity Project

Social Creativity Project

The Social-Creativity Project (Implementation and Murray's Four Principles of New Media)

Dreamweaver: Setting Up to Do McFarland's Chapter 1

Setting Up to Do McFarland's Chapter 1 "Test Drive" Tutorial (pages 53-84, due next time)

Creating Our First Web Page

As part of Setting Up to Do McFarland's Chapter 1, you will create your first web page

Homework

Bring Manovich's "Poetics of Augmented Space

Read over the assignment for the project Writing in Augmented Space "

Write a review of one of Janet Cardif's audio walks in the forum "Cardiff Reviews." Choose one of the walks at Cardiff/Bures Miller Walks, read the text, look at the slideshow, and listen to the audio excerpt. Include a clickable link to the walk in your posting.

Answer the following questions:

1. What is the location and intended effect of the walk (as best you can tell from the description, the audio excerpt, and dialogue included, etc.)

2. How does the walk exploit differences between the location as the audience finds it, and the place as created by the audio/video. (This gap is the same as the discrepancy created by the video telescope in Cardiff and Miller's introductory video.)

3. What are some techniques that we might learn from this walk for creating effects in our own WAS Projects?

4. Include a clickable URL to the page of the walk.

Writing in Augmented Space

Introduce Next Project:

Writing in Augmented Space

Receive

The handout "Juggling"

Discuss

Cardiff audio walk reviews

Resources

• Warroad from the Water
• Iowa 80 Walcott Tour
• Cardiff/Bures Miller Walks
• Alter Bahnhof Video Walk (Cardiff/Bures Miller)

Homework

Read, Write, and Post

Read the handout "Juggling" and try writing a paragraph that practices this technique. Post these experiments in the Moodle forum "Here Now/Not Here Now."

Be Ready to Discuss

How do Cardiff's New-Media techniques for what Stern calls "sliding" from the Here/Now to the Not Here/Now differ from Stern's text-based techniques?

Juggling and Interweaving, Personal and Public Writing, Genre

Questions?

The Writing in Augmented Space Project?

Another Example of Format

"Down an Old Dirt Road"

Interweaving Here/Now and Not Here/Now

"Juggling" (handout), from Jerome Stern's Making Shapely Fiction (vs. Golden Retriever Effect).

Interweaving Techniques in New Media

Alter Bahnhof Video Walk (Cardiff/Bures Miller)

Discuss

Public and Personal Writing, Genre

Resources

• "Rental Property"
• "Down an Old Dirt Road"
• Alter Bahnhof Video Walk (Cardiff/Bures Miller)

Homework

Write and Post to Moodle

As you are on campus, take notice of the QR codes on the walls, which are part of the campus self-guided tour.

Choose one of the locations where the QR code appears and write an altnerative, WAS script for that location, which focuses on something entirely different from what you would expect of a campus tour (especially an official one).

Use

• a Cardiff-like imperative voice,
• details of the location,
• Stern's juggling/interweaving, and
• whatever New-Media equivalent techniques you can think of

to imbue that location with meaning and feeling. Try to achieve that effect in 100 words or less. You can also include verbal cues for sound effects or music.

Post your altenrative script to the Moodle forum "Campus Anti-Tour," and include the location.

If you would like and are able to, include a visible picture of the location (with QR code visibie if possible, even if only distantly). What matters more that the picture emphasizes the key details of the location which you are writing about, rather than the QR code itself.

Interweaving in Augmented Space; Embedded, Interactive Street Views

Getting Ready

1. Plug in your USB drive

2. Open up Dreamweaver and import your "www" site information (the file www.ste).

3. In a browser, use Google Maps to find a Street View of a location you might use in your Writing in Augmented Space Project, or a location that is significant to you either personally or intellectually.

Get help from your neighbors if you're not sure how to do this.

The Issue of Private, Personal, Public: Another Example of a WAS Project

"Rental Property"

Writing Exercise: Voice, Person, Tense

• Imperative Mood vs. Indicative Mood vs. Interrogative Mood (asking questions)(see Mood and Voice)
• Person (First, Second, Third),
• Tense

These are important because they establish and make consistent a relationship between the writer/speaker and reader/listener.

- How are these used in Alter Bahnhof Video Walk (Cardiff/Bures Miller)?

- If these voices, moods, persons, tense are mingled, in what proportions do they appear?

- Is there a cause-and-effect relationship between these shifts and what's happening in the performance?

Digital Exercise: Embedded Street Views

Example: Oxford Street View (This is the location for the sample track from the Oxford Poetry Walk)

Directions: See the online tutorial, Embedding Google Street Views into your Web Page. We will complete this exercise in a new folder, "www/4250/exercises/here_now".

Then for homework, you will write a short script to add to this page.

Resources

• The Oxford Poetry Walks
• Free QR Code Generator
• Zombies, Run
• Passing Stranger: The East Village Poetry Walk (discussed in the NY Times aricle "Chasing the Ghosts of Poet's Past")
• Embedding Google Street Views into your Web Page
• Oxford Street View Example (This is the location for the sample track from the Oxford Poetry Walk)

Homework

Script for your Embedded Street View Page

For the Google Street View that you inserted into your exercise page from class, write a piece of a script that juggles from some visible detail in the view's "here and now" to a topic or line of thought from the "not here and now"

Try practicing some of the techniques of place-based, mediated writing we've talked about:

• the juggling/interweaving of the here/now and not here/now;
• the conscious, strategic choice of tense, person, voice, mood, etc.;
• the use of sound effects or music (use the script tag format: "[sfx: light wind.]")

Post a clickable URL to the page in the forum "Google Street View Here/Now and Not"

Genre in Augmented Space, Editing Sounds with Audacity

Getting Ready

On your computer, find and open the software "Audacity"

From the Moodle site, download to your USB drive the two sound files under "Resources": Crickets, and the music file "Among the Falls"

Open Dreamweaver and import your "www" site information.

Comment: Genre

• Mary Karr's Liars Club (memoir)

Exercise: Audacity for Recording and Editing Sound

I will give you a copy of the handout "Audacity for Sound Recording and Editing"

Save the .wav file that you export from Audacity into a new folder called "assets" inside of the "here_now" folder from a recent exercise (that is, the folder "www/4250/exercises/here_now").

Exercise: Embedding Sound Files in a Web Page

I will give you the handout "Embedding Sound Files in a Web Page"

Embed the .wav file from the exercise above into the page "index.html" inside of the folder "here_now".

Upload the entire "here/now" folder to the web and test the sound player in your browser.

Send the URL as a clickable link as a reply to the Moodle forum, "Audacity and Embedded Sound File."

Resources

• Crickets (sound file also available in Moodle "Resources")
• Free SFX (hit the "Music" tab for royalty-free music)
• Freesound.org
• Media College Free Sound Effects
• GR Sites Sound Effects
• Audacity Manual and Tutorials
• Recording inline rather than via microphone
• Recording audio from YouTube or other streaming sites

Return of Exams

Please remind me to return your exams at the end of class.

Homework

Come in with a prospectus of your WAS project which answers the following quesitons.

Please write your responses in a digital format which you save locally, and then copy and paste into this Prospectus Form:

1. a title

2. a brief description of the place as well as a list of any possible locations, views, or gazes within that place.

3. a brief explanation of why this place might be significant or representative.

4. a list of "not here/now" topics: flashbacks, ideas, facts, images, etc. that might compose elements of the augmented-space layer

5. a description of the old-media genre that you're emulating: poem, memoir, fiction, feature article, argumentative analysis (as in Kunstler's analytical argument for "New Urbanism" via a Paris Street View Tour). If you have a particular example in mind, describe it as weil: a specific Stephen King short story, a particular New York Times article, a specific Daily Show segment, etc.

6. a sentence speculating on the project's primary meaning or effect as best you understand it now.

7. What was your inspiration for this project idea?

8. a sample paragraph of script which uses "juggling" to interweave the here/now and not here/now

Coming to Terms with Genre

Comment

Form of the WAS Project

Genre as Scaffolding: Writing and Groups

• Do some quick searches online to find a couple of examples of (or commentaries on) the genre you're intending to work in.

What do people say about the genre?

How is it defined?

What are the genre's characteristic purposes, effects, meanings, forms, tone, points of view, pleasures, etc.?

What is it NOT?

(Examples: John Price on memoir, Jon Steward on satirical news)

• In a five-minute writing (on a piece of paper) try to sum up the most useful and insightful of what you learned (and already know from your own experience reading, writing, or studying the genre).
• Find your genre group in the room and gather with them. Take your writing.
• Compare notes about your understandings of the genre that you have in common (or of the differences among your similar-but-different genres).
• Each person in your group should compose one take-away from this process, expressed in a sentence about the genre: a realization, a rule, a definition, a distinction, a choice to be made, etc. Write this sentence at the bottom of your piece of paper.

Resources

Sample home page of a WAS Project

Sample inner page of a WAS Project

Return of Exams

Please remind me to return your exams at the end of class

Snow Day 2013

Homework

Investigating your Genre Further

Find two examples of the genre of writing which is the model for your WAS Project. Bring these texts to class either in

• physical form, in a
• digital file, or as
• a URL.

The more similarity of subject matter between these examples and your WAS Project idea, the better.

Before 9 a.m. today, answer the following quesitons about the most relevant one of your examples in the Moodle forum "Investigating Your Genre Further":

• What is the autor and title of tne work
• What is the genre?
• What is the "take-away" sentence you wrote from last class meeting about this genre? ?
• How and why is that piece of writing meaningful to an audience (rather than just to the writer)? To what extent is the public meaning a reflection of the genre chosen?
• Who is the audience? What are their expectations for this genre of writing?
• What is this piece of writing "about." (That is, what is it ultimately concerned with--what does it lead us to think more about or feel more deeply?)
• In what ways does the meaning and effect of the work come from how its written, rather than what it's about?
• Find a helpful online review or commentary (more if they're short) on that work and include in the URL as a clickable link. Write a short paragraph on what reading this review or commentary makes you realize about the particular work and the genre that you're translating for augmented space.

Writing in Augmented Space: Genres; Image Maps

Getting Ready

• Open Dreamweaver and import your "www" site
• Open Photoshop
• In your web browser, take a screen shot (command+control+shift+4, then drag to select) of a map or other image you'd like to make into an image map (an image with several clickable areas that serve as links, see yellow link areas on Rental Property's home page as an example)

Show and Tell

• Zombie, Run! (Genre-borrowing)
• Passing Stranger: The East Village Poetry Walk (discussed in the NY Times aricle "Chasing the Ghosts of Poet's Past")

Your Take-Away Idea and your Example

Your Moodle Posts

Exercises: Image Maps

• I will give you a copy of the tutorial Image Maps
• We will complete this exercise on the page "index.html" from the exercise saved in "www/4250/exercises/here_now":
• A clickable URL to this exercise should be sent to the forum "Image Maps."
• Download Cell Phone Image

Resources

Invisible Layout Tables
Smart Phone Image
Hope is a Thing with Feathers
Space

Homework

Write

Write portions of your script for two locations, views, or gazes within your place (see again what these terms denote from the WAS assignment page).

Rememmber your purpose using the Juggling technique to juxtapose the "Here Now / Not Here Now" material. Remember that you are writing to someone walking or driving in the actual place, not someone looking at a computer screen.

Revise and Resubmit Prospectus

After writing the above, revise and resend your prospectus for today in light of your realizations about genre and your work on the script (note this is a different form from the first time you submitted).

Revised Prospectus; Image Maps; Layout of the "Online Description"

Exercise: Image Map

• I will give you a copy of the tutorial Image Maps
• We will complete this exercise on the page "index.html" from the exercise saved in "www/4250/exercises/here_now":
• A clickable URL to this exercise should be sent to the forum "Image Maps."
• Download Cell Phone Image

Required Elements for the "Online Description" of the Project

See the "Required Elements" section of the assignment.

The "On-Ground Experience" vs. the "Online Description"

We'll look at the layouts of some of the sample web sites for the WAS Project. Which ones make clearest that the project is not just an online slideshow or video, but is an on-ground experience out there , which the web site is merely describing.

How can we convey a strong sense of this distinction in the ways we introduce and layout the web pages?

Resources

• Cell Phone Image
• Invisible Layout Table
• "Rental Property"
• "Down an Old Dirt Road"
• "Alter Bahnhof Video Walk" (Cardiff/Bures Miller)
• "Warroad from the Water"
• Sample Project Inner Page
• Writing in Augmented Space assignment

Homework

A. Work on your WAS Project.

B. Download the MP3 and listen to at least 20 minutes of Passing Stranger: The East Village Poetry Walk (MP3 available via a link in the first paragraph). Note that the download may take a minute or two to start.

In a reply to the Moodle forum, "Passing Stranger,"

1. Note the time ranges (minutes and seconds) of the portions you listened to. It would be helpful if some of you didn't start at the beginning. You can also try skipping around among two or three portions.

2. type in the time increment/range for three instances where you notice a technique or effect that could be useful in our own projects.

3. For each of those instances, try to give the technique or effect a name. If you can use a term from class (e.g., "juggling," "voice"), do so, but you can also make up your own name for the technique or effect.

If you simply like something, try to figure out what you're responding to and boil it down to a generalizable, replicable technique or effect

4. For one of those instances, write a paragraph of commentary on that technique or effect, explaining what we could learn from it and how we might imitate it with different material.

How does this technique help make the physical "here/now" of the place into a medium for explanation, expressive identity, persuasion, thought, beauty, or some other writerly effect?

5. Using a location, view, or gaze from your WAS project, try using the technique to achieve the meaning and effect you intend for this project (presumably a different meaning and effect from that of Passing Stranger).

Do not simply repeat the same wording, but apply the technique to new materials for new purposes.

Passing Stranger: WAS Techniques and Effects; Layout of an "Online Description" Page

Getting Ready

• Read over your post from last Friday in the Moodle forum, "Passing Stranger,"
• Open Dreamweaver and import your "www" site
• Open Photoshop
• Download the smart phone image into your "new media writing" folder (not "www"!) and open the image in Photoshop.

Discussion

Techniques and Effects from "Passing Stranger"

Key Challenge:

Using Design and Writing to make the online audience distinguish the "On-Ground Experience" from the "Online Description."

Exercises:

As a way of anwering the key challenge above, we will resize and edit a smart phone image, and then insert it into a web page with an audio player inserted into the smart phone's screen.

1. Smart Phone Image Editing;

1. Download image
2. Copy-paste image into new PS doc (for unlocked image, background)
3. Use Marquee to select screen
4. Delete current screen part of image
5. Place another image on a layer below to show through
6. Transform that layer as desired
7. Show how more screen images can be layered underneath and then hidden or shown
8. Include one layer that includews light colored bar across the bottom of the screen for audio player (which is black)
9. Save PS document
10. Resize the image to an appropriate size for the intended page design (choose Image > Image Size).
11. Choose File > Save for Web and Devices and save the new file as a ".png" into the folder "here_now" (that is, "www/4250/exercises/here_now").

2. Audio Player into Smart Phone Screen

For this exercise, we will use the page your created in the exercise "Google Street View Here Now/Not Here Now."

1. Insert the image from the Smart Phone Image Exercise onto the page "index.html" inside the folder "here_now" OR choose existing image on page,
2. Click on the image and look in the Properties Panel to see the image's height and width (note down numbers of pixels each dimension_
3. Choose Insert > Layout Objects > Div Tag, and Insert a div (wrapped around the selected image, making CSS rule called "smartphone"
4. Open properties of .cellphone rule and make div same height and width as image
5. Set image as background of the div.smartphone
6. Delete image itself from div
7. Copy/paste audio player plugin from existing location on the page
8. In the "CSS" panel, create a new ID called "audioplayer"
9. Apply the "#audioplayer" rule to the audio player you just pasted into the div (through the Tag Inspector)
10. Open the rule "audioplayer" and set the margin rules (choose "Box" on the left) to nudge the audio player plugin into place (from top, from left)
11. as needed, change the size of the player (click on player on the page, change dimensions in the Properties Panel).

Homework

Post

Post three questions or problems having to do with your Writing in Augmented Space Project in the Moodle forum, "Writing in Augmented Space: Questions and Problems."

We will work with these in class today.

Work on Your Project

Your project will be due on Monday, 4/29

Writing in Augmented Space: Questions and Problems

Getting Ready

1. Open Dreamweaver and import your "www" site information
2. Open the page "index.html" in the "here_now" folder
3. Open Photoshop and the iPhone image we were working with last time.

Page Format for Online Representation of the Project (Web Site)

See the Sample Layout Page, which we will create together today.

Review of Dreamweaver's Page Layout and DIVs

I will give you a copy of the handout "Dreamweaver: Side-by-Side DIV Layout"

Exercise: Audio Player into Smart Phone Screen

For this exercise, we will use the page your created in the previous exercise above.

I will give you a copy of the handout, "Dreamweaver: Content on Top of Image (Audio Player into Smartphone Screen Exercise"

Homework

Come in with work aready done on your WAS web site so you can get help in class with the issues you don't know how to solve.

Bring all materials to work on the project in class.

Studio Session: Writing in Augmented Space Projects (Online Portions)

Checklist

Please see the WAS Criteria Checklist

The online portions of the WAS Project will be due by Monday at 9:00 a.m. The scripts and completed audio will be due Wednesday.

Resources

• Sample Layout Page (inside)
• Sample Layout Home Page ("index.html")
• "Dreamweaver: Side-by-Side DIV Layout"
• "Dreamweaver: Content on Top of Image (Audio Player into Smartphone Screen Exercise"
• Writing in Augmented Space Assignment Page

WEEK 14
M 4/29

Homework

WAS Web Site Due by 9 a.m.

Complete the visual, online portions of your WAS Project (minus final scripts and final audio) and upload it to the web by 9:00.

Post the URL of the homepage to the Moodle forum, "Writing in Augmented Space URLs."

Note: Script and Selected Audio Clips will be due Wednesday

Note that the script will be due on Wednesday, as well as audio clips for three of the locations, gazes, views (in other words, 3 pages of the web site).

Introduce the "Essay+" Assignment; Visiting Day Workshop (WAS)

Final Project Introduction

Please see the Essay+ Project Page.

This project will be due on the scheduled day and time of the final exam:

Visiting Day Workshop

I will give you a copy of the WAS Criteria Checklist.

The purpose of this workshop is to

1. troubleshoot the online aspects of the project (including the basic structuring of the place into locations, views, and gazes), and
2. look at and discuss issues of writing, voice, point of view, sound effects, etc. in the script