white male consumer

Reading: 1) Look at and play with 5X5;
2) Read the interview with Dan Waber;
3) Read around in Shelly Jackson’s My Body

Writing: Blog entry on the readings.

5×5 is an interesting but largely trivial exercise in coding. For those not willing to spend two seconds clicking on the link: it’s a three-dimensional square composed of words. The square can be revolved and spun along the three axis (although movement via the mouse is limited to two axis, a glaring omission). By moving the square, we can construct crude, often scrambled, short sentences. It’s refrigerator poetry with the z-axis.

I can only assume that the class was told to visit this page as it reveals the potential of computers in the future of exploiting more advanced and complicated code / applications, involving that third dimension. The idea of written media suddenly obtaining a third dimension because of technological advance is curious because this third dimension has always been with us in “The Real World.” Still, perhaps it’s easier to construct such things as this 3d kitchen poetry set on the computer, vis-a-vis the fridge – if nothing else because 3d objects stuck on our fridges would likely be knocked off and broken.

Shelly Jackson’s My Body is a worthwhile example of the possibilities that digital media allows us. Jackson’s site is simple technology-wise: an initial site map, with links leading to short, separate entries – all connected to the theme of the day – Jackson’s body. The closest analogous print media to this site might be a “choose your own adventure” book where you flip about as you see fit. It’s a non-linear experience; there is no place “to start,” or “to end.” You don’t need to visit all of it. The site also involves artwork by Jackson – and in this way, it might be likened to a children’s book (which she has written several).

It might be worthwhile to note that Jackson did the writing and the artwork, but left the coding of the site to someone else. The same is true for 5×5 and Dan Waber, the proclaimed creator. In both these cases, the “artists” are unable to work capably in the medium, and rely on others to bring the idea to fruition. When before has the medium been an obstacle for the artist? Perhaps with the creation of the printing press – there was certainly some skill involved there. But print media didn’t intrinsically require mass-produced text (created via a press); digital media requires the media to be.. well, digital. There are solutions to this (easy-to-use applications – HTML WYSIWYG editors, for example) but digital media seems to require a much higher level of sophistication than, say, print media. Or possibly even film or radio(?)