The Fall: A Hypertext Project

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The inspiration behind my creative project came from my interest in hypertext fiction and artificial reality games. The proliferation of new information technologies, such as the Internet and social networking sites, has led to fundamental changes in the structure and content of literature. Hyptertext fiction, named for its use of hypertext links, allows readers to engage directly with the narrative through a “Choose Your Own Adventure” format. Readers click links that lead them to further installations of the story, a process that inherently benefits a non-linear narrative. Artificial Reality Games (ARGs), a relatively new form of viral marketing, meld the virtual and the real into a narrative that exists across several platforms. Participants solve puzzles on the Internet as well as in real life in order to receive the next clue or the next installment of the narrative. I am fascinated by this defining quality of ARGs, which erases the boundaries between reality and fiction.

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The Mark

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Our original project, though ultimately overambitious, was to create a short film portraying the conversion process that can be expedited by the promise (or perhaps threat) of impending apocalypse. Despite high hopes, we decided that a short film, given our limited resources and desire to maintain most of our sanity by the end of the semester, would not only be difficult to complete in the given time frame, but also would run the risk of compromising our intended impact/message. After much discussion and creative re-workings, we clipped bits and pieces of our original story from the script, and set out to put together an extended movie trailer. It’s fortunate that we made the changes we did, because after 15-20 hours of editing a 4 minute trailer, we both realized a film twice as long would have been too large of a task to undertake. We assure you that all of the juiciest and most exciting scenes are captured in this trailer, and, thanks to much creative brainstorming (and sometimes arguing) we managed to maintain our original story arc as well. Beneath our trailer you can find a synopsis and the original full length script. Enjoy!

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Gjonbalocalypse

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When we first discussed the creative projects in class, I mentioned doing a “serious” documentary about apocalypse as it is depicted in Islam. However, I was inspired to do something more fun after watching a short animated film from this year’s Doomsday Fest. The main character was a lemon head and the director created simple movements by taking stills of the lemon head traversing different flat images. I employed a similar concept in my animation, however instead of flat images – I used real-life backgrounds from my kitchen cabinets to the picture frames in the Metropolitan Opera.

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Apocalyptic Industry

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From the top, I apologize for the extreme lateness of my posting.  It seems, though, that every time I’ve sat down to write, I’ve done my usual procrastinating-web search to glance through the usual places in search of interesting diversions to read and, surprise surprise, everywhere I look is a story of the apocalypse.  I wanted to only write about The Albertine Notes, but then I recalled a line from very early in the text, when the narrator first meets Cassandra: “I’d had enough with the Hasidim and the Baptists and their rants about end-times [emphasis original].  The problem was that Albertine, bitch goddess, kept giving conflicting reports about which end-times we were going to get,” (143). Continue reading →

Value, loss, and identity apocalypse

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I realize I’m terribly late on posting…I apologize, but I briefly lost my ability to manage my time, and didn’t finish reading the Albertine Notes until today…I hope some of you still have a chance to read this before class tomorrow!

When I started reading this story I was anticipating a run of the mill attempt to make an idea overly complex, and therefore presumably interesting. It was funny that Kaitlyn mentioned Inception in her post because I found that movie an prime example of just that. As I continued reading, though, I came to really enjoy the way the story was written and the way Moody is able to balance really complex and far-fetched concepts with relatable emotional reactions to the state of an all but obliterated world. Continue reading →

Getting High On Albertine

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“The Albertine Notes” was captivating, yet at times hard to follow. Like any nonlinear narrative, plot points get confusing because we aren’t sure what’s happening now, what’s a memory, and what’s a prophesy. I felt like I too was on Albertine. Though not as a “geek” with perfect memory, but rather a forgetter, constantly trying to remind myself that past, present, and future are one in the same, and not three separate entities as we are familiar with in the linear sense. This sort of timelessness, as we all now know, is inherently apocalyptic. Continue reading →

Deconstructing Albertine Time

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Rick Moody’s “The Alebrtine Notes” presents a tumultuous scenario of characters and setting. I would agree with the others that this text was rather hard to keep up with. As the plot progressed, I found myself questioning not only the obscure details of the story, but also the context of these events and how to place them relative to the rest of the events that had already occurred.
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